Coming back to the topic,  let me give a disclaimer first. This tip is only useful for those aspirants who have written Statement of Purpose on their own and are ready with a basic draft. I am certainly not a proponent of plagiarism and unoriginality.

The biggest difficulty that an average Indian student faces after having written a basic draft for SOP is polishing it. How to add Business English to it? I mean how to add words that make the essay sound professional, polished and sophisticated? What to write when you run short of ideas to write?

Don’t worry at all. Just get a prospectus book of a University that offers the degree that you wish to pursue. Prospectus Book only. Not an ebook or website of the University. Now go to the pages where there is an explanation for why you should study at that University. This page(s) is very important to you.

Let me explain you with an example how to proceed. Here is a quote from Kingston University”s Business Programme Postgraduate prospectus.

We know that undertaking postgraduate study is a major commitment and we want you to succeed, whether you are hoping to use your qualification to stand out from the crowd when applying for jobs, to help you gain that all-important promotion, or simply to expand your knowledge of a subject that interests you. We pride ourselves on offering you top-quality teaching, support and resources, and are keen to provide you with a programme that suits you and takes into account your work and life commitments.

Now edit these lines and write it from your perspective. Here is what I wrote for starters.

I am committed to undertaking postgraduate study as I wish to stand out from the crowd when applying for jobs. I also wish to expand my knowledge in a subject that interests me — XYZ subject. I believe that ABC programme at your University suits me taking into account my work and life commitments.

I hope you got the point. All the Universities in the world market their study programmes with the help of marketing material and prospectuses. They explain in great detail how an educational degree from their University can benefit you in your professional life. A simple trick is to take inspiration from their ideas and make them yours. The more prospectuses you refer, the more ideas you get, the better. But beware, don’t use the prospectus of the University that you are applying for!

Is this not a KEKA idea?

Happy Schools Blog

I’ve subscribed to their email newsletter, subscribed to their RSS feed, subscribed them on twitter and added their site to my bookmarks. But I just can’t get enough of what the blog offers. It’s a treasure trove of knowledge and advice for Indian students seeking admission in the USA and for Indian professionals seeking work at the USA. Abbreviated as HSB, Happy Schools Blog has over 800+ articles posted in it. I have read testimonials of hundreds of students who have taken value out of this blog since its inception in 2007. In that blog’s comments, there are stories of hundreds of students who made their journey to the US.

Kudos to the authors of Happy Schools Blog(HSB) to have consistently produced quality material that helped aspirants over last two years. I am not looking for admission in US universities. Technically speaking, HSB is a competitor to Interview Mantra — India. But, that fact doesn’t stop me from publicly lauding them for their work.

HappySchoolsBlog specializes at topics:

• GRE, TOEFL, GMAT Test — Tips, News and Stories.
• Statement of Purpose, Letter of Recommendation — Best practices, dos and donts, samples.
• US University Selection and rankings — produces exhaustive list of universities for various specializations. Compares colleges and reviews university rankings.
• Graduate School Application – covers A to Z of University application process.
• MS program in the US –  discusses sub-topics such as scholarships, OPT, PhD, internship
• MBA program in the US — discusses about what US business schools have got to offer.
• Education and Living Expenses –  detailed analysis of student expenses in the US based on city and state.
• H1-B news and updates — gives weekly updates and advice on H1-B status in the US.
• Job Application and Resume — gives valuable tips on sites such as LinkedIn for job search.
• Answers readers questions — asked by readers on comments and via email.
• Polls and surveys — related to graduate school application. Poll and survey results are pretty useful in making decisions.
• Live chat feature — helps aspirants to ask questions related to graduate school application live.

What I love about HappySchoolsBlog:

• The articles are written in a very simple language that is understandable by Indian students. And usually are short enough to be read in 60 seconds.
• HSB gives a real picture of education at the USA. It doesn’t distort any facts or information like the overseas education agents in India. It presents the information in a no nonsense way.
• Busts myths and rumours of students. Doesn’t encourage fake application and other illegal stuff. HSB never advocates shortcuts. It provokes people to challenge themselves to reach new heights.
• Shares plethora of information about education and living in the USA in the perspective of a common Indian Student. For that reason it ‘s very easy for an Indian student  to understand what issues they are talking about in HSB’s articles.
• Not only covers howto information but also speaks of general topics such as email etiquette while addressing a professor, how to plan education and finances in the US.
• Acts like a virtual guide and mentor to young Indian students. I have seen so many readers thanking HSB through blog comments for inspiring them to get a better GRE Score and get admit in better Universities in the US.
• HSB answers email queries of readers as public blog posts. What is astonishing is their attention to detail while answering specific questions related to education in the US.

In one of their posts, one of the authors of HSB explains the reason why HSB was started:

Students want to study in the US and that’s all they care and most of them don’t even know if the information they hear from friends or family members are correct. With so much misguided information, students make incorrect decision and end up at some university, when they could have opted for much better school.

So, HSB aims to help such students make better choices and saves them from getting into a trap of false hopes and misconceptions. I highly recommend HSB and wish their team a great future ahead!

Last bencher dozing off in a class

Hello everyone, I am Shashikanth and am just like the every other guy you find sitting at the back benches of the class idling his time away playing games on mobile phone, praying desperately for the lecture to end. Now, let me introduce you to my not-so-great academic profile. My highest qualification is a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering in a JNTU affiliated college in Hyderabad with an aggregate of 63.5% with 8 backlogs. So what am I doing here in this blog meant for “studious types” aspirants, eager to improve their skills for facing the dreaded interview?

Believe it or not, I have been given this opportunity to share my experience with you as to how I could score a respectable 1440 in the GRE Test(verbal 650, quant 790). Yes my friends, shocking it is, but I managed to crack GRE with the help of a few simple tips. I am now going to reveal few of my secret tips to get a great GRE score.

1. Fix the most auspicious appropriate date for taking the GRE test

   Generally, students enroll for GRE coaching during their semester break and take up the GRE Test immediately following the coaching classes. The myth being that their level of concentration is at the peak during and right after the coaching classes.So what is the perfect time to take GRE test? I suggest you to take your classes during a semester break and take the exam in the following semester break. Take my case, I took my GRE classes in the 3rd year 1st semester break and took the GRE test during the semester break of 3rd year 2nd semester.But, the truth is that your mind will be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of vocabulary and formulas that are needed to be memorized for the GRE. You may still want to take the test right after the classes and be satisfied with a mediocre score; which am sure would not get you an admission in the “coveted” college that you wanted.

2. Time management both for preparation as well as the main exam

   Time management is very important in GRE as it’s a timed test. You can master how to manage time with regular practice. Hence, prepare a schedule and set apart ample hours of preparation time for quantitative and verbal so as to train yourself to efficiently manage your time in the GRE test.Set your working hours depending upon your learning ability. You can take a break at times, but refrain from playing the computer games and watching TV. Recreational activities such as listening to music or physical activities such as an outdoor sport(badminton) or a refreshing walk, will help you prepare to take more load.In my case, I was more confident about the verbal section than the quantitative. So, I scheduled my preparation all through my semester break giving at least two hours for the preparation and revision of my word lists and more time for the quantitative.

3. Take the verbal very seriously

   Most of my friends prepared only for the quantitative section with the intention of trying out their luck on the verbal. They are of the notion that guessing the answers will get them at least 300 – 350. Fatal Error!! Mark my words; verbal on GRE is not as hard as you think, if you prepare for it the right way. The only way to boost your scores is to prepare equally well for verbal and quantitative as they carry equal marks(800 each). We Indians are inherently good at math, thanks to our high school math syllabus.There is no such thing as syllabus for GRE verbal section. It simply intends to test your reading comprehension and vocabulary. Practice upon the type of questions that you will be tested on. You need to memorize the word lists to get a good score in verbal section. This task can be tedious. Of course, this can be achieved by repetitive learning, but it’s more fruitful if you can find fun ways to stack the words and their meanings in your memory in a different way – such as a small song with rhyming words to remember meanings.You can even convert the sounds of the difficult words into some odd meanings in your mother tongue to make them easier to memorize. Remember, there are no standard mnemonics to learn the word lists, it’s just what suits you the best. I’m a Hyderabadi, so I try to twist the hard words into something funny in my vernacular. For example, I had problems with the words charlatan and mountebank. So I made a mental note of the sound charlatan as something to do with “chalu”, a fraud. Similarly for mountebank I made up a story: one who steals from a bank and hides it in the mountains. Very awkward revealing it, but it surely works.

4. Make your quantitative preparation intensive not extensive

   Firstly, list down the areas where you would be tested upon and then try to do as many problems as possible on those areas. I was extremely poor at math so I made sure it received that extra attention. The Barron’s is the most recommended book for the GRE. It comprises of topics listed under categories where we are likely to be tested on and special notes called “tactics” for explaining the application and the basics to solve any problem quickly. Make sure you complete the Barron’s before attempting the more complicated Kaplan, Cambridge or Princeton.As a final step, make sure you work out the quant database. For those who don’t know, quant database is a regularly updated set of questions from GRE quantitative test that are compiled from the actual takers of the GRE. This means that they are the questions that actually have appeared in the GRE test. In case you are not able to solve these questions, take help from the most responsive community for the GRE on orkut.I took my test on October 19th and I stumbled upon this database only 2 days before the exam and I could work out only the questions posted for the month of October. Believe me folks, I got 3 questions straight out of the database and that saved me an ample amount of time. If you work through the database completely, I’m sure you’d understand the standard of questions in the GRE (the questions are from the actual GRE) and hopefully get some questions out of the database.

5. Promote your preparation to the next level

   The GRE test has now reached a state of saturation. There are innumerable websites and institutes who recommend their own “tested and proven” strategies. A mnemonic that suits a person may not be equally suitable for another. So it is better to try multiple options at hand and choose the best one which is the most suitable to “you”.For example, I have prepared for the GRE wordlists from the GRE KRUPA’s Pictionary’s which served as a visual aid for learning the endless wordlists. You may give this a try.

6. Don’t take your mock test scores to heart

   This is the most important tip that I would like to share with everyone. Don’t feel at ease or be discouraged looking at your scores in the mock test. The legend has it that the mock test scores reflect the actual score that you will get on the GRE. That is baseless; no one knows how the CAT (computer adaptive test) pattern of the GRE evaluates scores.I hadn’t scored anything beyond 1100 in most of the mock tests that I’d attempted. However, mock tests provided me an excellent platform to improve myself in the areas that I was weak. So, take the tests in an optimistic way, learn from your mistakes and try to improve your scores. There are many real life examples of people scoring well on the mock tests and failing on the GRE and vice-versa. Don’t get carried away by those scores.

7. On the day of the exam

   Stop studying on the day before your exam!!! Take a break; you have worked hard enough(hopefully) to earn yourself a well deserved sleep. Go to bed early and wake up early. Don’t try out any last minute reading. Remember to carry your passport and the printout of confirmation letter of your appointment. Avoid driving to the test center as it could be stressful. Ask your friend to drop you at the test center or take an auto. Reach the place at least half an hour early so as to complete all the formalities and take the test without any unnecessary conflicts.

A reminder to all of the GRE takers:

According to the test center rules, you are NOT allowed to carry anything including your hand kerchief or wallet into the test room. You will be provided a safety locker to secure all your valuables. Two sharp pencils and a booklet of 4 pages (8 sides) are provided for your rough work.

All The Best for exam!! Do let me know through comments if these tips helped you.

Some of you feel that you should have read more words for antonyms section.

Some of you feel that you should have practiced more problems for quants section.

No matter how good/bad you have prepared till now, there is a secret tip that could give a significant boost to your score in the GRE test. Only few of the extremely smart people[like me ] know this secret.

Psst.. I know a site where you can find set of all quantitative and verbal questions that have appeared in the GRE Test in this fortnight. Yes, the actual questions that appeared in the real GRE test. I have known of so many people who told me that the questions given in the below site had appeared in their GRE Test.

Here are the links:

• Quantitative Questions

• Verbal Questions

And know what, many questions repeat over a period of fortnight in the GRE Test. To know the reason why questions repeat, you should know about how the GRE Test works.

GRE Test is a Computer Adaptive Test. The number of questions asked in the GRE Test in a particular period of time is limited. I guess that GRE test makers change these questions database every fortnight or so.

To avoid the risk of leak of their questions, GRE test takers are obligatorily made to sign a non disclosure agreement that the test taker would not disclose any questions that they got in their GRE Test to any third person, and that ETS holds the rights to void the score of the student known to have leaked the questions. Now this is the loop hole that is being made use of by the site such as the one I mentioned above. I guess that the site owner who appears to own a GRE Coaching center, surveys and collects the questions asked in the GRE test from their students.

I know that what that site is doing terribly wrong by leaking GRE questions, but nevertheless this site helps many to get to know few questions prior to their GRE test, which helps their GRE score. ETS should open its eyes and probably do something to avoid this kind of loopholes that affect the fairness of the GRE test.

Disclaimer: I have no relation or connection with the above website that leaks questions. The links are provided only for information. I neither am endorsing above sites nor am encouraging the leak of the GRE questions.