Taking the GRE
A couple weeks ago I took the GRE for entrance into graduate school. For those who don’t know, it is the exam that many master’s programs require before entering. I took it in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, at the American Language Center and was very pleased with how it was run. The test consisted of 2 writing sections, 2 verbal reasoning sections and 2 analytical (math) sections. The only bummers of the whole day were right when they called time at the end of the 2 math sections. Immediately after time was up, I saw an answer, knew it was wrong, why it was wrong, and what the right answer was, but could do nothing about it. Has that ever happened to anyone else? But other than those 2 questions, I feel like I did fairly well and expect a letter from the testing agency stating that they have never seen such a superb test…or maybe they will just send me my scores. Either way, I am glad to be done with it.
The thing that surprised me most from that day were how many Cameroonians (and on Japanese guy) were taking the test. I say this because I can’t imagine taking the verbal reasoning sections, which are heavy on the vocabulary, without being a native English speaker. I mean seriously, how many people know the word ‘garrulous’ and can use it in a sentence? Now I am moving forward with applying to a couple of grad schools, which I will most definitely write about later.
