Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Icons Used in This Book 2 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 4 Part 1: Getting Started with the GRE 5 Chapter 1: Knowing What to Expect with the GRE 7 Signing Up for the GRE 7 Breaking the GRE into Bite-Sized Pieces 8 Scoring Max: 340 Then 6 9 Understanding how the scoring breaks down 9 Calculating your score 10 Confirming that your score is actually good 10 Throwing a mental dart 11 Seeing or canceling your scores 11 Taking advantage of the ScoreSelect option 12 Catching Your Mental Breath: The GRE Intermissions 12 Chapter 2: Owning the GRE: Strategies for Success 13 Making the Best Use of Your Time 14 Budgeting your time for studying 14 Budgeting your time for practice 14 Taking control: Time management tips 15 Plan B: Repeating the Test 15 It Isn''t You: Testing Under Adverse Conditions 16 Using Old Scores 17 Chapter 3: Gearing Up for Exam Day 19 Gathering Your Stuff the Night Before 19 Knowing What Not to Bring 20 Training Physically and Mentally for Test Day 21 Staying active 21 Eating well 22 Relaxing 22 Mastering the Computer Part 22 Bringing the GRE into Your Comfort Zone 23 Getting familiar with what''s on the exam 23 Understanding that the GRE is only one of many admissions requirements 24 Part 2: Tackling the Verbal Section One Word at a Time 25 Chapter 4: What Are They Saying: Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence 27 Clinching Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence Questions 27 Keeping it straight 28 Trying it out 28 Developing Your Skills for Finding the Correct Answers 29 Interpreting the Text 101 29 Getting the gist of the text 30 Taking the Best and Only Approach 30 Interpret the text without looking at the answer choices 31 Complete the text with your own words 31 Eliminate wrong answer choices 32 Interpreting Trickier Sentences 32 Use transition words to get the gist of the phrases 33 Start with the second or third missing word 34 Getting Your Hands Dirty with Some Practice 35 Text Completion questions 35 Sentence Equivalence questions 38 Chapter 5: Getting the Gist: Reading Comprehension 45 Recognizing the Three Reading Comprehension Question Formats 45 Multiple-choice questions: Choose one answer 46 Multiple-choice questions: Choose one or more answers 46 Sentence-selection questions: Choose a sentence from the passage 47 Developing Strategies for Success 47 Using the context as your road map 47 Grasping the gist of the passage 48 Avoiding common traps 48 Answering the question yourself 49 Acing the Three Commonly Tested Reading Comprehension Passages 49 The biological and physical science passage 49 The social sciences passage 52 The humanities passage 55 The social sciences passage redux 57 Chapter 6: Critical Thinking: Argument Analysis Questions 61 Covering the Answer Choices 62 Reading the Question and Understanding What it''s Asking 62 Reading the Passage for What the Question is Asking 62 Identifying the "because" and the "therefore" 63 Finding the unstated assumption 64 Exploring common logical fallacies 65 Answering the Question in Your Own Words 66 Eliminating Each Wrong Answer 66 Leveraging the process of elimination 67 Testing your skills 67 Chapter 7: Expanding Your Vocabulary to Boost Your Score 71 Brushing Up on Prefixes, Suffixes, and Roots 71 Prefixes 72 Suffixes 74 Roots 74 Memorizing the GRE''s Most Common Vocabulary Words 76 Part 3: Math You Thought You''d Never Need Again 91 Chapter 8: Back to Basic Arithmetic 93 Knowing Integers, Factors, and Multiples 93 More Math Terms 94 Prime and Composite Numbers 94 Reading Between the Lines: Absolute Value 95 Remembering the Order of Things with PEMDAS 95 Measuring Up: Units of Measurement 96 Getting to the Point: Decimals 97 Adding and subtracting decimals 97 Multiplying decimals 98 Dividing decimals 98 Fine with Fractions 99 Adding or subtracting fractions 99 Multiplying fractions 100 Dividing fractions 100 Mixed numbers 100 Percentages and Fractions 101 Converting between percentages and decimals or fractions 101 Finding the percent of change 102 Factorials in Fractions 103 Organizing Ratios 104 Considering the total number of items 104 Finding the amounts in the ratio 105 Maintaining the ratio 106 Combining ratios 106 Working the Numbers: Arithmetic Practice Problems 107 Chapter 9: Algebra: Finding What X Really Means 111 Using Bases and Exponents 111 Working with Math Operators and Functions 114 Substituting for the variable in the math operator 114 Substituting for the variable in the function 115 Revisiting Algebra 115 Solving for x 116 Multiplying with the FOIL method 117 Factoring back out 119 Dealing with Square Roots and Radicals 119 Simplifying square roots and radicals 120 Estimating the radical 120 Adding and subtracting radicals 121 Multiplying and dividing numbers with radicals 121 Working radicals from the inside out 122 Plotting it Out with Coordinate Geometry 122 Solving common problems 123 Working with linear equations 125 Solving simultaneous equations 127 Circling back: Graphed circles 130 Recognizing Patterns in Sequential Terms 131 Functioning with f ( x ) 132 Chapter 10: Getting into Shapes with Geometry 135 Exploring Lines and Angles 135 Lines 135 Angles 136 Recognizing Polygons 138 Determining total interior angle measure 139 Finding one interior angle 140 Understanding Triangles 140 Recognizing triangle types 140 Noting key characteristics 141 Calculating perimeter and area 142 Understanding the Pythagorean theorem 143 Identifying common right triangles 144 Knowing Quadrilaterals 146 Working with Circles 148 Recognizing a circle''s features 149 Mastering essential formulas 151 Tackling shaded-area problems 156 Turning 3-D Shapes 158 Calculating volume 158 Calculating surface area 161 Chapter 11: Putting in a Good Word Problem 163 Just Saying the Word Problem: Step by Step 163 Going Farther with Time and Distance 164 Finding the Average 165 Taking shortcuts: Finding the average of evenly spaced or consecutive integers 165 Solving missing-term average problems 166 Working with weighted averages 167 Working on Work Problems 168 Teaming Up with Team-Work Problems 169 Mixing it Up with Mixture Problems 170 Sorting Out Sets and Groups 173 Using the Venn diagram 173 Using the sets formula 174 Finding the Probability 174 Step #1: Set up the fraction 175 Step #2: Multiply consecutive probabilities 175 Step #3: Add either/or probabilities on a single event 176 Calculating probability in sets and groups 176 Counting the Ways with Counting Methods 177 Basic counting methods 177 When order matters: Permutations 179 When order doesn''t matter: Combinations 180 Chapter 12: Interpreting Data and Graphs 183 Brushing Up on Basic Stats 183 Defining the median 183 Understanding mode 185 Establishing the range 185 Finding the mean 186 Using the standard deviation 188 Eyeballing the standard deviation 189 Using the mean deviation191 Interpreting Tables and Graphs 192 Analyzing Data in Tables 193 Analyzing Data in Graphs 194 Reading different graph types 194 Answering questions with two graphs 198 Estimating graph totals quickly 200 Chapter 13: Comparing Quantities: They Report, You Decide 203 Memorizing Answer Choices that Don''t Change 203 Easy as π: Approaching QC Questions 204 Gotchas and Other Pitfalls: Tips, Traps, and Tricks 205 Remembering that equal appearances can be deceiving but still useful 205 Keeping an eye out for scale 206 Remembering that the rules of math still apply 206 Canceling out identical terms 207 Sorting out identical terms 208 Making the terms identical 209 Estimating the quantities 210 Plugging in the Four Square 210 Throwing down a hundred 211 Mixing up multiple unknowns 212 Deciding On Your Own: Quantitative Comparison Practice Questions 213 Part 4: Penning Powerful Analytical Essays 217 Chapter 14: Writing Analytical Essays on Issues and Arguments 219 Setting Your Sights on the Target: Scoring a Perfect 6 220 What the essay scores really mean 220 Key methods to scoring well 221 Writing the Issue Essay 222 Step 1: Read and understand the prompt 222 Step 2: Start with your supporting info 223 Step 3: Take a position that''s in line with your examples 223 Step 4: Write yo.