Thanks to your book, I had a stack of index cards six inches thick with hundreds of the "most used words on the GRE." I spent the last six months going over these words again and again and again. I now know that 'grandiloquent' means pompous. I am also not able to say that word without using a British accent but your book did not teach me that part, I came up with it all on my own. Yes, I learned 'grandiloquent' and many other words that I will most likely never use in every day speech. Kudos to you for helping me to broaden my horizons. Unfortunately though, that's all you did. I took the GRE and a grand total of THREE of those words were used. The even funnier part about that is that they weren't used until the experimental section that all test takers are required to complete. That section doesn't even count. Allow me if you will, to recap my test taking experience.
I pulled up to the testing center. Now, I'm not normally one to suffer from text anxiety, but I had some butterflies floating around in my stomach. To my surprise though, they weren't actually butterflies. My bowels were dancing and letting me know that I might need to take drastic action and break my rule of no public number twos. The irrational part of my brain assumed that since I'm in a fairly metropolitan area, this testing center is probably big and will have large restrooms with many stalls. Nope, I walked in and it was one door, one commode, one can of air spray. This would not happen, I could suffer through the test and maybe it would all go away so I walked back to the reception area. After signing in, I waited to be escorted into the actual testing room. It was my turn but before I could stand up, a fat girl with an attitude stepped in front of me. She was there to take some sort of educational exam that required three finger prints. So Large Marge got to go in before me but what can I do about it? I waited again and eventually was led to my station.
First up was the writing portion of the exam. As you know, this consists of two essays (as an aside, i'd like to point out that thanks to you, I know that essay not only means written prose, but also 'to experiment or try,' a form which as i stated above, I will never use). One topic I will agree or disagree with. The other is an argument that I have to attack. This part was pretty easy except that the first topic was whether or not I think professors should have practical experience in the real world before teaching college. Sometimes graduate professors read these apparently so I might be insulting the very people I'm trying to impress with my scores. Touche' GRE. The argument I had to attack was about video games. No problem there, I play those. However I find it quite presumptuous that the GRE test writers think that just because one takes this test, they must be quite nerdy and very familiar with video games. But presumptuousness be damned, I rocked it. This has nothing to do with you Princeton Review but I put up with your nonsense so you can put up with mine.
Next was verbal and I had 20 minutes or so to go through 30 questions. Holy Wow, I don't even know where to begin other than to say that you need one of those EPIC FAIL posters that gets forwarded to everyone's email once a month. Yours wouldn't be funny or ironic, it would just be a picture of your book. Like I mentioned above, there was not one single vocabulary word from your massive list on this section. Regarding the reading comprehension, your "helpful hints" section told me to read the first and last sentence of every paragraph instead of the entire entry. Then proceed to the questions. Newsflash hotshot, every single paragraph consisted of one VERY long sentence followed by a brief concluding sentence. So by reading the first and last sentence of every paragraph, I still had to read the whole damn thing and they are very very long. After going through these questions, I hit the next button that would bring up question 28 and I had a minute and a half left. My thought process at this point was that with two questions left, surely it will be a couple of antonym's or analogies or fill in the blanks. Absolutely not. It was the mother of all reading comprehension entries, longest one of the whole bunch. I'm already sweating and my heart is beating fast so this is the last thing I need. I don't even have time to read the entry let alone answer the questions. Against my better judgement, I guessed on the last few questions. I blindly clicked. Princeton Review Verbal Review equals a large bag of panic inducing suck.
Now we have math. Oh boy. 20 questions and 30 minutes. I got the first one with no problem and was feeling good. Then all of the sudden I was in full on I NEED XANAX mode. In the review book you talked about charts and in all of your examples you gave me one chart. The actual test gave me like six of them and I had to extrapolate (I know that word on my own and not with your help) information from all six of them. This took like a lot of minutes and I was only on question 2. At this point I'm scared. Then the next question is complicated also and takes a lot of time. I'm in full panic mode and start feeling high anxiety and I'm worried about a panic attack. Next think I know, I look up and I have two minutes left and I'm on question 15. I now wish to GOD that I broke my rule about number twos because my butt now feels like the Adventures of Frog and Toad. Again, I just have to randomly click answers just so I can finish.
Now, Princeton Review, I'm done and I'm worried. I fear that I didn't get the required score to get into my graduate program. I'm sweating, I have a surly scared sphincter, and I just want to know my score so I can go home. No, that would be too easy. I now have to complete the experimental section so the GRE people can practice future questions on me. I spend the next 20 minutes reading questions and debating whether or not I should just click through these stupid things or if I should actually try and get them right with some hope that the experimental part was a lie and I might be able to make up some ground. The twenty minutes went by very quickly and I was in a daze.
My test was finally complete and my scores popped up and I'll be up front with you Princeton Review. I rocked out Ninja style. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whom you ask, I seem to be an excellent guesser for the first time in my life. I can very honestly say that I did that on my own with ZERO help from you. I laugh in your face and so does my butt. I did okay in spite of all of the late nights trying to remember the definitions for words like antediluvian and impecunious. So here's to my guessing ability I suppose and now I shall do my best to get into my graduate program while doing my best to put an end to your lies of GRE preparation.
Yours in complete knarliness,
Chris R. Noland
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