My GRE experiece!

I secured 1350 (550 verbal and 800 quant) in GRE, a score that would seem low to many. The immediate reaction that I got from my friends was mere condolences coupled with a few wishes. Almost everyone thought that I was insatiate with the score. Well they were wrong to a great extent. One would have to look into my literary history before judging my score, 550 out of 800, in verbal.

I was quite aimless until my third year of engineering. I did not have a mote of idea about my future plans. However, things started becoming clear; I somehow managed to realize that I have a penchant for technical field over management. So there came a rickety decision; I somehow made a decision to get a postgraduate degree in CS. I went on with this decision of mine and joined the most reputed classes-IMFS.

The classes began sometime in September-08, I don’t exactly remember the day but the first lecture seemed quite encouraging though ostentatious. Frankly, I don’t remember what our professor told, but what I do remember is the professor scared the hell out of me. I came to know that GRE verbal was a 30 minute exam which comprised of questions like sentence completion, verbal analogy, antonyms and Reading Comprehension (capitalized on purpose!). Oh my god, just then I realized that I had a puny vocabulary and I was never good at reading. This was not enough; I was told that GRE has an essay section. The only thought that lingered was “this” is next to impossible. But I knew GRE has a Quant section and it was this thought that was no less than a panacea for me then.

Well, I never have been in the habit of reading and writing courtesy: my laziness. I have just read 3 novels in my 20 years of life and I boastfully admit this. I have always done a lot of introspection to get an answer to this question but I never got one, probably I am not a kind of person who likes to read. This has always posed a problem for me but not as big as the one I faced when I started my GRE preparation. In the incipient stage on my preparation I did not consider it to be a serious problem at all. I sought pleasure in disparaging my literary skills, in my friend circle, but I never meant it to that extent.

Enough of digressing, so the classes began in September and I attended the lectures with a lot of interest, to learn. I was given a few materials, by the classes, which included GRE flash cards (contains 30 boxes with over 4000 words collectively), few sheets on GRE preparation and scads of exercise sheets. I brought home all of those and obviously dumped them in my pile of mess. However with some “peer” pressure I made contrived efforts to kick off with the “words”. It was then that new words started finding place for them in my callow vocabulary. Words had become a hackneyed topic of discussion in my friend circle. Initially I managed to have fun and participate in the so called words game but gradually I found myself lagging behind. This is when I started realizing I might land up in a serious problem but did not, rather could not do much as many technical projects allured me during the same time, in January 09.

The classes were going on at the same time; professor would “solve” GRE papers in the class. We always began with solving SCs (Sentence Completions). There were 7 SCs on the first page of the sheet given to us. I would try to read them and understand them and then would somehow manage to tick 4 out of 7 questions only to realize that 2 out of those 4 are correct. I would say “oh I just got 2 correct” whereas my friend- Pranav Bhansali- would exclaim “oh! I messed up with two questions”. I always tried to figure out how he answered those question, and that too correctly. I wondered if he knew some magic but then a practical thought would convince me that he is gifted and I am not. My condition was no better in verbal analogy and antonyms. But I would again convince myself, that once I finish up with those flash cards I would be able to answer those questions. I just cannot forget to mention the daunting Read Comprehension questions; the professor gave just 2 minutes to read a page long excerpt and then expect to solve the following question. Obviously, I never got those questions right because I was never able to read the passage and even if I read it I would not understand it. Again I convinced myself saying this method of teaching is ridiculous overlooking the fact that my friend had no problem with the same. I always knew deep inside that I was in trouble but I disguised that feeling with some pompous assurances.

The same continued in all of the verbal sessions I attended. I don’t remember much of the classes but what I do remember is the professor saying “Don’t look down!” (Actually he would say this whenever any student looked into the exercise sheet and not at him.). I wondered, was it some kind of mantra that he always chanted while students solved the RCs. As you know by now, I would never understand the passage so answering those was beyond my scope and aggravating my condition was the professor’s sporadic chanting which never enabled me to get a question correct in RCs. I do not say the professor was not good, he was, but I wasn’t sharp enough.

All sessions ended by march 09, and I don’t think any of those helped me significantly. By then I had taken my GRE date -8th July, 2009. Since then I had been just counting the number of months and the number of boxes of words that I had completed. By this time I was far behind my friends, I had managed to just complete a handful of 9 boxes when compared to my friends who were racing with their 17th box. This is when I started getting fits of depression (my depression is of a very different kind, doesn’t last long). Words didn’t interest me, but I plodded through those and by May I completed 15 boxes! Well I need not mention my friends were almost at the finish line i.e. the 30th box. I knew 8th of July was nearing but I was waiting for my 6th Semester exams to get over. Well, the exams ended on 18th May and by then I had a ”plan” ready for myself for the GRE.

My vacation-though a misnomer- started from 19th and as expected my laziness attenuated the early effectiveness of my “plan”. However, in two to three days time I managed to get myself on track and also got hold of all the required GRE material. I started rushing with the words, tending to get a nebulous remembrance of the words. It was not until I wrote my first Big Book test, that I realized my condition in verbal was abysmal. Now the actual GRE preparation started. I now tried to analyze my weaknesses and muddled to find solutions. By the end of my analysis I realized that I lacked almost everything which was required for GRE verbal- fast and comprehensive reading, quick understanding of the sentence structure and not to forget, the words.

I knew I had a lot of time but I was apprehensive, I was not confident enough but there were intermittent inspirations coming from within. I didn’t know exactly what to do; should I do words, should I practice more or should I start reading novels, were the kind of questions that festered me. The same scoring pattern-15 to 18 questions incorrect out of 30- continued for a long time. My desultory attempts to improve hardly showed any signs of success. This is where my friends came to my rescue.

I was guided and provided with a methodical way by the 1590 girl-Abha Ajmera. Now my preparation seemed to be somewhat organized. It was now when I started actually doing the words properly and then practicing Big Book questions. I improved my techniques with the sincere help of my friend Praneet Mhatre. These two have taught me verbal as one would teach mathematics to a primary kid. I remember the day all “GRE” people met in college, these two friends of mine patiently taught me the underlying techniques for solving SCs. It was tougher than an uphill task, my obstinate brain didn’t seem to understand anything. As a last attempt, I was made to dictate my thoughts and they analyzed my thought process. It was only then they realized my problem which hurdled my way to the correct answers. Now there was some ray of hope, within an hour they extirpated my inability to solve SCs. Later, my diligent efforts towards SCs made me comfortable in getting most of the SC question correct. This was a remarkable milestone, consequently I managed to get 5 to 6 out of 7 SCs questions correct contrary to 1 or 2.

Then came a trough in my preparation, I couldn’t see the same results in analogies and especially RCs. My continued failure in RCs vexed me and gradually I started feeling feeble. I would call up Praneet to understand a few RCs but that just helped provincially and I just couldn’t get the right answers out of RCs by interpretation or by luck. With just less than a month left for GRE, I became reckless with my schedule and everything slowed down. I never felt so feckless in life before, this was something I never experienced before. Then came those 2 days where I was at my lowest, my confidence was shattered, nothing seemed to inspire me, even doing words became difficult. I corned all my GRE material and remained in that pensive mood for two days. Well I am too lazy to be in depressed mode for a long time. So finally the second night there was a thousand percent increase in my confidence level. Then there was no looking back.

GRE is a computer adaptive test(CAT) so students solve a lot of CATs before appearing for their actual exam. The same applies to me, I had installed a few tests- powerprep 2, priceton, Kaplan-on my pc. The scores I got were horrible. The first test I wrote was powerprep 2 and got a score of 410 in verbal. Well I wasn’t surprised but that did not encourage either. As weeks went by I wrote more tests and the scores never crossed 500. However, I have recorded 600+ scores in a few priceton tests courtesy: repetition of questions(RCs). I only got 600+ scores when the question in the paper were repeated, and whenever I attempted a “new” paper the score never crossed 500. Adding to my misery, Kaplan had an erratic pattern and the scores there were shameful. But at the same time my friends were discontent with their 700+ scores in GRE verbal.

Those days of depression passed and I was confident. I continued my practice, words and had to start with a new thing now, essays. I have always feared to write essays, I could never translate my thoughts to words. But GRE has an essay section in which we are required to write TWO essays! I started off with surfing the web for essay materials found many templates, guides etc for essays. This is when I wrote my first essay after my HSC, it was a painstaking task and I took more than an hour to complete it. GRE has two kinds of essays 1- Issue and 2- Argument. In the issue based essays we are required to present our views on the topic and in the argument based we have to criticize and find flaws in the argument. The former is allotted 45mins and the latter is allotted 30mins. Now with just two weeks left for my GRE I started writing one or two essays every day. This was a place where I could see improvement, thanks to my friends. My regular chatting, on the net, helped me with my typing speed, so the only bottleneck was in my cerebral area and not my fingers. As days passed I started enjoying writing essays; I experimented with the “new” words, I had learnt till now from the boxes. Things were getting good but RCs and analogies were still floundering.

I continued my preparation solving CATs and revising words. Now I just had a week left, Pranav took his GRE on the 1st of July. He got an awesome 1410, but the thing that worried me now was where I would land (1200s). He got a few non flash card words. I was hardly comfortable with the known words and I feared of getting an alien word in the exam. I did some RnD on the web and managed to get plenty of non flash card words that had come in GRE. Took a printout and kept going through it. I was getting tensed. I could very well predict my scores but I didn’t want to. I wanted a score of 700+ in verbal but my scoring pattern didn’t allow me to dream so high. I didn’t want to land up in 400s. It was not a feeling one would like to harbor in the last one week.

It was now when, I don’t know what but, something divine struck me. I stopped worrying about my marks. I was nonchalance to the thought of getting a poor score. I had 4 CATs with me and one week to go. I made a decent time-table for my last week’s preparation. The first CAT I wrote I got 500, needless to mention, I was disappointed. The main culprits- RCs and analogies- seemed to be enjoying my distress. But I didn’t lose heart, got hold of unused materials and solved as many analogies and antonyms as I could. Having dedicated one whole day to analogies and RCs I felt as though I could cross 600 in my next CAT. But things just didn’t get better; I just got 550 in verbal with many repeated questions. Now I forced myself not to get tensed and my so called jocose nature helped me with that. I didn’t have much time left, hardly 4 days in hand and two more CATs left. I practiced few question from here and there just to get everything right, but the fact is I don’t have an aptitude for literature and building one is not a child’s play and impossible in 4 days. GRE is mechanical in some ways, so I just wanted to master it but I just had 4 days. I did whatever I could.

I solved the other two CATs; scores were quite affected by repetition of the questions in the first one. In the second CAT that I solved, I just got 450 out of 800(1250/1600) and mind you getting 450 just two days before your exam is more than enough to shatter your confidence. But by now I had become inured to such scores. I didn’t bother to predict my scores, even if I did, I didn’t think over it. My tension seemed to have absconded to some place that I don’t know. My schedule had now become whimsical; revised words, wrote essays and solved questions with no direction. Probably I was keeping myself away from thinking about the exam. But yes, I wasn’t nervous at all.

Finally, I get up in the morning to see it is 8th of July. That was the D day. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel as if I was about to take an exam. But deep within, I knew that I had to fight it out. It was not a competition for me but a battle: a battle for survival. I wanted a score above 1400, but that seemed difficult with my problems with RC, I wanted me to get at least a decent score to get in to any university. Well, that morning the weather was inclement and that was my prime concern as I didn’t want to get wet. The test centre maintains a very low temperature; I packed a sweeter, wore a full black T-shirt and a thick blue jeans. I was in the best of my temperament neither did I panic nor did I get tensed. This does surprise me now, because I get butterflies in my stomach even while appearing for my college mid semester tests. Fortunately, nothing of that kind seemed to happen that day.

I reached the centre at 11 45 am for my exam scheduled at 1pm. I walked in to see the vacant room guarded by a watchman, who seemed to be quite friendly. I was made to fill up a form and given a locker for my stuffs. The watchman verified my identity and asked to me to empty my pockets. A candidate is not even allowed to keep a hand kerchief with him while he writes the exam. I wore my sweeter over my thick black T-shirt, locked my belongings and walked in. The lady there asked for my identity, verified my details and wished me belated happy birthday-I was stunned. I then realized that just about one and half weeks back it was my birthday. I signed a log, and smiled at the webcam for a pic. At 12 noon, I was accompanied to my cubicle after a short instruction session. I sat on my chair comfortably, just as I sit always on my computer chair. I could see the CAT interface on the 19” flat LCD monitor in front of me. I was given a scratch book with two sharpened Natraj pencils.

The lady left me with the computer, I felt the keyboard and the mouse. Still I didn’t get a feeling of fear or tension. I was in my coolest mind. I went through the mouse tutorials and few other tutorials just to get used to the ambience before I could start. It was cold but my attire kept me warm. The large ear muffs ensured that I wasn’t disturbed by even a pin drop. I kept traversing through the tutorials. While doing so I entered a boring research section, it was then I felt I was ready to write my first essay. I quickly skimped through the instructions and landed up at my issue based essay section. The topic was good enough for me to jot down points on my scratch book. I quickly started off and completed my essay with 10 minutes remaining on the clock. I did a proofreading before the time expired. Next was the argumentative section; again the same story as with the issue. Completed the argument essay and with that I completed the first part of the GRE yet I didn’t realize I was there to write an exam. Now I got a 10 minute break, I moved out, got fresh, came back to my cubicle and saw Praneet writing in his cubicle.

Now it was time to write the much dreaded section, verbal. Took the mouse in my confident hands and clicked to terminate the break and entered the verbal section. So there I was, writing the actual verbal section, but it didn’t seem to be quite different than those CATs, I had written so far. The paper began with an analogy, I felt confident but didn’t rush to answer questions. I read the questions with at most care to avoid committing any mistake. But the 10th question was an RC, oh did I not tell you that I am horrible at RCs! Well, I kept my cool, read the RC, tried to understand bits of it and answered the subsequent questions. I don’t know whether my answers were correct or no, but I made myself believe that yes they were the right ones. I got the second RC at the 15th question somehow answered those. Well, all of a sudden I realized I am yet to answer a big RCs and I just have 10 minutes left. Just then on the 21st question, I got a big RC on arts-the topic I hate. That was the only time when I lost my focus for a few seconds during my exam. Somehow tried to read the 80 line passage, not sure of what the passage exactly says, I started off with the questions. Now I had 6mins left to answer a total of 10 questions which included 4 questions of this passage. I made a practical decision then, just read the RC questions once and answered what I felt could have been the answer. It was here I rushed through, only to answer those following 6 questions correctly which I think, I did. Also fortunately for me the “words” were from the boxes. Having answered the last question I finished the verbal section.

Now it was time for some fun, the quant section. Well I haven’t talked about this section, frankly it doesn’t deserve anything more than a mere mentioning. This section was quite easy to get through. I patiently answered, it was now that I started thinking what would be my score in verbal? 400? 450? Oh my God! However I soon managed to curb these thoughts and continue with my quant section. I was at the last question and I was really getting impatient to see my verbal score: I just wanted to see it, didn’t worry about the range. I finished the quant section only to find a series of instructions and plenty of next-buttons to click. I made expedite mouse clicks to see my score. Finally I was there-after about 20 odd clicks, more than a month’s preparation, and lot of depressing situations. The 19” LCD screen told me I got 550 in verbal and 800 in quant. I was relieved and happy to not have stuck in the 400s. But at the very same moment I thought that the score was not near 1400. The former thought dominated, as against all odds I secured a decent score which could fetch me a seat in very good universities in the United States of America.

Soon I entered four universities there and made a quick exit. I opened the locker, took off my sweeter, loaded my pockets and took my cell. Until now I didn’t realize I had actually given the GRE paper. I informed my dad about the score and then texted the score to a few friends. I wasn’t unhappy at all but the condolences that I got made me think -“am I sad?” I took a rickshaw for home and on my way called up Praneet, who was writing his paper while I left, to know his score. He got a fantastic score of 1510. I reached home, kept getting few SMSes asking for my score. I replied. To assure myself about the score I did a lot of research on the importance of GRE score and my current status.

It was then I realized that I had completed my GRE. I loved the experience. It was of a different kind altogether. I feel as though I had been in a battle. But this has also made me realize of my weakness. This rant is not a justification for my low score, but this is something which evinces the fact that I have changed a bit. Forgive me, for this terse, I don’t mean to boast about anything but I am plainly expressing my feelings through a medium I have hardly used so far. I could have never thought of me writing a 4000 words rant on my GRE experience. I have tried to express to a great extent but still a lot remains unsaid. It makes me feel somewhat better but also puts me in an enigma when I try to figure out the cause and reasons for this weakness. I didn’t put in a lot of hard-work of the level, that was required, but I can say I tried.

GRE is over, leaving me with more than 4000 “words” and a great experience. It is up to me, what I do with these; I could nurture it and improve on my weakest frailty or else I could just run away from these and enjoy my strengths.

9th July, 2009.