(no subject)

[proximoception]

I'm wondering if this GRE prep book was maybe a waste of money: I've taken most of the sample tests and the recent scores are about the same as the first. Also I'm deeply distrustful of preparation guides in general. I got one out of the library the night before I took the SAT, earned high 1500s on two sample tests and went to bed happy. I got I think 1370. Not the end of the world but the library deserved its money back. Also the questions I'm missing in this GRE book are too frequently equivocal or insane, esp. the ones for Reading Comprehension (my personal trouble area, apparently); I hope against hope that these aren't representative of the actual exam. Clearly my vanity plan of drilling my way to 1600 won't pan out; but my position's precarious enough given my education history that I need to score as high as I'm capable of. Anyone who's gone through this have any tips?

Comments

[agoraphiliac.livejournal.com]

The last time I took the GRE, it was for a grad program that said they'd only look at the language scores & the subject test in English. So I answered randomly on the quantitative test: C, C, C, C, C. I was done in ten minutes.

I did slightly better on that quantitative test than I had done years before, after studying. (But both scores were appallingly bad.) I'm deeply math-paralyzed, though, so I'm not a good example of whether studying is worth it.

I think you can get the hang of their bizarro reading-test logic. I got better at it through practice. "The main point of this is..." --always something that seems wrong, but I got used to figuring out which one they thought was right.

You'll score better than I did, and I got into grad schools.

What are you going to study?

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's it exactly; I miss the "main points" ones most consistently and I'm almost proud to, they're so sneaky about them.

I'm actually taking these rather early, I figured I'd take them with Julie so we could prepare together, and maybe help calm her by being in the same rooom. Vaguely hoped I could mention a high score in some blank or other on the various transfer applications I'll be filling out in a few months. Here's the troubles: I'm approximately a year behind my fiancee (still don't know how to do accents here) who's doing so well she has a real chance at getting into the top schools for her rather narrow field: places like Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Duke. The better the school a) the less likely they'll accept little me & b) the worse their transfer credit policy will be for me. I think Stanford and Johns won't even accept someone with as much credit as I have, and at the best of times they're harder to get into as a transfer undergrad than as a graduate student, so I may have to try for nearby noname schools. Have to keep my grades sterling this term to maintain the necessary flexibility.

I'm still not decided between pursuing French or English. As you know I bristle at much going on in the latter; but that infects a lot of French courses too. In addition my French is about two and a half years rusty, and I have some paranoia about whether my poor hearing will be an insurmountable impediment to achieving fluency.

Sorry, caught me in worry week.

[ex-commonpl.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any better, I don't remember the GREs; I forgot there was a reading comprehension section at all. The way the scoring system shakes out, you can miss quite a few and still be in the 97th or 98th percentile, even though your raw verbal score is 92% or something (which, if memory serves, is not quite how the SAT works). So you'll feel like you're doing a lot worse than you are, in my experience: the test-taking experience will be extremely demoralizing, but you'll turn out okay. As the commentor above said, you might as well ignore the quantitative section, I've been told that nobody looks at that, unless it has some relation to your field.

(I curse the GREs. I will soon be paying those bastards about $150 that I don't have to send my scores out again. Makes me sick.)

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Tried looking this up and found an SAT/GRE IQ estimated conversion site, http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/GREIQ.html

On the shaky basis of practice tests I've gained ten IQ points in the last twelve years. I'll attribute this to art films and doing the Jumble and try to ignore how wildly invalid this makes all these tests look.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Also: I KNEW IT. They re-weighted the higher scores for 1995 and after! My 1370 is like today's 1450. Justice and vengeance are mine, mead for all!

[princenarcissus.livejournal.com]

The only prep book that actually helped me on the GRE was by Princeton Review . . .

Hope that helps!

(wish I had time to comment on every single one of your posts, but this is actually something that might be useful)

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

I think I agree, in hindsight. We used that and another book, a gold one, and the gold one was misleading--especially its software.

[(Anonymous)]

i stayed up the whole night watching hitchcock on amc before taking my gres at 8. got a 790 on the verbal and a 2 on the writing. so um figure that one out, yeah.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Should've watched the other Spellbound.