This section test your ability to read and understand /comprehend university level text or literature.
The reading section tests your skills like

• Reading to find information
• Basic comprehension
• Reading to learn

You have to read about 3-5 passages each 700 words long. Total time for this section is 60 to 100 minutes. In the Reading section, test takers can also click on Back at any time to return to the
previous question. You have to concentrate while reading these question (even though it is boring to read 3 or 5 lengthy passages). Don't Read all of the passage. Just scan for main points or gist. It is recommended that you first read the question and then look for answers in the passage. We are not going to increase our knowledge by reading these passages. We are there to answer questions. Remember that, so start reading the questions first and look for answers in the passage. There are other methods to get more score in reading section. Increasing your reading speed. Just search in google to increase your reading speed, you will be able to get a lot of material. Read novels & other materials you will improve your Vocab along with your reading speed.

Here are the items you have to take for your visa interview.

• I20
• Appointment letter
• Application
• Financial Statements
• College Transcripts & all academic documents
  
• Passport
• Financial affidavit
• SEVIS Receipt
• Pink application fee receipt
• Annual Income Certificates like (form 16 or tax forms of your parents)
• Property evaluation documents
• TOEFL and GRE score records
• Experience letter & offer letter of your Employers

Just check the site of American embassy(or the other countries embassy website ) for other information. Some embassies might require you to submit the documents 5 days before the appointment. Just follow their rules. Be confident and always maintain eye contact.

Toefl - Test of English as Foreign Language.
There are 4 sections in teofl IBT
Reading, Listening, Speaking and writing. Almost all of them are boring (honestly i was never tortured much any where). You have to sit there almost for about 5 hrs listening, reading more than 10 paragraphs and listening to more than 2 hrs of lectures. The scoring is on a scale of 0-120. More than 100 is considered a good score. Some universities requirement of toefl to get admission or require you to complete addition courses in english after admitting you. Sometimes reading may contain listening and other sections also contain integrated tasks which might require other skills. So the new toefl ibt is tougher the TOEFL CBT.

Take TOEFL IBT Overview Here

Section	Description	Testing Time	Questions	Score Scale
Reading	3-5 passages from academic texts; approximately 700 words long; 12-14 questions per passage.	60-100 minutes	36-70 questions	0-30
Listening	4-6 lectures, some with classroom discussion; each 3-5 minutes long; 6 questions each. 2-3 conversations; each 3 minutes long; 5 questions each.	60-90 minutes	34-51 questions	0-30
Break	-	10 minutes	-	-
Speaking	2 tasks to express an opinion on a familiar topic; 4 tasks to speak based on what is read and listened to.	20 minutes	6 tasks	0-4 points converted to 0-30 score scale
Writing	1 task to write based on what is read and listened to; 1 task to support an opinion on a topic.	50 minutes	2 tasks	0-5 points converted to 0-30 score scale
Total score	-	-	-	0-120

Vocabulary is the important  part of your GRE. Infact your performance in gre depends on your vocabulary. GRE exam has very difficult vocabulary reasoning section and is becoming more harder and harder. This articles gives you good tips on how to build your vocabulary. One sure hit way is to read more and more challenging material. If you read more challenging material you will encounter hard words & you will try to learn the meaning and remember the meaning since you will be using them in proper context. Reading word in their proper context is the most important thing. When you read a novel or a more challenging work the words are used in appropriate context and the vocabulary is difficult. I recommend reading works of Salman Rushdie. His works are wonderful and hard (difficult vocabulary for an international student). But start with "Word power made easy" by Norman Levis. It is a good start. You will enjoy this book. It has humor and nice concept to learn words. This book is based on etymology, which deals with origins of words. Barron's word list is a crash course. It is effective but i may not help you in getting 800/800 in verbal section. Use it if your GRE exam is in 2 or 3 months from today. Conclusion read more & more challenging material to improve your vocabulary (like practice makes man perfect)

Is the ranking really that important in determining which school to apply? Ranking is a game. A game for fame. If MIT has 9.8/10 and Harvad has 9.7/10 in US News ranking that does mean Harvard is inferior or low in standards when compared to MIT? How much you should consider school ranking for applying for university? There is a good article on how to choose or access the quality of the college. You must choose people than colleges or labs. People are who you will be interacting with and doing projects with. See their profiles carefully and their publications. How you research is being pursued in the university. Here are some stats by a Chinese university about worldwide ranking of universities. Here is the US News Grad School Ranking for year 1997.
Visit PHDS.org which is a very helpful site. At phds.org you can set your own criteria and get informations about schools and rank them.  This website also have very good resources on career develpment and advice for prospective graduate students on how to apply for unviersities.

Here is  a good description of how GPA is calcualted. So people can compare their local percentages with the gpa of US Education system here. Some universities use a different scaling system. Normally they mention how to convert them to GPA system in transcripts. But most of the students from India get into problems when sending the transcripts since the universities donot accept transcripts send directly by the applicant. In such case i would suggest, get your transcripts signed and sealed on the cover by assistant registrar of registrar or head of your under-graduate section and send them to the university.

Here is the list of items that you have to send to unversities while applying for Graduate programs.

• Letters of Recommendation (3 or 2 depending on university)
• Statement Of Purpose
  
• Application (if offline. Send print out if it is online. Depends on university)
• Degree Transcripts (all degrees from college. B.S or B-tech , B.E etc)  sealed and attested properly
  
• Official Gre Score Reports (sent by ETS)
• Official TOEFL Score Reports (sent by ETS)
• CV (Curriculum Vitae or Resume`)
• Photo copies of GRE & TOEFL Score Reports (Till the official ones reaches, they will consider these).
• Application for Graduate Student Assistantship (if there is one for ur university)
• Financial Affidavit form (for international students)
• Other Related documents (Photo copies only. These documents like awards, published papers, training certificates, etc..)
• Photo copy of you passport (if necessary)

Read the application instructions carefully. All universities give clear information on what documents need to be sent to them. Don't send any unnecessary documents which piss them off and waste their time. Don't send them mark sheet of your 10th class or 12th.
Most of the universities provides a checklist of items to be sent. So get a printout and use it. Even if any one of the items is missing your application will be incomplete and you will be in trouble. Double check every paper or document you are sending .