The GRE: Greatest iRritant Ever

Since in my last post I explained my impressions of grad school, I thought it would be appropriate to explain my experience with the GRE in this post.  For those who don’t know the GRE stands for Graduate Records Examinations (it’s kind of like the SAT for college grads who desire go for masters or PhD work).  I took the GRE for the first time in January 2015.  These are my actual scores.

 (Don’t judge me! I actually did make it into grad school. Granted it had very little to do with these scores…) I really did get into grad school but it was on a probationary basis, meaning I had to take the GRE again and bring up my writing scores. So here are some of the things I learned while studying for the GRE both times.

The GRE is set up into three sections, Writing, Vocabulary or reading comprehension, and quantitative (math ewwww!)  The first part is the writing, you have to analyze an issue and write a response in 30 minutes for the first essay and for the second you must analyze and respond to an argument in 30 minutes. Here is an example for one of my better “analysis of an issue” Essays.

Equal opportunity is a foundational ideal for Americans.  It is part of the American dream that someone can be anything they want to be and get paid for it.  In accordance with this, a person should get paid according to the work they do and how well they do it.  Athletes are an excellent example of this concept. Athletes are paid in proportion to their ability, their work load and their desirability.

 Everyone has the opportunity to be a professional athlete but not everyone has the ability to be a professional athlete. Athletes have unique skills and abilities that allow them to play sports at a level higher than most.  I certainly do not have the abilities of my friend Darius who is an excellent football player let alone someone like Kobe Bryant or Eli Manning who have spent their whole lives perfecting that ability.  These individuals make a salary based on those abilities.  Likewise many athletes would not be hired let alone paid well as a nurse or a teacher.

An athlete’s work load is quite high as well.  Athletes must literally dedicate their lives to be the best to stay desirable to their employers, with workouts every day, practices, and games.  Many times an athlete must be far from their families for long periods of time.  Many contracts stipulate that athletes must make appearances at functions they may not personally support.  As someone once said the price of fame is high.

All this being said, some may still have a hard time understanding why an athlete is paid so much more than a nurse or teacher.  Do not these professions require the same dedication and sacrifice?  That is true, however desirability also plays a part in our society of equal opportunity.  Teachers and nurses are not watched on television or asked to promote products.  It is about what the public is willing to pay and let us face it, the general public sees healthcare and education as rights.  Things they are entitled to, therefore believe these things should be free and provided for them.  The public does not invest in these areas of employment as they do professional athletes.

In a perfect world there would be people to invest in education and healthcare on the same bases as they do their entertainment but that world does not exist.  To raise the opportunities for nurses and teacher to that of athletes those in charge must change an entire culture.  As Sam Walton once said, the customer is all of our employer. – Practice Example from me

Not bad for 30 minutes.  And no fair stealing my ideas! Practice a lot on this portion, take advantage of every practice essay prompt you can find, this was my fifth practice essay. (The ETS or company who produces the GRE offers a pool of practice prompts on their website. https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/analytical_writing/issue/pool)

The second part is the Vocabulary section.  The first time I took the GRE, I used a book from the Kaplan test preparatory company. It was quite helpful (I did make it into grad school remember). I remember one particularly helpful hint and now I pass that hint to you.  The book said that the most common vocab words were as follows (in no particular order):

Assuage Opaque Mitigate Precipitate Prodigal Vacillate Adulterate Abstain Apathy Corroborate Engender Audacious Anomaly Erudite Propriety Zeal

Placate Fervid Lucid Loquacious Gullible Laudable Pragmatic Ephemeral Laconic Pedant Equivocal Volatile Enigma Capricious Desiccate Homogenous

No! I’m not going to tell you what they mean, you still have to study, but it was true I started seeing these words all over the practice exams, in the exam itself and later on in Grad level classes. Alright I’ll give you a hint on one! (see video below)

A cool side note is that Liberty University (my alma mater) offers a senior cap class for history majors and a requirement for this class is to take three GRE practice tests. (I did not realize this before I took the exam the first time.) It was in this class that I was introduced to my new best friend (at least for the GRE prep).  I had to take the GRE a second time and The GRE for Dummies was the most helpful of any resources I found.  I have never much liked the “For Dummies” books before but this one has lots of good stuff in it.

Another resource I found when I was searching for study aids, was Magoosh’s (https://gre.magoosh.com/) app for vocabulary words in the GRE and other standardized tests, in a flash card style game that helps you learn and practice vocabulary used in the test and the best part is that the app is free. So if you have access to the technology, take advantage of it. [Here is a screenshot of this app.]

I learned all sorts of great long words that I use every day since taking the GRE…just not in this post.

And there is of course a math portion as well but I’m a history so…guessing is a perfectly fine strategy. Unless you are, you know, a math guy.  In all honesty, most of the math portion is to test your logic skills.  So, if you know a little math and your logic skills aren’t bad and you have a forgiving grad school, you’ll probably do fine.

If I may summarize what I have learned while studying twice for the GRE it is this, always take advantage of the many tools offered to you.  I hope the few that I provide in this post help.  The other point I would like to hammer home is study.  I did not do that great of a job preparing the first time and it hurt me.  The second time I wrote seven practice essays while being timed and practiced my vocab words almost every day.  If you do a little each day leading up to your GRE it is not as intimidating.  I hope you do well and good luck in grad school!