So on Tuesday, I will be taking the GRE for the second time. Let me first make it clear that I despise standardized testing. I’m not good at it, which I feel is an acceptable reason to hate it, but besides that, I don’t think that standardized testing shows anything about a student’s capability at anything other than taking that particular test. Tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT and others are taken so often by so many people that there is a ridiculous amount of knowledge and advice out there in the world on how to take them, so that even if you are Reece Witherspoon, you can still get an LSAT score that will get you into Harvard. Yeah, I know it’s a movie, but I still think that proves a point. I mean, if you really spend hours and hours poring over books, websites, blogs, and other media preparing for these tests and you practice your ass off, you can get a good score, but what does that say about you as a person? That you have an inordinate amount of tenacity? Well, good for you! That doesn’t say anything about whether you’ll be a good student in grad school. Not in my opinion, at least.
I suppose if you don’t prepare at all for these tests and still score well, you could be considered a good candidate, but I think this says other things about you: you have a tendency to test well, you have an excellent memory and have therefore remembered everything ever taught you in your classes that would be applicable to this test, and/or you are lucky. But it doesn’t tell me you are smart (in fact, if you go into the GRE totally unprepared, I don’t think you’re smart at all) or going to do well in grad school. Grad school is not a standardized test wherein you can pick A, B, C, D, or E and use the process of elimination, educated guessing, etc. to get it right. In fact, from what I hear, you have to study in grad school, which is something you obviously did not do to take this test.
So, anyway, everyone should know by now that I am just awful at studying. I think it’s because I never had to do it, really. I learn things. And then I use them. Or I bullshit. And somehow I get good grades. That’s really what happens. Take this year’s midterms: I had three of them. For ENG 394, I had only read one thing out of like four or five. One. 96. 90 without the curve. I did study somewhat for it but it was mostly right before class and, oh yeah, I did not take notes on about half of the material, so a lot of it was skimming over things I hadn’t read. Where did that grade come from? Well, I did remember Chaucer’s tales from back in the days of high-school, there were several questions on the text I did read, and there were questions on easy concepts like courtly love. Things you ought to know about as a senior in college. Plus, one of the two essay questions happened to be something I could write very well on. Where did the rest of the grade come from? Bullshit. Really, spectacular bullshit. For REL 323, I tried to study because that’s my favorite class, but I felt like I knew it all. I had done almost all of the readings and taken notes in every class. But I got to the midterm and felt blindsided. I had no idea how to answer hardly any of the short essay questions. And somehow, I got a perfect score on them. I missed three multiple choice questions (MAN HOW I HATE MULTIPLE CHOICE) but got all of the short essays that I completely made up on the spot without a clue as to what I was writing about right. And finally for ENG 462. Now, okay, I did get an 88 on this exam because it’s a little hard to fake it in Eighteenth Century Literature. I actually tried to study really hard for this since I definitely didn’t have hardly any notes and had barely read a lot of it. I don’t know where that 88 came from. Although I definitely got 1 point out of 5 on a question so it was obvious I was trying to make stuff up for things I had no idea about.
The point is, I studied maybe a total of three to five hours for all three of these midterms and got a decent grade on all of them. I did better than many people who actually studied. I am not bragging when I say this – I am in awe of this myself. I distinctly remember feeling like I had failed everything, and yet, somehow, I did not. And I attribute this to part actual real learning in class (supplementing the true lack of studying/reading/note taking), part cramming and adrenaline, and part bullshitting perfectly. Because that’s all it can be.
You can’t bullshit the GRE. You can’t do it. I’m trying real hard, and it’s not working for me. On the first GRE, I got a 550 (75th percentile) Verbal, 620 Math (a dismal 52nd percentile), and 5.5 out of 6 on the writing. You know why? Because you can bullshit writing. And because I am terrible at multiple choice tests. And because I haven’t had math since my senior year of high-school. And because I took the GRE after I spent a weekend at the beach during which I did not study. I didn’t know what was on the GRE until three days before I had to take it. I had no idea that the entire verbal section was basically a ton of vocab words I’d never heard of before in my whole life. I took that math section and that writing section cold. The only thing I attempted to prepare for in my limited time frame was the verbal. And here I sit on a 550. The first time I took the SAT, I got a 610 verbal. The 2nd time I got a 700. Can I do it again?
Well, I sure hope so, because most of the schools to which I am applying have averages of like 730. I need at least a 700 to have a prayer of getting in anywhere. But, once again, I’m super bad at studying for anything. I’m trying though, man, really. For the past three days, I have been simultaneously trying to improve my vocabulary and practice the actual types of questions on the GRE. I’m not going to worry too hardcore about the math. I’m not going to remember any of it on test day anyway. I mean, I’m sure I’ll improve from a 620 to at least a respectable 650, which is all I care about. I mean, on the SAT, I got a 700 verbal/650 math. That’s kinda what I’m hoping for on Tuesday. A 700 verbal would put me in like the 97th percentile for verbal. NOBODY gets that kind of score on the verbal…well nobody who takes the GRE. Whereas a 650 math will still only put me in the 60th percentile…oh well. Even if you get an 800, you’re still only in the 94th percentile. I’m not going to be too damn competitive in math, a subject I didn’t even have to take in college.
I’ve figured out, though, that it’s more about practicing the different types of questions than learning vocab. I just took a practice verbal section, and I only missed 7 out of 30, which I was content with. I want to bring it down to somewhere around 3 or 5 because I figure that’s good enough to get me a 700. Practicing is the most helpful but, frankly, if you don’t know the words, you don’t know the words. At least two of the questions I missed were because I didn’t know the words. On the bright side, I kick ass at reading comprehension. I didn’t miss ANY reading comprehension questions in the section I took. I just missed 3 sentence completion, 2 analogy, and 2 antonym. So maybe if I just step up my sentence completion game, I’ll be good. Cause I’m never going to be any better at analogy then I am right now and antonym really depends on you knowing the words.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the GRE. I’m probably going to cry if I don’t get a 700 verbal and think my life is over, but maybe somebody will take me into grad school anyway. And if they don’t, well, I have a lot of options, I suppose…
