Not a fan. As a former teacher, I can understand the principle and thought process behind standardized tests. However, as a former teacher, I am adamantly opposed to standardized testing.
I recently had the opportunity to take the GRE test as part of the admissions process for grad school. I am really excited about starting my master's program and therefore I'm willing to jump through just about any hoop...but seriously.
First, I don't think there is any way to actually prepare for the GRE. If you actually wanted to try studying for the GRE here are my recommendations:
1. Buy a complete Oxford English Dictionary and gain a thorough understanding of all pages.
2. Make a little game of listing two to three antonyms of each word from the dictionary.
3. Be able to reason...(because this is an easily teachable skill).
4. Spend a little timing brushing up on the use of sin, cos and tan without pushing those buttons on your calculator.
5. Relearn advanced high school geometry (unless you already use it in everyday life like the majority of us do, yeah right).
6. Practice writing essays that people in the admissions office admit have absolutely no bearing on your actual acceptance into the program.
7. And finally, select your supreme being of choice and begin a regular prayer session.
You may just pass. Luckily, I did.
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4. Spend a little timing brushing up on the use of sin,
It's Lent. We've been talking about sin for the last several weeks.
But what are these things you name cos and tan?
Hmmm . . . . how about this:
We sin cos we tan.
I like your study tips because there is no way to prepare. In my humble opinoin, the fact that you can't really prepare is the whole point; they are trying to measure your ability to think and learn as much as what you currently know. I too tried to make a game of it; thought of the GRE like a really long and particularly boring round of Jeapordy. Overall it felt like a waste of an afternoon. I read an article in THE ECONOMIST recently that said (summed up in my words) "While many Universities continue to use GRE scores in their graduate admissions, the scores were found to have no correlation to student success rate, performance in graduate programs, or career success after graduation." Just another hoop to jump through: Welcome to Graduate School! - Alex
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