HELP! How to raise GRE Verbal Score?
August 13th, 2010 | 
Author: 
Hi and welcome to my blog,
I opened this blog to help anyone who is preparing for his GRE exam.
I remember myself when I started - I was so lost and in such a panic.
Luckily I got this great Gre guide that helped me a lot
So study hard and good luck!
First of all, I would like the say that according to me (a Chemistry major), the verbal section of the GRE is a horrible way to evaluate what you learned in college or how well you will perform in graduate school. I’ve never seen the word INVECTIVE in my college career, and how would this word help me to do research in chemistry? I’m a bright student with a high GPA (3.87) from a well-respected university in Florida, but I’m really struggling with my verbal skills. Every person has their weaknesses. I just took the GRE and I only scored a 400 on the verbal section, and I believe that this was WITH luck, as I completely guessed on the majority of reading comprehension problems at the end of the section because I was running out of time. Overall, I think my performance on the verbal score should be somewhere in the 300s. I studied for the GRE for a few weeks using the Kaplan book.
On the antonyms and analogies part of the verbal section, they gave me some words that I’ve never seen before in my life. (What the hell is a “DONNYBROOK”?!!!). They expect me to know these words. How am I supposed to know these words? Do they expect me to memorize an entire dictionary? Because I’ll do that if that’s what it will take to get these questions correct. I also struggle with the sentence completions. They said everything I need is given within the sentence. However, I DON’T SEE IT!
The reading part of verbal section is another story. It is very different than reading Chemistry and other books in college. When it comes to some random passage, I’m a TERRIBLE reader, and my reading comprehension is really bad. I’m also not that fast of a reader. I read a random passage and I have no idea what it means. Or I read a passage, I have some idea what it means, but when I chose the answers relating to what I think of the story, it turns out that my chosen answer has nothing to do with the details of the passage. They recommended that I should read high published articles like the Wall Street Journal, but it doesn’t work for me.
Anyways, I’m going to take the GRE again to try to get at least a 500 on the section so that I can get into the Chemistry program I want. This requires me to increase my verbal score by 100 points, maybe more, because remember, I think I got lucky the first time! I hear people getting 500s on the verbal section and they believe that their score is bad. Believe me, I would DREAM for that score.
Do any of you have any suggestions that will definitely help me raise my GRE verbal scores to get the score I want? I’m willing to accept all reasonable solutions. Any study guides, techniques, classes, or other motives will do.
Posted in gre guide | 
Tags: 300s, analogies, antonyms, college career, comprehension problems, dictionary, donnybrook, gpa, graduate school, gre, invective, kaplan, random passage, reading chemistry, reading comprehension, running out of time, sentence completions, verbal score, verbal section, verbal skills
GRE Exam consists of 3 Sections
1) Verbal ( Max Score of 800)
2) Quantitative ( Max Score of 800 )
3) Analytics Writing ( Max Score of 6.0)
This is what you should do to improve your score.
1) There are lots of free online GRE practice Tests available. Take one of the test without any distractions and see how you score in Verbal and Quantitative.
2) For the questions you have answered wrong, make sure you find out why you selected the wrong answer and find how to solve it right. If you happen to learn a new formula or words, make a note of it. you could use a separate notebook, one for verbal and one for Maths.
3) In same time, spend at least 1 hour per day for GRE Vocabulary from Barron’s GRE book. It has 50 Word Lists. Try to memorize 1 word list per week. So, every week you can read 50 to 100 new words.
4) Week 1 read the first word list, Week 2 revise the first word list and then start learning the Second Word List. So, that you will not forget the words.
5) Best way to remember new words is to form a sentence for each word.
6) Next, take an GRE Practice Test again and see how much you score, and for mistakes you make, again evaluate what went wrong. In this way, you will learn new maths formulas and at same time your score will increase month by month.
7) No need to worry that you are scoring less in GRE tests now, every student initially has the same problem. Spending atleast 1-2 hours per day for first 3 months from now will get you going. In 4-5 months time you will see huge difference in the score.