GRE-O-Matic 1600

Monday: vocab

This vocabulary entry is brought to you by the color red, the number 14 and the letter P.

P is pronounced peh ! I know you can say it. Try this sentenced: Please pay pounds to the prime minister upon purchase. Very good! Now wipe the spit off your screen.

Predilection (noun) a partiality or preference

Pulchritude (noun) physical beauty

Puerile (adjective) childish; silly

Pusillanimous (adjective) timid; cowardly

Sentences:

Puerile and pusillanimous reporters never make it in the field.
Most people have a predilection for pulchritude.

Tuesday: math

Cartoon by Dr. Wieslaw Krawcewicz, a math professor at the University of Alberta, Canada. See more of Dr. Krawcewicz's cartoons at his Web site or at the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences/Pi in the Sky Magazine online.

©Wieslaw Krawcewicz. Reprinted with permission.

The good people at ETS have provided a free (that's right, completely free) 80-page math review book on ETS.org. Don't you just love when people give you free stuff?

Here's the deal: the quantitative problems are going to require us to know our arithmetic and algebra. (So will the other types of problems, but we're focusing on quantitative problems right now.) So I thought we'd start out by talking about integers. I've heard it pronounced in-tej-ers and in-teg-ers, but no matter what it is, it's definitely it's definitely a number - and not the kind with decimal places or fractions. Just numbers.

With a few rules, where I=integer.

1. I(0) = 0
2. I ÷ 0 = Not defined
3. If you divide one I by another, and one of the two Is is negative, your answer will be negative. I.e. -I ÷ I = -x or I ÷ -I = -x. Oh, and the same happens to be true of multiplication. So -I(I) = -x
4. If you multiply two Is, and they are both negative, your answer will be positive. And the same is true for division. So -I(-I) = x and -I ÷ -I = x.
5. When dividing one I by another, your answer won't have a remainder.
6. Multiplying two Is gives you a third I.
7. A prime I is only prime if it has two positive divisors. 1 is not prime because its only positive divisor is 1.

I know this sounds really simple, and you're thinking, "Yeah, we did this in third grade," but here's the situation. You are going to see this word, integer, and this other word, prime, on the GRE. I guarantee it. It's going to sneak up on you in the moment when you least expect it and you're not at all prepared and you've completely forgotten what the heck is an integer. And that's worse than the nightmare where you're taking your GRE naked !

Other arithmetic things you ought to know include fractions and decimals. You might want to be familiar with those little numbers at the top of another number (also known as an exponent) and the rules of those, and those square roots too. Also, ETS recommends knowing number lines, absolute numbers (which, for those of you who remember the over-used campaign, is not an alcoholic drink), percents and ratios.

I suppose to learn these numbers there's no better way than posting Qs and As about some of these concepts. Who wants to be the first?

Wednesday: math

I thought we'd take this opportunity to employ a little math humor into our learning — al a Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris, famed star of "Walker, Texas Ranger," growing Internet cliché and protector of the universe, is also a great tool for learning math. People aren't bad at math; they just haven't been taught the Chuck Norris way. And, as ChuckNorrisFacts.com reminds us, when taking the GRE, write "Chuck Norris" for every answer. You will score over 8000. (Actual results will not exceed a combined score of 1600 and a score of 6 for essay questions.)

Learn with these Chuck Norris facts, all found at ChuckNorrisFacts.com.

1. Chuck Norris can divide by zero. Divide Chuck Norris by zero and you will, in fact, get one — one bad-ass that is.

If a number=x, x/0=not possible! Unless you're Chuck Norris. But 0/x=0, because Chuck Norris said so.

2. When you're Chuck Norris, anything plus anything is equal to 1 — 1 roundhouse kick to the face.

In other words, x+y=1, which means x 〈 1 and y 〈 1, where 1=roundhouse kick to the face.

3. Chuck Norris knows the last digit of Pi.

π=22/7, which is approximately 3.14. Really, it goes on into infinity. To make life simple, Chuck Norris allows us to use 3.14. In a circle, π=c/d, where c=circumference and d=diameter. In other words, π is equal to the circumference of Chuck Norris’ roundhouse kick divided by twice the length of his leg.3.

4. The square root of Chuck Norris is pain, but don't try to square Chuck Norris because the results will be death.

If Chuck Norris=x, pain=p and death=d, √x=p and x²=d means ³√d=p, especially if Chuck Norris is providing the p.

5. If you gave Chuck Norris a typewriter and 0.000001 of a second, he can write the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Damn. Chuck Norris is good. We’d express that by saying he wrote it in 1 millionth of a second. We could also say, Chuck Norris wrote that in 1/1,000,000 of a second or 1x10^-6 of a second.

Try these Chuck Norris problems. If you don't, Chuck Norris will roundhouse kick you — and no one has ever survived that.
Determine the relationship between the value of column A and column B for each problem. For each problem, choose:
a) Column A is greater than column B
b) Column A is greater than column B
c) Column A is equal to column B
d) The relationship cannot be determined

1. Chuck Norris uses 8'x10' sheets of plywood as toilet paper.

Column A: The area of Chuck Norris’ sheet of toilet paper.
Column B: The perimeter around the sheet of toilet paper.

2. Chuck Norris once ate four 30 lb. bowling balls without chewing.

Column A: The total weight of bowling balls eaten.
Column B: The number of bowling balls eaten.

3. Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.

Column A: How high Chuck Norris counted the first time.
Column B: Infinity.

Thursday: vocab

Here's the next round of vocab, all with the letter P in the most prominent position.

Paroxysm (noun) 1. a sudden attack of a disease; 2. a sudden outburst of laughter

Parlance (noun) language or idiom

Panegyric (noun) 1. a formal speech or piece of writing praising a person or event; 2. high praise

Palimpsest (noun) a parchment or piece of paper previously written upon that bears traces of erased texts

The Archimedes Palimpsest is a set of texts copied from the manuscripts of Archimedes that was likely over-written after the fourth Crusade in the early 1200s. Learn more about the Archaimedes Palimpsest at www.archimedespalimpsest.org.

Friday: sentence completion

This isn't your grandmother's fill-in-the-blanks. No, seriously. Those fill-in-the-blank tests you took in fourth grade? All the GRE experts say, "Forget it, kid! This is far different!"

The biggest difference? This is the GRE, not elementary school.

Here's a few pointers:

Read the sentence. It sounds like a no-brainer, but you wouldn't believe how tempted you'll be to skip the sentence and look right at those answer choices.
Find your own word first. Before you look at the answers EST is offering, decide on a word that would best fit the blank, according to the experts.
Don't just mind your Ps and Qs; mind your verbs, nouns and adjectives. Remember when I said it might be a good idea to know the difference between a transitive and intransitive verb (Week 1: Sunday)? Here's where it can help. If you look at that blank, and can decipher what type of word fills the blank correctly, you'll be one step ahead of the guy sitting next to you who didn't use the GRE-O-Matic 1600. Go ahead and laugh at him. You've earned it.
Take what you know — the word you've used to fill in the blank from the clues in the sentence and the word type you've determined fills the blank correctly — and find the word that fits those clues in the answer choices. In other words, look for a synonym to your word, and a word that is the right type of word.
Select the answer.
Pat yourself on the back for scoring well on your GRE.
Happily frame your acceptance letter to the grad school program of your choice.

Saturday: vocab

P. A powerful letter. Best known for its role in such words as pee and poop. Of course, it only participated in such words to make enough money to be part of meaningful and intelligent words such as:

Prurient (adjective) tending to excite lust; lewd

Physiognomy (noun) facial features and expressions

Penumbra (noun) 1. a partial shadow, such as the region between complete illumination and complete shadow in an eclipse; 2. the grayish outer portion of a sunspot; 3. the “gray area” in which something exists to a lesser degree of certainty; 4. an outer lying or surrounding region, such as the suburbs and beyond surrounding a city

Piebald (adjective) covered with patches of two colors; mottled; spotted with different colors

Piebald describes the coat on animals such as piebald pythons, piebald ponies and piebald dogs.

Sunday: vocab

Let's round out the week with some vocab, and say goodbye to the letter P.

Peruse (transitive verb) 1. to read carefully or study; 2. to read in a leisurely way

Parquet (noun) 1. the main floor of a theater, usually called the orchestra; 2. a flooring of inlaid wood in a geometrical pattern (parquetry); 3. (transitive verb) to a make a parquetry

Parry (transitive verb) 1. to evade; 2. to ward off

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Week 2