Hello guys, I am from Brazil and I am studying for the GRE. I'm a mechanical engineering from a top tier school in Brazil, so I do not have problems with the quant section. However, I do have problems with the verbal section and would like to know what would be your opinio on the following issue:

People from Brazil usually learn english in private courses (we take 3 hours per week, divided into 2 separate days) when we are teenagers (12 - 17). People who also study in good private schools (they are very expensive) also have english as part of the curriculum. However, they are not very good. Let's say that only with the english curriculum from elementary/high school brazilian would be considered a 60 on TOEFL at most. Adding it with the private course, we could achieve a 70+(TOEFL), depending on the person. Also, our mother tongue is Portuguese and we never speak english (just when we are at the university and we do an exchange program or something like this) - so, for us, english is a Foreign Language, not a Second Language (as for people from India and most of the EU citizens) - not to mention that we are a emerging country...

So, my question is: How do I get better in the GRE Verbal part? I have a 110 TOEFL Score, and something around 162+ in the GRE quant section. However, I'm struggling to get 155+ in the verbal section. The text completion is very very hard because the vocabulary is difficult (imagine if you were learning portuguese and you were suppose to know how to say "venality" "preemptive" "garrulous" in english...). Also, I keep reading The Economist, The New Yorker and etc, but it is still very hard to understand (in just 3 min) the Reading Comprehension Medium/Hard passages and questions.

I have 2.5 more months to prepare myself. What would you do? What do you suggest?

Thank you very much.