I just took mine and was totally unprepared so I got the Barron’s GRE test prep and the Stanford Review Test Prep books. They helped me out a lot. THere are also vocab cards that you can look through and take with you so that you can just look over them from time to time. Also there is this website called number2.com that is amazing. I signed up for it several times so that I could take a lot of practice tests. They also have review. Anyway, I was really afraid to take mine and just used the two books, the flash cards and the website and I scored a 1420. Part of the trick is that you have to get into the mindsets of the people who write the test and figure out not what each question seems to mean, but what each question means to them. I also got a really good night’s sleep the night before and ate alot of Omega 3 fatty acids which helps your mind to function better. Finally, don’t cram- it doesn’t help.

Since you have such a huge spread and you are only concerned about generating better test scores, the first thing you should do is maximize your math score, since that is the easiest one for you to improve. Your library will have several test prep books for the GRE. You can sign these out and see which problems cause you to get a lower score. Then you can review that particular math subject. There are review sections within the prep books. If you are getting tricked on the questions and you can’t overcome the tricks after studying, move on as your problem is not a lack of knowledge and it will be impossible to increase your score.

It is probably easier to improve on the writing multiple choice questions than the reading questions. Just study the writing section of the prep book. Some prep books have better writing sections than others. There are some great grammar sites on the web that can help you understand the fundamentals, if you don’t know what the prep book is talking about. For example, the test book may talk about gerund usage, but not tell you what a gerund is. Then you have to go back and learn about gerunds. Purdue University Online Writing Lab offers many of the basics. If you want a real workout access this other web site:

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

I don’t know how the current GRE is structured. Perhaps there are two reading sections and only one writing section. If so, it may pay to focus on improving the reading section first. Prep for the reading section includes vocabulary and paragraph comprehension. You want to take a few sample GRE writing tests from the test prep book to see which kinds of questions are creating the most problems. It seem like all kinds are. For paragraph understanding, you need to work closely with the prep books because there is nothing else as efficient. Reading selections include science, social studies and language arts topics. If you have trouble with all of the subject areas, then look for science/technical paragraphs and try to comprehend those first, since they will be the easiest for you. Another tactic would be to sign out PSAT and SAT books and try to master easier test questions first and then move on.

If you don’t have much time left to prepare, then vocabulary will probably need to be overlooked. A shortcut to vocabulary is to study greek and latin roots. Amazon has used books that cover this topic. There are thousands of possibilities when it comes to words that could be included on the GRE. If you could spend a year mastering ten words per day, then you’d be set. Another possibility is to read, “The Wizard of Oz vocabulary builder” which contains 2000 or so higher level vocabulary words. There is also an extreme SAT vocabulary flash card book but you only get one sentence and a definition for each word, so you must memorize each word.