I have often read sajha posters talking about their life experience here and immensely enjoyed those postings. I also wished I had something interesting to contribute, and wondered whether I was leading a dull life. Well, this Christmas I decided to take the GRE test and the experience in my view is worth sharing. I was mulling to go to one Ivy school, and there was no way to persuade the school to accept me without GRE.
I didn’t know why they even want it or what it tests. Now I have become old, about thirty. I used to have a sharp edge, and I was not sure whether I was retaining my sharp edge or not. The professor I was talking to in my intended school had assured me that GRE wouldn’t matter a lot in admission decision itself, but it would matter if I were competing for departmental fellowship. And I intended to compete for the fellowship.
So, I downloaded the test materials from ETS.org, and also bought tenth edition book which had seven real tests. When I was doing the first part of the real time test in powerprep software downloaded from ETS, I realised that Math was easy, but my timing was not as good as it was supposed to be. I couldn’t finish three questions on the math section, and it kind of worried me since in my field math score is very important. I looked at one of the websites run by one Indian IIM student, who quipped that not getting 800 in math is a crime.
Since I had allowed only one week for taking the test, I realized that I was in a difficult situation. But when I was taking the second test (of GRE powerprep downloaded from ETS site), I did pretty good. I got more than 700 in verbal, and full marks in math and it relatively soothed my nerve. I knew that if I did as good in the real test, I would be scoring 1500, which wasn’t a bad score even for Ivies.
I went to take the test and as I drove to the test center, I became increasingly tenser. To make the matter worse, I hadn’t slept well the previous night, trying to cram all the obscure English words. Sometimes, I used to get confused by simple words such as ‘bewilderment’ and sometimes I used to get confused about the difference in the meaning of the words such as ‘discomfit’ and ‘discombobulate’.
I had to sign a pledge inside the test center, promising that I wouldn’t reveal any question to anyone. Those promises are empty as far as I am concern, and I will tell anyone who asks me about the questions, I know. I used the restroom a couple of times, and asked the proctor if I could take my starbucks coffee with me. She wouldn’t allow Starbucks and I was also asked to put everything, including my wallet, cellphone and even the jacket, in the locker outside.
Inside the videotaped test center, I could see about twelve tense people taking the tests. I later realized that not all were taking GRE. It was Thomson Prometric test center, and the center also offers tests of as diverse subjects as CPA and TOEFL, I later learnt. The proctor took my photo, and handed me some scratch papers, and two pencils. I was then taken to a computer, and asked to sit there and take the test. My heart was palpitating, and I was feeling I was kind of nervous.
Before the test even started, the computer gave me instructions on how to use the mouse, keypad etc. Great lesson: I thought. The first two sections were analytical writing section. The first gave me choices between two essays, and the second was about arguing about a topic. I felt good when I wrote the essays. I thought time was more than sufficient, and I took a break to go to restroom. I told the proctor that I had sipped too much coffee.
The third section was quantitative. I had hard time finding an answer I calculated for the probability topic, and I spent a few minutes lingering there. Otherwise, I felt pretty good, and time was more than enough. I think I finished ten minutes earlier. But there were about two questions I was not sure about in the math section. The good thing about GRE is that you can guess without fearing to lose any point. If you are lucky, you can still come home with full marks not knowing what you did at all!
The verbal. Man, what a section. What a test. The question kept on coming. I was bombarded in such a speed! I didn’t really think I stopped to think much. The analogical sections were always confusing, but the passage was the hardest one. When I was reading the passage, I had a feeling that I was unable to concentrate. I was thinking about too many other things, and I felt I just wanted to run out of the test center. The questions kept on coming, and I felt I was in some kind of dazed state. The passages were about literature, about anthropology and about astrophysics. The last one was kind of hard to understand, and I had to make some informed guesses on a couple of them. Antonyms were easy, but still there were posers.
I was then asked to participate in a test that was not going to be graded. I was like ‘hell with it’, and so I skipped that section. Then the computer asked me if I wanted to see my score, or I just wanted to cancel it. I was feeling good, and so I confirmed and reconfirmed that I wanted to see my score. When I saw the score, I was surprised.
Verbal: 800
Quantitative: 800
I had scored full marks in a lot of other tests, topped a lot of other exams, but these full marks came so easily in my view. Sure, I was so excited, I was so proud of it for a moment, and I wanted to tell my friends about this, but later I decided not to. I haven’t told my family members also, because they don’t understand much about it anyway. It will be hard for me not to show this off for long, however, and I know it (so I decided to start with anonymous posting in sajha). No one knows more than I that these grades are just that, but still there is such a nice feeling to see full marks on your transcript. I checked an ETS website, and it says 1 in every 100 students get 800 in verbal, and 3 in every 100 students get 800 in math. (in fact, the percentage for math is even higher in other places I have seen, reaching as high as 3 in 100). It is not clear, however, how many students get full marks on both sections.
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