My latest GRE experience

I took the GRE again in November 2007, and although I read a couple of books and solved quite a few papers from Princeton Review's and Kaplan's guides, I was actually fairly unprepared for the questions I encountered on the test. The Verbal section was a breeze for me, because I have been reading a lot of late, but the Quantitative section was much harder than I imagined. I scored a 770/800 in November 2007. In March 2001 I scored a perfect 800/800. So what can you learn from my experience?

1) The importance of closure
I made one big mistake on my second attempt though. I didn't answer the last question on one of my quantitative sections. This I've read in many places is a bad thing and can affect your score adversely. Even getting some of the last questions wrong has a lower impact, than not writing an answer. So be sure to fill in some random answers if you are running out of time.

2) Improbable Probability Theory and Statistics
I was also quizzed quite a bit on probability theory. The questions in the study guides hardly ever tested that aspect of Math. I did well because thankfully I could remember some things I learnt in high-school. But it was challenging for me because I have been out of school for quite a few years now. 4 years at the very least. So word of advice, make sure you know the definitions of mode, median, mean, standard deviation, and can find the values of these based on a given distribution. I was repeatedly asked questions based on these concepts. Also remind yourself of the rules for calculating probability of events P(A|B) and P(A intersection B) = P(A)P(B) when they are statistically independent.

3) Make Descartes proud : Remember 2D Cartesian Geometry?
Remember the equations for a line you were taught in high school? Well you better if you want to do well on the GRE. y =ax + b. How do you figure out the slope? How do you figure out the X-intercept, Y-intercept? Make sure you remember all this. How about the equation of a parabola? If you have been out of school for some time, you really need to revise these things. Equation for a circle and other second-order curves. How long has it been since you solved a quadratic equation? x=(-b±sqrt(b²-4ac))/2a

Suffice to say the quantitative section has become a lot harder than it used to be. If you recently took the GRE and found some questions unusual, do post them in the comments section.