One Last GRE Update

I received my official GRE scores in the mail yesterday. The only thing new was the Analytical Writing Section score, which was 5 out of 6. I was hoping to do better, but it is not bad.

This Was Unintentional

I was looking at the schedule I made up for some of my classes this semester. There are two test dates that are somewhat ominous. It was unintentional. I just filled out the schedule, and it worked out this way. The first ominous test date is: September 11. The second ominous date is: December 7.

The question is--and I don't mean to be cynical--whether the students will have the sense of history to even realize it.

It's Over!

Today, I took and completed the GRE. I am so glad it's over. I can go back to using small, simple words. I am satisfied with my score: 1380. It's not amazing, but it's 300 points over the average of the school to which I am applying.

I can rest. Except, that I start teaching Thursday.

I'm So Confused

My last minute preparations for the GRE (tomorrow, 8/14) are coming to a close. The hardest part for me is going to be the antonyms. I took an online practice test yesterday and a paper one today. Yesterday, I got the question:

DISSIPATE:

Answer choices: wander, coalesce, oscillate, exhume and restrain.

My brain went to the mention of dissipation in the Bible. I recalled it being a sin, so I chose "E" (restrain). Wrong-o. It is coalesce, as to dissipate means to disperse. Then I recalled the weatherdude on TV saying that the rain shower would "dissipate," or go away.

Today, on my paper test, I run across the word:

DISSIPATED

Answer choices: temperate, pleased, inundated, encouraged, and planned.

Remembering what had happened on the previous attempt, I chose inundated. The reason being that if rain showers dispersing or leaving or dissipating, the opposite would be that we would be inundated. Wrong-o! The answer is temperate, because as the book says, "The word dissipated can be a pejorative reference to someone devoted to the pursuit of pleasure--the opposite of dissipation is restraint or moderation." So the answer was temperate.

The online test and the book are from the same company. In one place they say outright that dissipate and restrain are the opposite.

Ugh! My brain is beginning to ache.

I think that I am pretty much done studying. I cannot wait until tomorrow afternoon when this test is behind me. I know I will do well (I'm using positive self-reinforcement here).

GRE Test Prep Continues

With only 13 days to go until I make my attempt to prove my worthiness for graduate school by taking the GRE, I am in overdrive for prep. My Kaplan Test Prep Book is smoking. Now that my teaching summer school has ended, I am able to devote more time.

I took a sample Quantitative Section (i.e. math) test and got 51 of 60 right. In looking back, I missed about 4 that were either because I didn't read the question carefully or made a stupid math error. That's the same types of things that I am constantly getting on my students for doing.

I have just started reading the Analytical Writing Section. One thing kind of struck me as funny. The second principle that Kaplan gives is to keep the essay simple. One should avoid being overly complicated. One should use simple words. I guess you could say that one should be pithy and avoid prolixity. In other words, don't use a lot of the words that the GRE insists that you know in the Verbal Section. One must know words like turgid, euphony, panegyric and torpor, but one must not use them when writing the essay for the test.

GRE: Date Certain

I just did it. I registered, and paid a whopping $140, to take the GRE test. It all seems much more real now. The date is August 14, which is my dad's birthday. I have commenced projectile sweating.

I did a practice test for the verbal section this morning. I did well on the sentence completion, and the analogies. Doing well on the analogies really surprised me. I was most worried about that. The reading comprehension was not great, but I have never been great at that. I am a more auditory learner. I hardly read anything in college. I absorbed most from the lectures, and fortunately most of my profs tested on the lecture. The antonym section was awful. It is hard to know what the antonym is to a word you have no clue about. Prolix? Who uses the word prolix? It apparently means "wordy."

I have to hone my studying, as the date approaches.

GRE Test Prep

As I mentioned some time ago in this space, I am planning (God willing) to go to grad school starting next spring (2008). In order to enter grad school, one has to jump through numerous hoops. One of those hoops is the Graduate Records Exam (GRE), which is basically to grad school what the SAT is to college. (Look, I made an analogy!)

I went out and purchased Kaplan's GRE study book. As I was studying yesterday, I came across the word "pedant," which means "someone who shows off learning." My immediate thought was, The person who came up with the GRE was pedant.

Oh well, the studying goes on. I just hope that when I finish grad school, I ain't no pedant.