Wednesday, May 9, 2007

My Thoughts on the GREs...

Alright so it's taken me a couple of days to gather up my thoughts on the GREs and now I think I'm ready to share them. First off, I think it's complete bullshit that so many people bug out about preparing for the GREs (studying, cramming, etc.). About a month before I was going to take them, I started studying hardcore for them and then I started worrying about them to the point that I was feeling some serious anxiety over it. Once I got to that point, I just said fuck it. My madre put it into perspective by saying, "Look at how many stupid people have their Masters degrees. How do you think they did on the GREs?" That was when it all made sense and I decided to take it in stride. I studied a little bit for two days before I took them and made sure not to stress myself out about which wasn't a problem.

Then came TEST DAY. I got the GREs office complex and the fucking place was like Fort Knox. I wasn't allowed to bring anything into the testing area with me except my photo ID. I had brought a big bottle of water and a typical school bag filled with supplies and I could not bring any of it with me. And oh yeah my Driver's License was almost rejected because my hair was dyed black at the time that I got the picture taken and I guess with my goatee I look nothing like what I did two years ago. So once I got through that deterrent, I had to pose for a picture so that they had a face to go with my name on their computer system. And the whole testing area is wired with cameras, like a camera for each cubicle so it had a real prison feel to it. I was starting to worry that they might perform a full cavity search, but then they finally sent me to my test computer and I was able to get started.

The GRE website had said that it would take about 4 hours to complete the test, but it only took me 3. Like I had predicted, I bombed the Math section, did okay on the English section, and I'm pretty sure I nailed the Writing section. At the end, the computer flashed my Math and English scores but I had nothing to write them down on so I forgot them shortly. I should have the results in about two weeks though. Also on my way home from Conshohocken, where I took the test, I got caught behind a funeral procession of cars on the Blue Route. And as a result of me being irritated from having had to take the GREs, I found myself muttering things under my breath about the deceased. No hard feelings buddy, but I was just spent from that gay ass test.

Some words of encouragement for future GREs takers: Don't lose too much sleep over it. It's just a test and you can only make it worse by worrying about it. It's not as bad as everyone seems to make it out to be.

1 comment:

jim said...

I took the GRE's in Conshohocken too dan, and your spot on about everything...the only bit of studying i did was about 3 hours the night before, which was just to look at some basic math problems. the whole thing is bullshit.

by the way i subscribed to your blog.