/sci/ - Science & Math

a friend of mine told me that you should set aside at least six months to study for the GRE: both the general and the subject-specific.

not sure how good that advice is. but, he almost hit a perfect score on the general and did exceedingly well on the subject-specific(physics and math. in both, he scored like 890 or something).

got accepted into stanford and some other top notch schools. the bastard. ._ .;

>>5048640
> set aside at least six months

um wot

>>5048645
what? he started studying like a month or two before his graduation, and then began studying intensely on a daily basis. he took the exam later that same year.

he entered Grad school the very next year; he didn't enter it the same year as he graduated.

>>5048659
setting aside 6 months for a standardized test is insane

>>5048659
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeUlrYczfE0

>>5048640

I also got an ALMOST perfect score on the general and the only studying I did was memorizing vocabulary words. It's hard to imagine what other studying would be useful - the math is as easy as SAT math, and the verbal is just not being autistic and knowing what words mean.

I never took any subject GREs, though, so that might be different.

>>5048670
not really. think about it.

this is your future. these exam scores, alongside the past 4(or 5) years of your undergraduate academic experience will be analyzed intensely. also, depending on how well you do on the exams/your 4yrs/internships/rec's, etc you can end up at a decent University or an AMAZING University(i.e., stanford, caltech, MIT, etc).

i think most people don't take it seriously enough. you also have to realize that wherever you decide to go, you'll be spending another 3+ yrs there.

>>5048704
I spent a month straight studying for the MCAT

if your buddy needs 6 MONTHS to study for the GRE then something is weird about your friend

though some of the subject-specific topics might take a little longer to get through

>>5048706
lol. my friend spent about 3 months studying for the MCAT. i saw him come to the University at 8 am and leave around 1:00am at night for the first month, and then he tapered off a bit later on.

jesus, that is heart. straight studying for hours straight. i just saw him listening to his ipod every few hrs to clear his mind.

>tfw i'm going to start studying for my GREs this semester so i can take them next year.

>>5048704

Uh, yes really. There are rapidly diminishing returns to how much studying will help you.

>>5048706
also, he studied these topics:

Subject, Physics.
Subject, Mathematics.
General GRE.

It wasn't just one singular test. He studied for all three. He still recommended studying six months in advance for any of them, though.

OP here, the new test is changed slightly if you took the GRE this year then it's the new exam format.

>>5048715
after the first month you aren't going to be learning much more unless you are trying to get a perfect score

>>5048727
of course. hitting high 800s is fucking amazing on the subject GREs. he was trying to get a perfect score.

>>5048741
chasing a perfect score is different from aiming for a good score

>>5048752
bump

I'm in the same position as you OP, needing to study for the GRE. Shit is stressful, my future depends on good grades, and now I need to start working on conning some unsuspecting university into paying me for grad school. I wouldn't pay me lol.

>>5048704
Damn I only have a month or two max, and I'd really love to get into Stanford's Earth Sciences program.... Probably have to settle for Rice or something though ):

>>5048807
study hard for the month or two, I'm not sure what Stanford is expecting in terms of scores/grades

Hi OP. First year neuro Ph.D student at a top 10 institution reporting in.

I was able to find some GRE study materials on luelinks and demonoid, although both of those services are now inert. I'm sure that you can find some sort of ebook with practice exams and sample problems for the new GRE on isohunt or thepiratebay. If you cannot, a 15 dollar one-month pass into usenet is going to be about one fourth the price of a GRE study book.

As for actual study methodology, just do practice problems. Doing anything else is very silly. Unless you've been studying GRE words for months (perhaps many months), the likelihood of you encountering any of those words on the GRE is low, and chances are you already know the meanings of the roots/suffixes/prefixes in those words that could be generalized to other words. If you want a success story, I scored 93rd percentile on the verbal section with absolutely 0 preparation (no practice problems, no vocabulary), although I was familiar with the format of the questions.

>>5048835
>Hi OP. First year neuro Ph.D student at a top 10 institution reporting in.

Impressive, any tips for email professors to ask about working with them? I'm looking at evolutionary bio and/or ecology masters programs.

I think the new format has lower emphasis on vocab words so I'm not too worried about that. Thanks for the help.

>>5048844
When you correspond with them, write an individually-taylored email. Make sure you address them by name, tell them what you're interested in that they do, and ask them if they're taking grad students in the next year or two. Condense all of this into ~5 extremely content filled sentences. The probability of your email receiving a response is inversely proportional to it's length.

If you do get a positive response from them, follow it up by asking them what current projects they have going on in the lab. Always assume that publications are about 2 years behind the cutting edge. You can also ask them about relevant publications for "better understanding their current work."

Also, don't be offended if you don't get responses. I probably got fewer than 50% of my emails responded to.

>>5048912
>When you correspond with them, write an individually-taylored email. Make sure you address them by name, tell them what you're interested in that they do, and ask them if they're taking grad students in the next year or two. Condense all of this into ~5 extremely content filled sentences.

Won't this be copy and pasted messages with the person's name and their area of study being replaced for different people? Do you have an example of an email you sent that you got a response to? Obviously remove the name of the school/professor if you want to post it here.

Also I'm confused on how the process works. If they encourage you to apply, that means that they might be taking on students, correct? But what if everyone they recommend to apply do apply and get into the program?

Should I only apply to schools that have multiple people I would want to work with? I'm worried about emailing ONE professor at a school and applying there and having someone else taking his grad student spot he/she has open.

>>5048953
I'll dig up an email that got responded to. Yes, essentially your different emails have shared components that essentially make them a cut and paste job, but so do your personal statements and your previous research statements.

So each department at each uni has multiple faculty with different demand for grad students. Sometimes a lab is full but other labs aren't, so the first lab won't take incoming students but the second one will, so the school still accepts students into that program. Every program is different. If you have to apply to a uni with a single lab in mind when you apply, then it helps to know beforehand if that lab is open so you don't waste time on the application.

There's also the possibility of lab rotations, in which you work briefly in 2-3 labs before you make a final decision. If this is the case, its extremely possible that you become interested in something that you never thought you'd be interested in when you were applying.

>>5048953

"Hello Dr. Sciencedude,

I'm an undergraduate student of Psychology at lolstateschool currently working in assistantprofessor's Cognition and Decision Making laboratory. I found your lab's website while searching for doctoral programs to apply to for the Fall of 2012. Your work on reinforcement learning and related neural representations of the environment interests me. Which publications of yours do you recommend I read to get a better idea of your lab's recent interests in the matter? Also, are you accepting graduate students for 2012? I would be happy to send you any information about myself at your request.

Thank you,
anon"

In retrospect that email is far too detailed and extremely robotic. I'd remove the bits about the lab i'm currently in and I'd hold off on the request for publications.

>>5049005
>>5049014
thanks!

If you have to study for this shit, you are an idiot.

>>5049041
sorry I am not as smart as you

>>5049043

http://www.ets.org/bin/gre-practicetest-stdtest.cgi?action=item.ask&test_type=verbal&data_fi
le=testdata/verbal/sentence.gre&onitem=1

If you went to any kind of school and did any kind of brain function while you were there, you should be able to answer these questions. I'm sorry, but the GRE general is a cakewalk piece of crap that if you can't ace it or come at least close, you should have your four-year degree revoked and be laughed out of graduate study in the sciences/mathematics.

>>5049051
people still study for it and those "sample questions" are usually easier than actual test material

my grades aren't top-notch so I want to do well on the GRE to make my application stand out a bit

The absolutely critical thing about the new GRE is to be careful with the math sections.

Your results for the first couple of questions determine what 'branch' of the math section you get put into. If you fuck up the first question, you get put in the lowest tier, if you get the first but fuck up the second you get put in the second lowest, and so on.

The early questions are fucking simple but you need to be careful because if you fuck up on the early questions than you automatically reduce your maximum possible score for that section.

>>5049062
Good to know. Thanks.

>>5049062
interesting, thanks for the info!

>>5049062
We had a guy who picked the wrong answer by mistake on the first question. The whole rest of the math section for him was like basic fucking algebra and geometry and shit.

Even if you get every other question right, if you're stuck in one of the lower tiers you don't get full points.

>>5049075
what was his score overall?