The Songs of Johnny Go

Well put, my dear. Well put.

I mainly had it in mind with strangers via the comic shop. That particular instance was very new. But yes, same principle.

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tompurdue.livejournal.com

Study for five days, and you'll be OK. The math that you remember, you remember. The math you don't, you don't. You can't cram significant amounts of English into your head unless you're concertedly taking the test.

The one new thing is the logic. Spend a few days on that.

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Hrmm... Paul's posts are getting me awfully shaky at this point. I'll get the study guides, give 'em a look-over, and see if I feel like I can actually manage this.

Logic as in the math logic? I never even got past the first class of that in college.

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Tellmetellmetellme what happened!

I had to bitch out the girl at my LCS who was ringing up my comics and FOLDING them while she rang them up. I could have killed her on the spot, I swear by all that is holy.

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FIVE DAYS to study for the GRE? Oh, hon, please take my advice and postpone it. I took the GRE cold once with very little studying, and despite being a smart girl, did not do as well as I know I could have. Then I sprang for a four month class by the Princeton Review, which helped tremendously. I can go into morbid and lurid detail tonight, because I'm pounding this out at work right now, but GOD the GRE is NOT about how smart you are, it's about how prepared you are to take a standardized test. It's not intuitive at all.

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It's a long story and not worth it.

What that girl did is a fucking sin, that is. A fucking SIN.

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disagree re: the math

GRE math is special-tricks math. as in, i got As and Bs in calc all the way through finishing Diff Eq and all required engineering math. and yet i BOMBED GRE math b/c it was special-tricks fraction problems and shit that I wasn't expecting. Did fine on everything else, but man, do I wish I'd studied for the math before going in and taking the GRE blind.

(This was a long time ago, when applying for a creative writing MFA. They said I needed to have a GRE score but didn't need to worry too much about it b/c they look chiefly at writing samples for admission. For AU, I used my LSAT score, which test, albeit tricky, was actually far more suited to my aptitudes.)

From:

tompurdue.livejournal.com

Example:

Laurie is sharing a car.
Mark is not sharing a car and is seated immediately behind an empty car.
Tom is not sharing a car with either Gwen or Paul.
Gwen is riding in either the third or fourth car.

1. Which of the following groups of riders could occupy the second car?

(A) Laurie only
(B) Tom and Gwen
(C) Laurie and Mark
(D) Jack and Tom
(E) Jack, Gwen, and Paul

2. If Gwen is riding immediately behind Laurie's car and immediately ahead of Tom's car, all of the following must be true EXCEPT:

(A) Gwen is riding in the fourth car.
(B) Paul is riding in the third car.
(C) Tom is riding in the fifth car.
(D) Laurie is riding in the third car.
(E) The first car is empty.

3. Which one of the following statements CANNOT be true?

(A) Neither Tom nor Gwen is sharing a car with another rider.
(B) Neither Mark nor Jack is sharing a car with another rider.
(C) Tom is sharing a car, and Jack is sharing a car.
(D) Gwen is sharing a car, and Paul is sharing a car.
(E) Tom is sharing a car, and Gwen is sharing a car.

4. If Paul is riding in the second car, how many different combinations of riders are possible for the third car?

(A) one
(B) two
(C) three
(D) four
(E) five

5. Assume that a seventh rider is riding with Jack in the first car, but that all other rules remain unchanged. Which of the following is a complete and accurate list of the riders who might be riding in the fifth car?

(A) Mark
(B) Gwen, Paul
(C) Tom, Laurie, Paul
(D) Tom, Laurie, Mark
(E) Mark, Gwen, Paul, Tom, Laurie

They're really not that hard, cosmically speaking. I took the thing completely cold; I didn't even know they were going to ask questions like that. I didn't do brilliantly, but I passed.

But if this scares you, it's better to get some practice in.

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Dunno if I have four months. How does a month sound to you?

I was hoping to slide in under the wire to see if maybe I can't get my application to Catholic U in at the last minute. If I must wait till spring, well, then I must.

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agreed 99% -- great advice.

only i'm not sure a prep course is absolutely needed; at least get a good prep book and do the exercises and practice tests under timed test-like circumstances. time and discipline is all it'll take, i think.

but yeah, not about smarts at all -- it's about knowing that test well enough to put it in its place.

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a month would work, imo.

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Oh hell, no, this is far superior to the sorts of things posed in Logic 101. Yeah, this I could do. But I imagine you could take the math stuff cold better than I.

But now so far it's 2-1 on the "Holy shit, reschedule the test!" comments.

From:

tompurdue.livejournal.com

Glance at a test book. If it looks familiar, then go for it. If not, reschedule.

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tip to hef: it helps to draw pics and reduce names to letters (T, G, L, P, M)

f*#$ standardized tests.

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bingo!

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Then that shall be the plan. Thankee!

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metalcrowe.livejournal.com

Agreed. It's all special tricks. And totally useless word definitions on the verbal section. And bullshit writing prompts in the writing section. They're not hard so much as pointless (which made it harder for me to stomach, at least).

Actually, I agree even more with

interdisciple's earlier comment: Fuck standardized testing. I want the College Board, or ETS, or whatever the fuck they're calling themselves these days, to crash and burn, and while there at it, take Kaplan's whole "test prep" racket with them.

(Can you tell that this whole standardized testing and test prep racket is one of my pet peeves?)

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Oh, I'm right there with you on standardized testing. The hippie-run private school I went to completely showed me how fucked-up and backwards standardized testing methods are. Completely agreed.

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Wait. Don't go into this five days ahead, seriously. Because if you take this and bomb, then take the test again and do well, what colleges will do is AVERAGE your two scores, not tale the higher of the two. Don't skimp on GRE prep; some colleges really, really weigh the GRE heavily, some don't. I'd postpone, take your time, and study like a mofo.

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The prep course made ALL the difference, believe me. I used books, but the quality of the instruction at Princeton Review was a WORLD of difference. They used real old GRE tests to practice on, gave timed drills, etc. The organization, instruction, and planning of the course was outstanding. I could not have done that on my own.

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I looked up Princeton Review's website, and the cheapest course I could get would cost around $1,100. There is no way in flying fucking hell I/we'd be able to afford it.

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colleges average them? i knew that was the case for LSAT, but when I took the GRE, this wasn't the case. it may depend on the school...

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