10 Tips to Face the GRE that the Test-Prep Text Books Probably won’t Teach you

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You might have prepared hard for your GRE, but that’s not enough. You also need to be familiar with some useful tips and strategies that test prep textbooks might not teach you. While the test-prep textbooks will help you to prepare for the exam, it is also important to take note of certain facts that you must be careful about while you take the actual test to not commit a stupid blunder. We list some strategies and tips that you may find extremely helpful while you face your GRE.


  • Never try to predict the experimental section

On the GRE, you face 6 sections – one writing section (AWA), two verbal sections, two quant sections and one experimental section (either verbal or quant). Now this experimental section is an un-scored section, implying that it won’t count toward your GRE score. But the important takeaway is that you don’t know when this experimental section will show up. You could have your experimental section show up as the third section or the fourth or the fifth- you really don’t know! So even if you have got two verbal and two quant sections already and say the quant section comes up again, do not be led into believing that this is an experimental section. It could be your scored section! So always take all your sections as seriously as though they are your scored sections. You don’t want to throw your score in jeopardy in case you just feel a section is an experimental section and take it up lightly when in reality it was your scored section!

  • Avoid attempting all the Reading Comprehension (RC) questions in one go

RCs are one of the most challenging questions on the GRE. It eats up a considerable part of your time and monotonous passages may simply exhaust you out. If you choose to attempt all the RC questions in one go, there are chances that you might just lose track of time. Also continuous reading might obscure your further readings.  However, this is a subjective choice and may vary from person to person. Adopt what suits you best.

  • Do not waste a lot of time on Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

CR questions are challenging questions and many of us use more time than is required on these questions. You need to be aware that CR questions just make one percent of the entire syllabus. Thus, do not waste a lot of time on them.

  • Do not be tempted to use the Calculator for everything

Just because the calculator is available to you as a tool on the GRE, do not jump to use the calculator for every question. Many questions that might seem computational, in reality are not tedious and can be solved by simple algebraic techniques or simple application of logic. While you do not realize it, the ETS throws you many questions, that prima facie might appear that they will be requiring the use of calculator, but you can break your question down through simple techniques. Through such questions, the ETS tempts you to use the calculator which might ironically take up longer time than what you’ll take if you break the question down through certain techniques. Most test prep books elaborate on such techniques.

  • Compensate for the time that RC and CR questions take up by Sentence Equivalence questions

Sentence equivalence questions are mostly easy (of course only when you’ve built your GRE vocab) since they require you to look for consistent synonyms, and as such they take less than a minute if your vocabulary is sound enough. Thus, you can always compensate for your time that gets eaten up in RC and CR questions on these questions. Manage your time in such a way that you can leverage this fact. It is a good idea to finish off with your RC, CR and Text Completion questions first and attempt your sentence equivalence questions at the end since all the sentence equivalence questions can be completed in less than 5 minutes.

  • Do not waste much time on questions where you get stuck

The Revised GRE is a section adaptive test. You can scroll through the questions of the entire section and mark those questions which you aren’t confident about to attempt them later in your 30/35 min time for a particular section. It is always a good strategy to attempt the easy questions that you are confident about. This not only gives you a psychological edge, but also gives you more time for the questions troubling you which you can then take calmly. Do not simply get stuck on that one question that you aren’t able to solve. You can always come back to that question as long as you are on the same section.

  • Do not leave the questions that you aren’t confident about, unanswered

While you should not waste much time on questions that are troubling you, remember not to leave them unanswered. You should know the fact that there is NO NEGATIVE MARKING on the GRE, implying that you don’t get penalized for a wrong answer choice. Thus, even when you are not sure about the correct answer of a question, still attempt it using your instincts and guesses. Although with lesser probability, you still have a chance to get your guesses correct. If you choose not to attempt that question, you altogether devoid yourself of the chance of getting it correct.

  • Beware of the questions that have multiple answers

On the Revised GRE, there are questions that have a single choice as the correct answer and there are questions that have multiple choices as the correct answers. Do not be in a blithe disregard of the questions that expect more than one answer from you as you may end up choosing just one answer for a question that had two correct answer choices, which won’t fetch you any marks. Remember that the questions with square boxes in front of the answer choices are the multiple answer questions and the ones with round boxes in front of the answer choices are single answer questions. Being in a disregard of this fact, might prove to be very costly.

  • Familiarize yourself with the 300 topics suggested by ETS for the AWA

ETS has created a pool of 300 topics for the writing section. You can familiarize yourself with those 300 topics so that you do not find yourself in a situation where you just do not understand a particular topic. Note that if this happens, you would not only spoil your AWA section, but the panic might also spoil your other sections, since the AWA section is the first section.

  • Do not ramble unnecessarily in the writing section- Focus on the pith of your writing

Your essay questions are expected to be of a length of 350- 500 words. While attempting the two writing sections, remember what you are primarily evaluated on. In the Analyse an Issue task, always take a stand. The pith of your entire essay should be the justification of that stand through reasoning and examples. The stand could be positive, negative or neutral. In the Analyse an Argument task, always try to find the fault in the logic. Do not be led into believing that only using fancy words or verbose writing can make your essay better. Focus on the pith!

You might feel better equipped to take the GRE now. We wish you good luck for your test!
Feel free to express your concerns or ideas in the comment section below!

About Skill Maestro
At Skill Maestro, We guide prospective students about the entire application process as well as suitable universities as per their profile/test scores. We have consulted dozens of prospective students for MIS across the globe. We have a physical presence in Indore where we also help students prepare for GRE, GMAT & SAT Follow Us  on Google+!

7 ‘Must- Remember’ Things While Drafting your Resume for MS in USA

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A resume, though not a mandatory document for many universities, gives you an opportunity to showcase your courses, abilities, work experience, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, enabling you to highlight your accomplishments effectively in a chronological order. Skill Maestro lists some ‘Must-Remember’ things while you draft your resume. Of course, you don’t want to be doing clumsy errors!



1.    Coherent Structure
The structure of your resume must be coherent and cogent. Plenty of templates are available online and you may download them. Be sure the template you choose adheres to this format.

i    Ordinary Details -You must list your name, e-mail ID, contact details and current designation on the top right/left hand side of the header.
ii    Educational Details - Start with your educational details. It’s a good idea to form a table listing your important educational landmarks with the following columns- ‘education’ (matriculation, +2 and college years), ‘GPA/score’, Year of Passing and ‘university/school’. It gives a concise overview of your educational details.
iii    Work Experience - Post your educational details, list your work/internship experience with the organization name and the profile you worked on as sub-headings and the work you did in concise bullet points. Mention the year beside each subheading and progress in a chronological manner, starting with the latest experience.

iv    Academic Achievements - List your academic achievements, if any.
v Co-curricular / Extra-curricular Achievements - List your Co-curricular/Extra curricular achievements, if any.
vi    Strengths and Weaknesses - List not more than three strengths and weakness each and be very apt while doing so. Do not brag unnecessarily.

2.    Do not Brag!
While it is important that you mention your achievements to underscore your personality traits, it is equally important that you do not use pompous adjectives for yourself while listing your achievements. Avoid using self-praising adjectives like ‘hardworking’, ‘focused’, ‘creative’ etc while listing your achievements. The only time these adjectives should show up is while you list your personal strengths, which should not exceed any more than three adjectives that aptly describe you. Listing pompous adjectives for your own self can portray a negative quality of ‘complacency’ in the eyes of the committee scrutinizing your application.

3.    Avoid Ornate Language
The language you use in your resume has to be strictly formal (Business English) and you must refrain from using flowery language. You are writing your resume, not an article, or essay. Be extremely pithy in your language and avoid using verbose sentences.

4.    Take care of the Length
The ideal length of a resume is one page. Remember, the purpose of a resume is to summarize your career history. Avoid using superfluous details like say personal information or anything else that may not be relevant to the scrutiny of your application. A good resume is concise and to the point. While it’s not an extremely big deal if your resume exceeds one page, it certainly should not exceed two pages in any case.

5.    Right Formatting
The way your resume is formatted speaks volumes of your organizing abilities. Stick to a standard font (either Times New Roman or Arial) with the font size of 12. You may consider decreasing the font size to 10 in case you want to accommodate more content in fewer pages, but, be sure to give correct spacing, margins and alignment so that it looks neat and clear and not clumsy and illegible. You must bold face or italicize certain important areas where you wish to emphasize. For example, say you bagged a gold medal in some competition. You must bold face ‘Gold Medal’ in this case. It makes the reader not to lose interest while reading your resume.

6.    Grammar
Ensure the correct use of grammar, punctuation and spelling. Never use personal pronouns like ‘I’, ‘We’ or ‘You’. A lot of people have a proclivity to use ‘I’ in their resumes. Never do that. For example, instead of writing ‘I managed a team of 20 people’, you should write the bullet point as ‘Managed a team of 20 people’ under the concerned sub-heading.

7.    Never Lie!
Never include any false/deceptive/misleading information in your resume. This is the gravest mistake you could make. A candidate giving false information seldom realizes that background and reference checks can reveal the truth that he/she is hiding. It is not just unethical, but also unlawful. It’s not surprising that many people have been caught lying in their resumes and lawful action has been taken against them, which involves punishments and penalties.

Since resume is not a mandatory document, you must ensure to include all the important facts in your LORs and SOPs. However, a resume is an additional furnishing document, and may increase your prospects of admission.  Hope, we made your lives simpler!

We, at Skill Maestro painstakingly work hard to put all the relevant details in professional way (US one-page format) for your US graduate school applications. Call us at 9827777288 or 8085333331 to know more about our Admission Consulting process.

About Skill Maestro
At Skill Maestro, We guide prospective students about the entire application process as well as suitable universities as per their profile/test scores. We have consulted dozens of prospective students for MIS across the globe. We have a physical presence in Indore where we also help students prepare for GRE, GMAT & SAT Follow Us  on Google+!

The Perks of Pursuing an MBA Abroad

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There are several myths about pursuing an MBA abroad. Most people think it’s a hefty expense, and several others think it’s a cumbersome process to push through your application. Most people who opt out of the option of applying abroad fall in either of the above two categories. What these people fail to understand is an appropriate assessment of taking an MBA back home Vs. an MBA Abroad.

In this blog, Skill Maestro presents some reasons why considering an MBA abroad might prove to be a better proposition than considering to pursue it from India.

Lesser Expenses – Yes, you read it right – lesser expenses! While in India, your stellar score on the CAT exam will only get you through IIMs, there in foreign universities, your stellar score on the GMAT will not only get you through an excellent management school, but will also qualify you for scholarships, and mind you, 100% tuition waivers are not uncommon there in the US! Such high scholarships leaves you grappling with only your living expenses, to cover which, a plenty of TA/GAships are available. Cumulatively, your entire expense for your MBA abroad may actually come out to be lesser than what you would have otherwise spent in most colleges here in India.

More chances to ace GMAT than CAT – CAT (for admissions into Indian schools of management, mainly the IIMs) is an extremely competitive examination and you require a tremendous effort along with a considerable luck to be among the top 99 percentiles. GMAT on the other hand is an exam that is relatively more tractable than the ultra-competitive CAT. Not that it’s some cakewalk to ace GMAT, but you widen your scope more in case of GMAT than in case of CAT.

Cosmopolitan Academic Environment – Spending months with professors and students from diversified countries and cultures is a very big perk in itself as it prepares you to get a life changing experience of the worldly ways and a wider view of learning and also help you develop a comfort with different cultures. Semester Exchanges further intensifies this global exposure.

Diverse MBA Programs to Chose From – Most MBA programs in India are generic or entail only common domains like Finance, Marketing and HR. However, if you consider an MBA abroad, you have better and more specific colleges to choose from. Most colleges have a reputation in a specific domain which makes their specific programs extremely prestigious. For example, while University of Chicago Booth School of Business, NYU Stern, London Business School are excellent for their finance programs, Stanford University GSB (USA), MIT Sloan School of Management (USA), Imperial College Business School (UK) and Berkeley (USA) are specifically known for their entrepreneurship based MBA programs. Similarly there are tons of other options to streamline the choice of your school to your specific interests in management education.

Learning Different Work Cultures – A global reach helps you integrate with different work cultures, and more often than not, the mammoth infrastructure and resources that you are equipped with, not only helps you gain a technical competence but also develops the leader within you. This can prepare you very well in climbing the ladder of corporate positions.

Robust Network – This is a priceless perk of taking a management degree abroad. The robust global alumni network proves to be extremely resourceful especially if you are to venture into entrepreneurship. Angel and VC Networks are very easily accessible in countries like the US and a robust alumni network can really be resourceful. Also, who knows you might also find you co-founders in your management school itself, much like Mark Zuckerberg! Your resource network in case of a university abroad is any day more eclectic than in case of an MBA school back home. 

Having said all this, you can again give it a thought if certain myths were holding you back from applying abroad. Yes, the application procedures in case of an MBA abroad are a bit cumbersome, but the pros highlighted above outweigh those cumbersome procedures, for sure!

About Skill Maestro
At Skill Maestro, We guide prospective students about the entire application process as well as suitable universities as per their profile/test scores. We have consulted dozens of prospective students for MIS across the globe. We have a physical presence in Indore where we also help students prepare for GRE, GMAT & SAT Follow Us  on Google+!

Fall Semester VS. Spring Semester

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Which semester to prefer, Fall or Spring? Often students find themselves in an impasse while making their semester choice for their schools and things get only worse when you don’t find a correct guidance. Skill Maestro comes to your rescue and provides you with basic insights on the Fall semester VS. Spring semester confusion.

Here’s what you need to know:
  • Lesser Choices of Programs in Spring
Most students prefer a Fall Semester primarily because not all universities have a Spring batch. This typically restricts the choices of programs or courses that you can apply to in the Spring semester. Also, some universities have Spring applications just to fill their empty seats of the Fall season. Some universities that have a Spring batch include NYU, Syracuse, Cornell, CMU, University of Wisconsin Madison and UIUC. However, it cannot be concluded all together that all the mainstream courses are offered in Fall. There are certain courses that are offered typically in Spring and some typically in Fall. Although more popular courses might be offered preferably in Fall and that’s because most students apply in Fall which renders it a common intake period.

  • Base your Decision on the Program Design Rather Than Blindly Applying for Fall just because a Majority of Applicants do that
It is always advisable to examine the curriculum of courses offered in Spring before assuming that you will not find good enough courses in Spring. It might turn out that you might be more interested in a particular program that’s offered in Spring than the ones that are offered in Fall. So, base your decision on the program design rather than stereotypes.

  • No CPT for Spring Students to Intern Off-Campus During the First Summer
Curricular Practical Training (CPT) is designed to provide work experience directly related and integral to a student's degree of study.  CPT can be typically received only after 9 months of your arrival in the US. Thus, it is not possible for Spring students to intern-off campus during their first summers. In their second year though, they can do a full-time summer internship but after finishing the internship they also need to attend one more semester at the college. This also means that they cannot do a summer internship in the second year if they are planning to graduate in 3 semesters only.  You should be definitely going for the Fall semester if you think a summer internship is crucial to you after your first year.

  • Myths about Scholarships
A lot of people erroneously believe that the availability of scholarships are low in Spring than in Fall. But it’s just a fallacious belief. The availability of scholarships only depends upon the availability of the scholarship funds with the universities. So there is no conclusive proof to corroborate the argument about less scholarship in Spring session. 

Having read this, take your decision wisely after properly weighing the pros and cons of the Spring and Fall season each.  Don’t just assume things or be misled by erroneous beliefs. Skill Maestro wishes you all the best for your application!

What do you think about this topic? Do let me know in the comment section.

About Skill Maestro
At Skill Maestro, We guide prospective students about the entire application process as well as suitable universities as per their profile/test scores. We have consulted dozens of prospective students for MIS across the globe. We have a physical presence in Indore where we also help students prepare for GRE, GMAT & SAT Follow Us  on Google+!
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