Any idea on how to improve on the Verbal on the GRE exam?

Question

Hi, I just got a 640 in my quantitave but got a 320 in the verbal, it sucks because I needed 1000 to get my master in engineering; the thing is English is not my native language; thinking i would not need much since I will be dealing with numbers; but hey what you know...????

thanks

Answer 1

Some people say that studying a lot of vocabulary is a good idea, but I think that learning some Latin and Greek root words (and prefixes and suffixes) that show up in a number of English words is a more useful list to study.  I found a really useful lookign website with root words and vocabulary words to study here:  https://www.msu.edu/~defores1/gre/roots/...

You can find other such lists by googling something like "GRE and Latin root words"  

Beyond that, and in addition to that, doing a lot of reading is really really useful for picking up words in their context.  But don't read just newspapers, which tend to use less complicated and colorful words in reporting the news.  Reading good literature and paying attention to the words is great preparation and reasonably enjoyable.  I think certain magazines that are aimed for a well-read audience are also likely to be helpful with vocabulary (e.g., the NEW YORKER, maybe the ECONOMIST, etc...).

Answer 2

Unless it's changed significantly since I last looked into it, the verbal part of the GRE is essentially a vocabulary test. Read a lot and check out The Princeton Review's Word Smart, and practice here: http://www.freerice.com