Should I wing the GRE?

[TecHNooB]

Really don't have time to study for them I can't decide if I want to go to grad school or get a job.

 

[esun]

Engineering? Yeah. Otherwise, probably not. Nailing the quantitative is a piece of cake and that's all engineering grad schools care about. Verbal is a pain, though, even if you're good (lots and lots of vocabulary study is necessary for a top score).

 

[WildHorse]

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[RESmonkey]

Originally posted by: esun
Engineering? Yeah. Otherwise, probably not. Nailing the quantitative is a piece of cake and that's all engineering grad schools care about. Verbal is a pain, though, even if you're good (lots and lots of vocabulary study is necessary for a top score).

So as an ECE major, grad schools will only care about my quantitative portion?
Do engineers really focus on GREs at all?

 

[Leros]

ECE major here too. How hard is it to take the GRE without any studying? They have study programs here for it, but I'd rather not go if its easy.

 

[esun]

Yes, they only care about quantitative. From what I've seen as long as you get 500+ in verbal that's good enough (and heck I know people that have scored worse than that and ended up at pretty good schools). Consider the number of international students in graduate engineering programs. They SUCK at English and generally score terribly on the GRE verbal, but it doesn't matter as long as they ace the quantitative section (and you really should get an 800).

EDIT: The quantitative was easy for every engineering grad student I've known. Basically everybody I knew scored an 800 (I think one maybe got a 790 but was apparently hungover for his test). That doesn't mean you shouldn't scan over a practice test (which are easy enough to find for free), but you certainly shouldn't need to study for it (if you do, you really, really need to consider how ready or qualified you are for grad school).

 

[miketheidiot]

didn't study, got an 800 on the mind numbingly easy quant, didn't care about verbal or writing

 

[RESmonkey]

Good to hear. I think I might dominate the verbal; my English and grammar used to be unparalleled in high school. That is what the verbal is, right? LOL

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Leros
ECE major here too. How hard is it to take the GRE without any studying? They have study programs here for it, but I'd rather not go if its easy.

the study guides teach you how to take the test, which is the most important part--not so much the material. It's highschool algebra with some geometry tossed in.

for verbal, learn the roots--it helps a lot.

check out Princeton Review--their manuals are perfectly balanced with good practice sets and the proper tone of cynicism regarding ETS and the entire test-taking industry (for example, they mention that the only thing that readers really look for when grading the rather useless written section is length. not content, not coherence, per se, but length. sad)

 

[Whisper]

Originally posted by: RESmonkey
Good to hear. I think I might dominate the verbal; my English and grammar used to be unparalleled in high school. That is what the verbal is, right? LOL

The verbal section has more to do with vocabulary and reading comprehension than grammar/usage.

As for quantitative, to the best of my knowledge, it's actually "easier" than the SAT in that it only covers up through algebra and geometry (again, to the best of my knowledge). You're timed and you aren't allowed to use a calculator, so they don't make things too insanely complex.

Writing had just been added when I took the GRE, so I can't speak much on appropriate strategies for it. I will say that the information in my Kaplan guide helped me get a perfect score, although given that it was the first year for that section, the readers might've been less stringent on the grading.

 

[Schadenfroh]

I winged the GRE to get into CS (arguably Engineering) grad school with no preparation other than a short (45 minute) review of high school level mathematics that was lost during my years in calculus, linear algebra / programming and other college level math classes. Mediocre verbal score and high math and essay score. Still got into a tier 1 with a full research assistantship / financial support package. Since you are in a science field, you should be able to get a GRA to pay for grad school and living expenses since your field is likely profitable to the university. I went to grad school because the economy was doom and gloom at the time. To tell you the truth, I am getting burnt out and really want to enter the work force (posted resume on Monster a few days ago) and make some real cash. I am just not sure if the job market has recovered enough to jump into the real world yet (the bites on monster thus far have been in places of the US far from where I live to which I do not want to go).

 

[acheron]

When you sign up for the test they send you a couple free practice tests. Just go through one of them once, it doesn't take long. Don't have to buy a book or anything unless you want some more review.

Since I had been out of school for several years it was good for me to review it, so I just did a couple of the practice tests. Did great on verbal (690 I think, which was like 96th percentile), and ok on quant (760, which was like 88th percentile... really should have aced it but oh well. Don't think they told me what I missed, but it was probably something stupid).