Guys,

Thought that I'd share my GRE story here so that it can benefit you guys..All these forums have been very useful so far so i hope that my contribution will help a bit..

I took the GRE around a month back and scored a 334 overall(Q-169,V-165)

My target was to score 330+ and i'm targeting all the top schools for computer science on the west coast- CalTech, Stanford,UCLA,UC Berkley,USC . Although there are a couple of top computer science schoolson the east coast but i want to study in and around the silicon valley where all the action in computer science is so that's why west coast schools are my priority!

How I went about my preparation Since I'm studying in a top enginering school in India,GRE Math seemed liked a cakewalk and frankly speaking,I didn't study for it much I just brushed up my basics but did a lot of practice.

GRE Math:The GRE Math questions are from high school. The difficult ones are a bit tricky but if you get familiar with the types of questions that are tested,you shouldn't have much difficulty.

GRE Verbal:GRE Verbal was a tough nut to crack though. I've not been into the habit of reading much and had to practice a lot from different books.I primarily used 3 sources- Princetons' Crack the GRE, GRE Official Guide and GRE Verbal Grail.

Princeton's Crack the GRE book- The book is good for basics and for giving you an overview but not much beyond that. I guess it's written for people who are looking at average scores otherwise it's of not much help.

So for my verbal prep, I primarily relied on the ETS Official Guide and GRE Verbal Grail.

ETS Official Guide- The good thing about the official guide is that the verbal questions in it are quite tricky especially the text completion ones. The bad thing is that there aren't many practice questions.

GRE Verbal Grail- very comprehensive book for verbal. I especially liked its reading comprehension section as each question type has been dealt quite well and given that around half of the questions on the GRE Verbal are from RC, you should really be able to nail the questions. The book provides a lot of practice questions too.

Vocabulary: I kept on working on my vocabulary and would daily learn around 10 new words. What I didn't do is start practicing TC and SE questions alongwith learning vocabulary. I firstly wanted to be good enough at vocab before attempting these questions. Once I had some confidence in vocab, then I started attempting questions from the ETS Official Guide and GRE Verbal Grail books. I'd do a block of 20 questions from the books,then analyze them and then write down the new words that I learnt. This really helped me master vocab to a great extent.

GRE Test day:The actual test was not very much different from the ETS Official Guide practice tests.Both the verbal and the quant sections were quite close and I think that doing quite a few practice tests actually made me quite comfortable on the GRE day.

My advice to the fellow GRE aspirants:

1. Learning vocabulary becomes an interesting process if you use the words in your daily life. The more you use the words the better you will be able to understand the context

2. Learning the strategies for various RC questions is very important. If you don't know the strategies, you may end up taking more time than required on a question

3. It's all about practice. I think that GRE is quite an interesting exam and can be cracked if you practice well. That is really the key to success

4. Analyze your practice tests really well. There's no point in taking the tests if you are not analyzing them properly.Lastly, if I can get a good score , i see no reason why you guys can't. A good GRE score comes with hardwork but is something you can definitely achieve if you prepare well.