In the interest of full disclosure, let me begin by saying that my GRE scores seem to indicate I should have followed the career path of 'Male Gigalo' as was recommended to me in high school.
I took the GRE on Tuesday. The first thing they make you do is copy down this paragraph in CURSIVE about something to do with not telling people things. I don't know what the hell it actually said, because I was so busy trying to remember how to write in cursive that I didn't have time to focus on the content. Do you know how to make an 's' in cursive? Here's how I do it: s
Regardless, I'm sure the paragraph was important, and they confiscated my wallet and Sonic receipt, and stuffed my things into a locker so that I could not use them to cheat on the test. The center I went to was actually really nice, quiet, and the people were really cool. The only downer was I had to take this freakin test.
So I didn't study for the GRE, but I did do this sample test online which completely faked me out because it was super easy. My results online? 29/30 and 30/30. My results in the actual test? Substantially lower.
Here's my gripe. I'm a university, and I want to determine the quality of my applicants. How do I do this? Make them pay $100 to answer math questions without a calculator, and identify the meaning of words which no intelligent human being would use? Yes. Yes that is exactly how I would do it. Because both of those are reasonable tests of intelligence. If my applicant doesn't know the relationship between the words Turmulescent and Grouchodiseistablishment, then how can I expect them to be a good computer scientist? And what if the entire world gets nuked and every calculator and computer is either melted or runs out of batteries and is not solar powered? How will they be able to do the complex math necessary to keep from being eaten by wolves?
Anyway. I think it's really more of a test in putting up with bullshit. It weeds out the people who don't care. If the test is crap or not, those who really want to get into a masters program will blow money on it and try try again until they get it. Of course perseverance, dedication, stubbornness, and stupidity are pretty much interchangeable for that purpose. I fall into at least one of those categories, because I'll be taking the GRE again.
dave! thank god the only part of the gre that sfsu looked at is the writing portion and i was able to pretty much bomb everything else and not care too much. i hate the gre. i agree 100% - when in real life are we not able to use a calculator or write drafts and make edits or use a dictionary or thesaurus?
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