Here’s what Niken has learned about the GRE:

1. The GRE is NOT the TOEFL. I had no idea how difficult the GRE would be. I thought “Okay, maybe it’s just like TOEFL plus a little bit of math.” I downloaded the free study materials on the ETS website, and because my GRE test date was nearly at the same time as my TOEFL test-date, I thought I only needed to review the math part. But I was WRONG! My TOEFL scores were excellent, while my GRE scores were horrible. The GRE is nothing like the TOEFL, although both have a verbal reasoning and a writing section. “God, what is this?! I’ve never heard this word before”—I repeated this sentence again and again during the test. I immediately realized that my advanced English vocabulary was limited, despite the fact that I speak and write English very fluently. To all you other TOEFL/GRE test takers, you can be a top TOEFL scorer but it doesn’t have any correlation with GRE scores. Especially if you’re a non-native speaker, enrich your advanced vocabulary by reading. I read “heavy” novels these days. If you don’t know a word, don’t look up a translation in your native language. Instead, use an English thesaurus. You should also know your weakness and find a way to improve it. Therefore, prepare months before the test date. Last but not least, don’t underestimate the GRE

2. There’s no harm in retaking the test. So, I planned to do my second GRE test. I needed help. I purchased The Official Guide to the GRE, Second Edition. I installed a vocabulary flash card app and a thesaurus app on my mobile phone. Then I took my second test. My scores did improve a little, however I knew that I still encountered the same problems. At that moment, I realized I needed more help (like a teacher) because I needed to know the concepts and strategies involved in each question type. But I didn’t have the time to sit in a GRE class, and I wasn’t even sure a class would be effective.

3. Great prep materials are necessary. Soon, my mom told me that she found several GRE applications for Android—one of these was Magoosh. I downloaded the app and followed the free tutorials. I became addicted to the step-by-step guides and the conceptual explanations! It felt like I had a real teacher in front of me. Two weeks before my third (yes, third!) GRE test date, I purchased the full Magoosh subscription. Initially, I thought it was expensive. But, then I realized it was the best money I’d ever spent! I had goosebumps when I read my third GRE score results because it was exactly within the range of Magoosh’s score estimate. After only two weeks of studying with Magoosh, I improved my score from 300 to 310

4. Don’t give up! My 4^th test date will be in 2 months. It’ll be awesome!

Thanks for the tips, Niken, and best of luck with grad school!

The scores above are intended majors. What does “intended” major mean? It simply means that that these are the average scores of people planning on applying to graduate school in a specific major.

Finding a real score range for Physical Sciences Programs

Using a scale drawn from the limited score data in the US News & World Report’s report on graduate schools, here’s a range of scores you could expect:

Remember that you will be applying to a hard science program, so applying to graduate school is anything but easy; this is just a “good-enough” approach should put you in a decent position to create the appropriate study goals. So if you’re interested in a PhD in Physics from MIT, or a Master’s in Computer Science from NYU, then this is a good place to start.

Gaffe

Ever done or said something that was embarrassing? You most likely have, and therefore you’ve committed a gaffe: a social bumbling that brings embarrassment to the bumbler. Luckily, your blunders have probably not been preserved for eternity. If you are the president of the United States, on the other hand, even the tiniest pause is dissected ad nauseam by pundits. Therefore, presidents are known for their gaffes, or their social blunders, situations in which a president ends up biting his lip.

Even the usually measured and thoughtful Barack Obama once, when on the Tonight Show, compared his substandard bowling to the Special Olympics. He later called the Special Olympics chair to apologize for his gaffe.

Gauche

In the movie Back to the Future the main character, Marty McFly travels back in time where he meets his father. While Marty is the embodiment of 80’s cool—a skateboard at his side and a feathery hair-do—his father, George McFly, has horn-rimmed glass with tape holding together the frames. George is dreadfully afraid to talk to any girl and is a bumbling mess when he does, uttering inappropriate things. Marty’s father is the embodiment of gauche, which means socially awkward and lacking grace.

Gauche is an interesting word etymologically speaking. It comes from the French for left, or on the left-hand side. Those who are left-handed, at least in Paris, are apparently much like Marty’s father. Finally, gauche begets us an interesting variant of itself: gaucherie. Not as common of a GRE word, gaucherie describes the awkward ways of somebody who is gauche. Marty’s father’s gaucheries include his attire and his ability to stop stuttering when speaking to a female.

Maladroit

Also from French, maladroit combines the Latin root mal-, which means bad, with the word adroit, which in French means on the right side. Adroit, which means skillful (because people who are right-handed are apparently skillful), is the opposite of maladroit, which describes somebody who is clumsy. The clumsy of maladroit is typically more physical, whereas the clumsy of gauche is more social.

Solecism

When abroad, we are oftentimes unaware of the social customs of a country. When we breach these proprieties, we are said to be guilty of a solecism. During my first weeks in Seoul, Korea, where I lived for a few years teaching test prep, I was unaware that, after eating at a restaurant, one is not supposed to leave a monetary tip. I was disabused of this solecism when a friend who spoke Korean had to explain why my actions constituted a faux pas: in Korea, the hosts feel honored to serve their patrons and always behave as graciously as possible. This trait is part of their culture and does not come with a price tag—even in the form of gratuity. I guess you can say I was guilty of a Seoul-ecism.

Interestingly, a solecism can also be a breach of grammatical manners. Misplaced modifiers, dangling participles, etc. are all examples of solecisms. Finally, I should mention that a solecism is any breach in social etiquette—it doesn’t have to happen abroad.

Infelicitous

Speaking of words, if a phrase is awkwardly constructed, a great word to describe it is infelicitous, a word that, with the addition of –in, becomes the opposite of felicitous, which means apt and appropriate. An infelicitous phrase, on the other hand, makes people in the room cringe, and the person guilty of the verbal gaffe blush. We wouldn’t call a person infelicitous—which would be an infelicitous expression itself. Infelicitous describes behavior, but more typically ill-chosen words.

In the previous installment—Paragraph Argument Workshop – Part I—I introduced the question type, along with general strategies. I also dissected the first kind of Paragraph Argument: the Weaken question. In this segment, I’m going to delve into two different—but similar—question types: the Strengthen and the Assumption question.

Strengthen question

The strengthen question is the other side of the coin as the weaken question. Both questions are identifying the gap in an argument. Whereas in the weaken question you have to identify the gap, with the strengthen question you have to choose an answer that “plugs up” the gap. Let’s take a look at the weaken question from Part I. I will reproduce the paragraph, word for word. As for the question itself, I will change it into a strengthen question. The answer choices will differ slightly, sometimes by only as much a word.

Downtown Greensborough is a major financial center, in which many citizens either drive or rely on public transportation to get to work. This setup has led up to a spate in the number of pedestrians who have been struck and killed by vehicles. In an effort to curb the number of pedestrian-related fatalities, Greensborough has installed speed reduction signs at the six city intersections in which the highest numbers of fatalities have occurred in the last year. The Greensborough city government predicts that the number of pedestrian fatalities will significantly decrease once the speed reduction signs have been installed.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the validity of the conclusion?

(A)  Some of those who drive to work in downtown Greensborough have a valid driver’s license.

(B)  The number of annual pedestrian fatalities outside the downtown area is far less than in the downtown area.

(C)  The six intersections in which the signs are installed are responsible for a majority of pedestrian deaths in downtown Greensborough

(D) The new speed reduction signs will be in neon orange and prominently placed.

(E)  Red light cameras, which are used to catch motorists running red lights, were installed yet the number of pedestrian fatalities did not decrease.

In this case, what the test writers are doing is anticipating a possible weakness in the argument. Essentially, they are defusing a potential objection by showing how that objection is no longer valid. For example, if someone said, “hey your argument has a gap in it because it is only based on six intersections, which isn’t the same as the entire downtown area.” The correct answer, (C), retorts, “Well, most of pedestrian deaths happen at those six intersections.”

Assumption question

Another question type, the Assumption question, is very similar to the Strengthen and Weaken question types. It is even more straightforward because it directly identifies the gap, though it doesn’t strengthen or weaken the argument. If the question above had asked to identify the assumption a correct answer would like the following:

(C) The six intersections cited in the study account for a significant number of pedestrian deaths in downtown Greensborough.

One key to becoming better at Paragraph Argument questions is to identify the gap. Doing so will take lots of practice. It is okay, at first, to take more time than is necessary to answer a Paragraph Argument question. Try to identify the gap before just diving into the answer choices.

The second key is to become adept at eliminating wrong answer choices because they fail to adequately answer the question. In the next installment, I will talk about what makes wrong answer choices wrong.

On the actual test, which has twenty questions per math section, there are only three Data Interpretation questions per section, leading to a total of six Data Interpretation questions on the test (not including the experimental section, if it happens to be Data Interpretation).

I know that was a mouthful, so I’m going to simplify things:

1^st math section (20 questions total): 3 Data Interpretation questions

2^nd math section (20 questions total): 3 Data Interpretation questions

Total number of Data Interpretation questions: 6

Is there a set number for the type of questions I can see?

Data Interpretation simply means that there is a graph/chart/table and a series of questions relating to graph/chart/table. Each chart/table/graph will have three questions, which is consistent with the above. Meaning, each math section will have one table/chart/graph.

Questions themselves typically draw on percent/fraction/decimal conversion and require some estimation (if you don’t want to fiddle with the calculator). Concepts from statistics, such as mean, median, and mode, also pop up frequently. As to the number of such questions, it is random. The takeaway: know your statistics.

What about the charts/bars/graphs?

On the Data Interpretation section you may see bar charts, you may see a pie graph, you may see a graph with a bunch of funky lines. You might likely see a combination of such graphs for a set of three problems, and will have to combine information from both graphs to answer a question.

There is, however, no clean breakdown in the types of graph. Your best strategy is to prepare as much as possible, so that you will have exposure to almost every kind of graph permutation that the GRE will throw at you.

Takeaway

There will always be exactly three questions per Data Interpretation set. Each math section will feature exactly one Data Interpretation set. Each set of three questions will pertain to the exact same charts/bars/graphs.

There is no solid breakdown in terms of the type of charts/bars/graphs. So make sure to practice as many variants of the charts/bars/graphs to be ready for test day.

So how do you set yourself apart? Well one thing that the admissions committee looks at is your GRE test scores. Yeah, that’s right, one silly little test can change the course of the committee’s decision and consequently the course of your academic (and personal!) life. So what do you need to get in?

Average GRE scores for NYU – what we know

If you’re really hoping for a selective university like NYU or UCLA, be sure that average GRE scores isn’t going to cut it. That means that average 146 in Math and 151 in Verbal isn’t going to do very much to get you in. For example, according US News & World Report, the Steinhardt School admits students with a 161 in Verbal and 153 in Math on average into the PhD in Education program. That’s the 86th and 56th percentile respectively! You can see that an average score would put you at a major disadvantage on your application.

Of course, average GRE scores for NYU vary greatly across disciplines.

Dealing with the NYU GRE scores we don’t know

It’s infuriating for applicants how opaque the admissions committee is when it comes to GRE scores. The majority of the graduate schools within NYU don’t publish their acceptable GRE scores, so you’re left guessing if you’re wondering what, say, Wagner’s average GRE scores are or what GRE score you’ll need to get accepted into a social science program like economics, psychology, or sociology. Due to the high level of competition to get into NYU, you’re going to have to really well on the GRE, no matter what your field is. Are you in a math related field? You should definitely be shooting for the 85th percentile or greater in math, somewhere between the 60th and 70th percentile for verbal. That English PhD is definitely going to require a crazy high verbal score, so maybe the 90th percentile or so in verbal shouldn’t be out of the question?

How do you get the GRE scores to get in?

Well, first, if you’ve already taken it and these scores are nowhere near yours, perhaps think about taking it again? If it’s your first time, then it’s time to get to work. But relax! We’ve covered some of the best GRE prep material out there for you to take advantage of as well as written up the 2013 GRE book reviews. Certainly, there’s also the Magoosh blog, which covers all you need to know about the GRE, particularly in the free GRE eBook. And if you really want to get the score you need, you can always try out our Premium access. It’ll get you where you need to be, but don’t just take my opinion on it, though – check out what our students say about us.

Disseminate

To disseminate means to scatter or spread. Information, for one, is something that can be disseminated. Indeed, typically when we encounter the word dissemination or disseminate it is modifying the word information.

Though thousands of news sources disseminate information each day, many of the stories are very similar, if not identical.

Copious

Copious is used to describe something is in great abundance. In the The Official Guide, for instance, difficult words are copious (as they will be the day of the test). Turning my eye to the Internet, I can find many things that are copious: newsblogs, daily tweets, Facebook status updates, and those crazy, flickering adds with the hidden white ‘X’.

Acerbic

Many of the great wits of the last 150 years had an acerbic style: with a few words Oscar Wilde could humble many; Dorothy Parker could pierce through the pretentions of her time with an artfully crafted line. Acerbic typically describes writing or style that is biting and cutting.

Unseemly

Unseemly is definitely a misleading word, since we are wont to associate it with ‘seem’ however, the ‘seem’ in unseemly is not what it seems. From the Middle English soemer, which means ‘fitting’, unseemly describes behavior or words that are not socially appropriate. For instance, if somebody cuts me off while I’m driving and I decide to stick my arm out the window and extend my longest digit, then my behavior would be unseemly.

Indecorous

Indecorous is a synonym of unseemly.  It is also the opposite of decorous, which means well-mannered, following social etiquette.

To those who lived during the age of the Lindy Hop and the Madison, the way people dance in clubs today—where spasmodic hip-thrusting has replaced defined steps—must seem indecorous. 

Circumscribed

Something that is marked by boundaries is circumscribed. Your daily routine can be circumscribed. Indeed, depending on where you live, your rights are circumscribed by where you live. These uses are the figurative use of circumscribed, a use you will see on the test. The more literal use of circumscribed you may also see on the test, but in the math section. Does this sound familiar, “A square is circumscribed in a circle.

Though much music dating from before the Baroque era sounds similar, we shouldn’t be too surprised since the few tonal scales available to composers circumscribed their range of expression. 

A while back (over 18 months ago!), we added a feature that let you take notes when reviewing a question. We later expanded notes to lessons. And now many of you have likely seen those pesky pencil icons reminding you to review your notes.

The Problem

But over the past year as student have created more and more notes (over 100,000!), we’ve received many requests to make the notes accessible from one place.

The Solution

Well, I have good news! Your notes are now viewable in one place. On the bottom of your Dashboard, you’ll see a link to quickly access all your math and verbal notes.

When you click the link, you’ll see all your notes broken out by lessons and questions for Math, Verbal, and Writing.

The Note-able Data

And lastly, for those who love graphs and data, here’s a breakdown of the number of notes taken by section (Math and Verbal) and by type (Question and Lesson).

Leave a comment below to let us know what you think!

Downtown Greensborough is a major financial center in which many citizens either drive or rely on public transportation to get to work. This setup has led up to a spate in the number of pedestrians who have been struck and killed by vehicles. In an effort to curb the number of pedestrian-related fatalities, Greensborough has installed speed reduction signs at the six city intersections at which the highest numbers of fatalities have occurred in the last year. The Greensborough city government predicts that the number of traffic fatalities will significantly decrease once the speed reduction signs have been installed.

The above is your typical GRE paragraph argument and just another example of how the new GRE is hard. It contains a little background information (the traffic/pedestrian situation in Greensborough) before launching into the argument proper. A good first step is to identify the parts of the argument and simplify the paragraph to manageable sentence or two.

Taking apart the argument

The first part of an argument is the premise(s). Think of the premises as the facts. In the paragraph argument above the fact are as follows:

1) Greensborough has many pedestrian fatalities in its bustling downtown area

2) Signs warning motorists to slow down will be installed

3) The signs will be installed only at the six most dangerous intersections

Now that we’ve identified the premises, we want to find the conclusion. The conclusion is a definitive statement that is based on the premises. That is the author of the paragraph argument is not whipping the conclusion from thin air. The conclusion is based on the premises, and almost always comes at the end of the paragraph.

Conclusion: once the signs go up, the number of pedestrian deaths will go down.

In the Paragraph Argument on the GRE, the conclusion is never airtight. What I mean is that the conclusion does not connect perfectly to the premises—there are some holes, or logical gaps. One way to identify them is by using “What ifs”.

For instance:

What if motorists never look at the traffic signs?

What if the signs aren’t prominently displayed?

What if drunk drivers were responsible for most of the fatalities? (That is I don’t think we can rely on drunk drivers to slow down because a sign tells them to).

The “holes” above are quite obvious. On the GRE, the correct answer will be more subtle, and will probably not be similar to one of the “What ifs” you come up with. Nonetheless, it is a good practice to start generating these “What ifs” to get you in the mindset to identify the correct answer.

See, some of the wrong answer choices are going to be very tempting. But none of them is going to directly attack the validity of the conclusion the way the correct answer does. Now that we’ve done the “What if” exercise, let’s actually turn this into a bona fide question.

Downtown Greensborough is a major financial center in which many citizens either drive or rely on public transportation to get to work. This setup has led up to a spate in the number of pedestrians who have been struck and killed by vehicles. In an effort to curb the number of pedestrian-related fatalities, Greensborough has installed speed reduction signs at the six city intersections at which the highest numbers of fatalities have occurred in the last year. The Greensborough city government predicts that the number of traffic fatalities will significantly decrease once the speed reduction signs have been installed.

Which of the following, if true, most undermines the validity of the conclusion?

(A)  Some of those who drive to work in downtown Greensborough do not have a valid driver’s license.

(B)  The number of annual pedestrian fatalities outside the downtown area is far less than in the downtown area.

(C)  The six intersections in which the signs are installed are responsible for only a fraction of pedestrian deaths.

(D) The new speed reduction signs will be in neon orange and prominently placed.

(E)  Red light cameras, which are used to catch motorists running red lights, were installed yet the number of pedestrian fatalities did not decrease.

Solution

I’m guessing at least two—if not three—answer choices jumped out at you. A couple you were probably able to eliminate because they were either irrelevant to the paragraph or actually strengthened, not weakened, the conclusion.

Let’s first start with (A) and ask ourselves “What if?”. That is, what if some of the drivers do not have drivers licenses? Is that going to prevent the installation of traffic speed reduction signs from having their desired effect? You could answer ‘maybe’—as in maybe those who drive without a license are in general more dangerous drivers and will therefore outright ignore the signs. The correct answer on a GRE Paragraph Argument is not a ‘maybe.’ It is always a very strong ‘yes’; if A, then the plan will most likely not work.

With (B), we are talking about a part of town that is outside the downtown area. This shift in focus already makes this answer choice suspect (test prep books usually call such a shift ‘irrelevant’ or ‘out of scope’). Maybe the area outside has traffic reduction signs, maybe it doesn’t, maybe a lot of things. As with all ‘maybes’ on the Paragraph Argument, eliminate.

Now for (C): What if the six intersections in which the signs are installed are responsible for only a fraction of the pedestrian deaths? Sure, the intersections are the most dangerous, but if there are hundreds of intersections, then the aggregate fatalities from those intersections will easily surpass that of the six intersections. In other words, even if the signs actually cause a driver to reduce his speed, the plan will still not be effective because people will still be barreling through the ninety-five other intersections.  So we asked the “What if?”, and it turns out that the plan doesn’t look like it is going to work: speed reductions signs at six intersections are not going to dramatically lower the number of pedestrian fatalities. Therefore, the answer is (C).

(D), if anything, strengthens the argument, because if the speed reduction signs are obvious drivers are more likely to slow down. Definitely not a “slam dunk” strengthen, but clearly (D) does nothing to weaken the conclusion.

Finally, (E), which may have been the most tempting of the wrong answer choices. Indeed you may be thinking the following: If red light cameras didn’t slow down drivers, then will traffic reduction signs actually bring about the desired effect? The problem is red light cameras weren’t intended to slow down drivers, but rather to catch them in the act of running a red light. The traffic cameras could very well cause drivers to speed up, because they want to make the red light and “beat” the camera (I’ve actually been guilty of this more than once!).
Remember that the GRE is attempting to test your ability to question an argument. This is an especially useful skill to have if you’re studying the GRE for a PhD and you’ll have a dissertation to defend someday.

Coming soon

In the next series, we will go through different question types—Strengthen, Paradox, etc.—and see how what we learned about the “holes” in the argument will pertain to these other question types.