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GRE - How to Score a Perfect 340?

An exclusive interview with GRE coaching expert Mr. Nirav Rawell, Business Head, IMS Bangalore on
scoring a perfect 340 GRE Score! An excerpt of the interview is given below.

About IMS (http://www.imsindia.com/): IMS Learning Resources Pvt Ltd. (http://www.imsindia.com/) is

India’s one of the oldest and most reputed training institutions which prepares students for entrance
examinations and professional courses. Founded in 1977 by Prof. Nagesh Rane, the institute has grown
tremendously with 75 centers spread across 44 cities in India. The institute believes in mentoring,
motivating, guiding and accompanying student to achieve their dream of crossing the threshold of entrance
exams and studying in one of the top management institutes in India or abroad.

Nirav Rawell, Business Head, IMS Bangalore: Mr. Nirav Rawell, Business Head, IMS Bangalore, has 8+
years of experience across Technology, Infrastructure and Education sectors. He holds a BE degree from RV
College of Engineering (Bangalore) and an MBA degree from Indian School of Business (Hyderabad). He
has been associated with IMS Bangalore for the last 4 years mentoring students in Study Abroad options for
BS/MS/MBA programs. Till date, he has mentored more than 1,000 students and helped them achieve their
study or career goals.

Who should take up the GRE exam?

Ans: GRE (http://www.thinkvidya.com/gre-exam) is an exam that is meant for students who are looking for a
Masters or a PHD program. Typically, students who go for it are either in their pre-final or final year of their
colleges and people who have 2-5 years of professional experience. In case of PHD program, we have
candidate who have 10+ years of experience. There is a whole gamut of people who can go for the GRE
exam. Nowadays, there are a lot of B-Schools who accept the GRE scores.

How is GRE score different than GMAT?

Ans: To be honest, scores doesn’t matter much it is the skills that matter most. Earlier GRE was for 1600, out
of which 800 was for Verbal Section and 800 for the Quant section. Sometime back they have reversed it
and now each section is of 170 marks. Actually 170 can be a little misleading, as core score ranges from
130-170. So even if a student gets all answers wrong they still get a bare minimum of 130 score in each
section (total 260).
The absolute value of a score is not important, actually it is the band that matters. Obviously, any exam you
take the higher the score is always better. If you are an Indian student looking for a Computer Science
program in some of the top colleges, since it is very competitive filed – it is ideal to score 320-325 out of
340. On the other hand, humanities students and people who are looking for Masters in Architecture, even
if they score 310 it would be good enough to get into some of the top colleges or institutes. So it actually
depends on which stream a student is applying, even within Engineering if he/she is looking for non-
computer science courses like Civil or Mechanical (a non-mechanical course), you don’t need 325-330, and
even 315-320 would be good enough. For example, a Civil Engineering student who scored 320 got into
Stanford University.

And if you see GMAT (http://www.thinkvidya.com/gmat-exam), a bare minimum score of 700 (out of 800) is
must to get into any top colleges, otherwise it will be very difficult. Majority of students who convert into
best colleges such as Harvard University, Kellogg School of Management, Walton College of Business,
London Business School (LBS), are the ones who scores 730-780. But there are exceptions, people with 700
and 680 score have also converted, but it is not of the score because of the profile.

What suggestions would you like to give to students who are gearing up for GRE (all sections)?

Ans: The whole idea of GRE is to be taken by students who are looking for an MS program. The analytical
aspect is there, but it is not as much in focus as in GMAT. Here it is, a lot of rigors that students should be
really prepared to give in those number of hours and efforts. If we take the Verbal Section, we start with that
as it is the tougher of the two sections at least for the Indian students. It has 40 questions across two
sections, 50% for vocabulary related questions and the remaining 50% for passage related questions. And
for the vocabulary part, generally people suggest 3500-4000 words that they do need to prepare. I think
that should be good enough. You don’t have to by heart everything as it is more of a context related
questions, but still you do need to have a very good vocabulary to do well in that. Students need to spend a
huge amount of time by going through the words and understanding the context – where to use the words
or to settle differences. As you do better and better, you probably will get words whose popular meaning is
very well-known but whose secondary meaning is not all that well-known. And the question would be asking
for the secondary meaning. For the Verbal section, I would say that you need to spend a lot of time
improving your vocabulary and that’s not possible by hearting words. Understanding the context and the
scenarios in which the words are used is critical. For the passage based section, it’s more about trying to
understand the main idea of the passage, to get the big picture and get the flow of the passage.

In the Quant section (http://www.thinkvidya.com/a/strategies-to-crack-gre-quant-section), again you have

two types of questions – you have the direct problem solving questions which are pretty straightforward and
it should not be very difficult to do. But they also have healthy dose of questions that require you to
compare – they would have given two quantities where our job is tell whether the first one or the second
one is more or both are equal or same determinants, we cannot decide. Actually that type of question is
quite low in comparison to problem solving questions where easily 80-90% accuracy level is possible. Data
suggests that Indian students are not very good at comparison type because these are more analytical. You
just need to evaluate all possible scenarios and get the comparison done. Special focus should be given to
these type of questions. Because that can make the difference between 160 or 168 score in the quant
section.

340 is a perfect GRE score. What is above average score in GRE?

Ans: It depends on the stream but I would say 320+ is a good score which can get you in any of the top
colleges. For example, if a Computer Science student wants to get into Stanford University a 330-335 score
is required, but if you are a Mechanical or Civil student 320 -325 score is also good enough to get in any
top colleges. In addition, these top colleges have a set number of students they want to take from different
regions in order to maintain diversity. When you are competing, you are competing with candidates from
different countries and fellow Indian applicants as well. Since, majority of the students are from these
Computer Science and Electronics kind of fields, they would be looking at a Masters in that field itself.
Therefore, even if you get 320-325, your co-applicants from India must have scored around 330+ plus score,
that’s why its lot more competitive in Computer Science related field and less in the others.

If two students score the same in GRE, on what basis they would be selected?

Ans: GRE score alone will not get the admission and what’s important is also something called as SOP
(Statement of Purpose) (http://www.thinkvidya.com/a/tips-to-write-good-statement-purpose-gre)that every
student has to furnish. It talks about you, your profile, background, your list of achievements, and at the
same time your career aspirations – what you intent to do in your future, and how an MS from XYZ college
can help you achieve that. The SOP and the Letter of Recommendations that you provide, they really go a
long way in deciding whether you will get the admission or not.

Letters of Recommendation are mandatory (not optional). Majority of the students must have done some
sort of Internship and they can get one letter of recommendation from their Mentors (who is not a professor
from the college, but someone from the corporate world). Most of the universities will ask for 3 letters of
recommendation, out of those three a student can get one from someone who is working in a corporate
setting, the other two can come from professors who have taught two subjects (preferably those subjects
which you are looking to do masters in). Ideal case would be, if a student can get one letter of
recommendation from someone working in a Corporate and two others from their college.

A common mistake a lot of Indian students do in providing the Letters of Recommendation is that they get
it from their relatives if any of them are working in a senior role in a corporate set up. Most of the times,
students would not have worked under them which shows in the letter of recommendation. So it is advisable
to get letter of recommendation from someone under whose supervision the students have worked.

In case of a professional with 2-3 years of experience, they can get two letter of recommendation from their
workplace and one from college preferably from a Professor or HOD (Principal, not recommended because
they hardly take any classes).

In addition to a good GRE score. What else top International institutes look for in a potential student
for business programs and MS programs?

Ans: If we are looking at an MS program, I would prefer (if I am one from the Admission Committee) and
really want to see how passionate and interested the student is in a particular course. Now what the vast
majority of Indian students do is, they have attended the subject in college and they really liked it and also
have done a project in a semester and so he/she is very motivated. Now attending a subject and doing a
project is part of the curriculum that doesn’t really show your passion. If you are really passionate about it,
you would have probably presented a few papers on that topic, you would have done some extra projects
on your own, participated in an intercollegiate competition in state and national level, presented few papers
in that particular field and won a few prizes. I would be rather interested in knowing the level of interest of
the candidate in the subject. Students should prove their level of interest through their actions rather than
talking. It is very easy to talk and very difficult to walk the talk. I would have checked, these extra activities in
an MS student, to gauge their level of interests in the subject. But when it comes to business the
requirements are slightly different, they really want to see – if the person is multi-dimensional, if they are
good at one thing and not capable of doing other things probably not a best fit for a manager. At the end
of the day, the role of a manager is to multi-task or handle different things, leadership abilities, taken few
initiatives at college or at work or even outside. Do they organized college debates what was their role in
that, maybe involved in social work outside their college or work? Candidates need to showcase different
aspects of one’s personality which actually show a well-rounded personality and show that they have more
than just one thing in them. That’s what business programs would look at.

One interesting things have come up, a lot of Indian students who have 3-4 years of experience, they are
looking at roles which have a technical component and which also have a business related role, as a result
there are few colleges in the US that have come up with a very unique program called Masters in
Engineering Management. What this does is that it takes 50% of the credits from the MS program and other
50% of the credits comes from the MBA program. Therefore, the roles that students get after completing
these programs are techno-managerial – there is a lot of technology but at the end of the day you are a
manager as well. Some of the colleges that are offering these are some of the best colleges e.g. MIT,
Stanford, Cornell University offers this program. Masters of Engineering Management is something that
students should look for it if they have few years of experience and looking at techno-managerial role. This
role is best for someone who has technical education & experience and who is looking forward to leverage
both his technical skill and at the same time move into managerial role. As it is a niche program, the number
of students’ intake is very low 50-60 maximum. It is competitive program, but the roles a student gets after
this is a very meaningful role e.g. if you have done an MS and seek an employment in Google, it will hire
you for pure technical role – you will be doing coding, feature management etc. When you do MBA, the
role will be more sales driven, how to increase clients and more, but if you have done MEM (Masters in
Engineering Management) Google will still hire you for a Program or Product Manager, let’s take an
example Google is coming up with a new feature, recently they have come up with ‘Inbox’ so the MEM
person will be probably a manager of that product where he needs to understand what technology is going
to go in that particular product but also he needs to understand the business implications. Therefore, steps
need to be included in the product to push for those features. All three MEM, MS and MBA programs, they
have well defined roles and responsibilities – MBA is more business-oriented, MS is more technical and
MEM is a blend of both.

How to score a perfect 340?

Ans: My suggestion would be, you need to strategize well and play your strengths first. You need to focus in
Math and ensure to get a 170 (minimum). Usually, lots of Indian students score 170. Verbal part is always
going to be a grey area so the best you can do in the Verbal section is devote enough time to the tougher
questions as well be very good with your vocabulary. Be very awesome with Vocabulary, otherwise you
won’t get a 340! However, that doesn’t mean by hearting meaning of words, knowing the synonyms for
whatever it is. Understanding the context is super important, GRE doesn’t have antonyms and synonyms
questions anymore, where you just need to look at the words and guess the opposite. There will be fill in
the blanks, so ability to understand the context is very critical and there is no substitute for hard work –
definitely a lot of words of hard work.

There is one major difference between GMAT and GRE, GMAT is more analytical exam you really don’t
need to prepare all that much 2-3 months of preparation along with work would be sufficient. In GRE, you
need to prepare a lot and put in efforts, to get a good score. Ensure that you at least get 170 in math and
push as much as you can in the Verbal section. Even if Indian students are good in Math, people tend to get
160-165 and they are happy with that as it is a good score. But anything less than 170 means you are under
selling yourself because the math section is easy. For verbal refer multiple sources, nowadays there are a lot
of free apps are available online that students can download and practice words every day. At the same
time focus on passage based questions, in that you have few critical reasoning questions that are logic
driven (they are not standard reading comprehension). Understand how to tackle those. Learn different
techniques in the vocabulary part e.g. the common techniques are word association techniques where you
learn a bunch of words which have similar meanings and using etymology (though long route to mastering
English, but definitely very useful because English is derived from multiple languages if you know few rules
in Greek and Latin you will immediately know about half a dozen words in English that comes from one
single root.). Practice more of context questions. There are a lot of helpful resources online. Students should
read and refer multiple sources.

What GRE aspirants should avoid on the exam day?

Ans: There is no point of doing a lot of things in the last 2-3 days before the exam. Scout the venue in
advance. Ensure that you carry your passport (as that is the only recognized photo identity card). Don’t
stress yourself and be confident in your preparation. Reach the place well in advance, use the breaks well
because you have enough breaks. As it is a long 4-hour exam, so freshen up in between to keep yourself
active.

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