A good score on the GRE exam will enhance your admission process better. GRE is a popular exam that international students around the globe undertake. When it comes to preparing for it, there are multiple queries that international students have. Thus to help you get started, we interviewed Clive Aaron D’Souza, who is currently pursuing 4th year of Electronics Engineering at Vivekanand Educational Society Institute of Technology (VESIT). He scored 331 on GRE.

Read along to learn the GRE tips and tricks that helped him. 

• When did you start preparing for GRE?

I started my GRE preparations after the commencement of my 6th semester exams by 15th June 2017. I built my foundation, vocabulary and the concepts in the one month period & gave the exam on 24th July 2017.
 

• What books did you refer to?

For quants, I referred Manhattan Series & Nova Maths GRE Bible & for verbal, I referred Manhattan Series. I made my own word list to increase my vocabulary.
 

• Which section according to you was the most difficult and why?

For me, the toughest section was Verbal. I found Reading Comprehension to be the most difficult, because you don't know what to expect. For RC, you have to be prepared to understand the subject matter irrespective of your interest or liking.
 

• Tips for the AWA section.

So, AWA section consists of two separately timed analytical writing tasks: Analyze an issue & Analyze an argument. There is a standard way of writing the answer-4paragraphs intro, body, body, conclusion. Both answers need different approaches & there are many tutorial videos available on the internet which tell you how to start the answer. I always found Argument writing very logical as it is not very sound in the first place.

• What was your surprise section?

I was quite lucky in this one as I got quants as my surprise section.
 

• How many Mock Tests did you give?

I gave 3 mock tests. The first one was Barron mock test in which I scored 315.After that I gave the official ETS mock test in which I scored 327 & the final mock test was of Kaplan in which I scored 329.
 

• How did you choose between MS & MBA?

I wasn’t 100% ready to give up the technical stuff. Personally, I always knew that I want to pursue MBA but not right now. Right now, I still want to explore more in robotics section.
 

• Tell us about your interests outside of academics.

I love playing sports & doing standup comedy. Sometimes, I also sing songs in church.
 

• What would have been different if you had one more chance?

I would definitely give more time to the way I approached analytical writing. I needed to practice more sentence equivalence.
 

• Do you think being an engineering student helped you achieve this score?

I won't deny that engineering students perform better at calculations. Quants section was easy for me because of the way I used to prepare for JEE. I think analysis has improved because of engineering.

The purpose of performing well on a GRE exam is to help universities understand your skills and knowledge with reference to the course you wish to pursue. While these tips are helpful, one more way to enhance your GRE preparation is by using Yocket GRE Prep. The tool helps conduct mock tests and provides scores that help you see your understanding of each GRE section. If you wish to excel better in GRE, we suggest opting for our premium plan, which is Yocket GRE Prep+. 

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