GRE, Graduate Record Examination is a very renowned term for students who aim to study abroad. So, it is a computer-based examination needed for admission to graduate programs worldwide. GRE test is led by ETS, Educational Testing Service. By and large, 319,101 people take tests annually. Actually, GRE is built up to help graduate, business, and law schools assess applicants’ qualifications and readiness.
But how good the students of Bangladesh are at scoring on GRE? Let’s dive into this matter.
GRE is actually not the obvious test for impressing the admission panel of graduate schools. It is required to structure a good profile to show how capable a student is in some specific skills. Even all universities do not ask for a GRE score in their requirement. Without GRE a student can also convince others that he is quite proficient in getting full funding in admission by having a good academic record and plenty of publications, etc. Preparing an efficient SOP can also bring scholarships to a student without GRE.
But what if the student doesn’t have good publications? What if his profile is not that much ponderous? Here, it carries the importance of having a good GRE score. But deplorably Bangladeshi students often fail to score well on GRE. The reason behind this is the preparation method of them.
We know that GRE is sectioned in verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and analytical writing. So, these are the sectors we have to take preparations for. Most of the students do not know the way to take effective preparations. That’s why, the general score that Bangladeshi students can attain as a good score is 310 to 315, whereas in other countries, students often score 330 to 340 which is very impressive.
The first issue that is dragging down the Bangladeshi students to score excellent is improper vocabulary practice. We have a tendency to note down the uncommon words from our childhood. In advanced level, it won’t help us to retain more words at all. We will have to guess the words most importantly. Because in GRE test, we will have to understand the context of the passage by guessing the words. Moreover, we can enrich our vocabulary more by guessing, other than sneaking into the dictionary. For this practice, Barron’s 1100, Barron’s 3500, etc. are highly recommended, though Greg Mat is followed by most of the students.
The next issue is article reading. Most of us prefer slow reading for better understanding which is a very bad practice to retain understanding. We should focus on 5 to 6 words at a time while reading. We must practice article reading in a certain manner. So, let’s see how to read:-
- Retention of Concentration: Firstly, we must read the paragraphs one by one and note down the main theme of each paragraph. Then after completing the whole passage, we must explain the theme to ourselves orally. It will help to clear the idea.
- Guessing unfamiliar words: We will have to guess the words from neighboring words or sentences. There is no need to know the actual meaning.
- Understanding long sentences: We’ll have to identify the subject and main verb of the sentence. It will ease the sentence to understand
- Speed of reading: We must practice fast reading. Otherwise, we will absorb unnecessary information by slow reading.
And the recommended magazines or books for article reading are Aeon. Co, BBC Future, BBC Culture, Scientific American Magazine, Economist, etc. Finally, to score good we must read one article per day.
For analytical writing and quantitative reasoning, there are many apps and books. But the main obstacle to score more than average is verbal reasoning. Bangladeshi students should practice more effectively, as the traditional reading habit is the main cause behind their scoring average in GRE.
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Writer,
Adri Sen
Intern,
Content Writing Department
YSSE