So I took the GRE tonight!
First, some background: I haaate standardized tests and always have. It’s not that I find them difficult or stress out over them, but I do get very bored taking them. Very bored. Which leads to carelessness.
Anyway, I took a practice GRE with no preparation whatsoever, just to figure out what my base is. I got a 560 in verbal and 410 in math. This did not surprise me, because I am terrible at the sort of math that is on the GRE. It’s all that practical, useful math that I just can’t wrap my brain around. I’ve never been good at it, as anyone who’s been out to dinner with me can tell as I frantically attempt to calculate 15% tip. I can consume a page of text in the blink of an eye, but ask me anything about probability? It just won’t happen.
After doing some practice sets over some time, I took another practice GRE and got a 660 in verbal and 610 in math. How delightfully even! I felt pretty well prepared for the real thing.
So, after tonight’s test, the results are in:
Verbal: 580
Math: 700?
…
What is that you saaaaaaay?
So yes, I can chalk up the verbal score to me getting hungry during that portion of the exam. But I have no explanations for the jump in math. Perhaps my math brain was just getting tired of me talkin smack about it.
Either way, that’s one step closer to grad school application, and hopefully I will never have to take a stupid standardized test again!