Has anyone on this board taken this ridiculous test? For those that scored high what advice can you give for test prep?

I took the MAT for grad school admission, and I may use it again at this same school for the PhD program, because I basically aced it. But I'm looking at a couple of other PhD programs who require the GRE. I took the subject GRE for psych like ten years ago when I was considering matriculation at a different school. But I know nothing about the general test.

Never taken the GRE but I wanted to wish you luck.

Stymie said:

Thanks. I just found some resources on the internet. This test, to me, seems quite ridiculous as a general admission for Master's/PhD. At that level your focus is more concentrated. All that algebra I forgot...why do I need to be tested on that in order to get a job helping families in crisis.

Mr. Smith, to help you better relate to your wife's need I'm going to solve these algebraic equations. I'll be back next week. Good luck.

I took the GRE in 2002, my school only looked at 2 of the areas so I concentrated on those and GUESSED on all the math questions. I went out to the site (whatever the testing site is) and took all the practice tests I could. I bought the book GRE for dummies but didn't use it. There are hundreds of analogies so I had to brush up on those. I scored well enough to get into my program after being out of school for 15 years.

good luck

I have taken the GRE, LSAT and GMAT tests.....look into attending a prep course in your area. That helped me out.

cubic61052 said:

OK. I did that with the MAT several years ago, and it worked. That one hour prep helped me to score significantly higher than what I needed, achieving a PhD admission score.

I took it about five years ago. It was just as they were requiring it to be taken on the computer, but I snuck in before they made the essay mandatory.

I didn't take any special Kaplan Prep course or anything, my studying consisted of 3 parts:

1. I bought a book that was something like "The GRE in 24 Hours" and each of the twenty-four chapters focused on a different part of the test, including practice exercises and was supposed to take an hour to do each one.

2. I bought the Kaplan study book for the vocabulary section only. I knew I was applying to Art History MA programs, so I figured it was more important for me to score higher on the vocabulary part than math/logic*. I made flashcards for the top 50 words or whatever and studied those.

3. Once I registered to take the test, they sent me a cd that had practice tests you could take on the computer. I did those, and based on the results went back to the "24 Hour GRE" book and re-did those chapters.

The MA programs I was applying to also did not give out Fellowships, so I didn't have to worry too much about getting a super-high score to qualify for that. I just needed a high enough score to be considered for the program. I set a goal for myself and said if I scored between that range I would be satisfied. I made my goal, and got accepted to my first choice, Columbia University.

Good luck!


*Not to sound arrogant, but I'm also very good at math anyway, so I barely even studied that. Just brushed up on formulas.



good at math, but horrible at spelling edit

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[Edited 5/7/08 14:26pm]

I've always been a standardized test taking fool, so I took it cold and did well enough to get into my graduate program. But everyone's different and I know many people who've taken various prep courses and said they were helpful.

Thanks everyone. If anyone wants to orgnote me their scores...

butterfli25 said:

I just noticed this. Is this a common practice? Why would the school require you to take this test then diseregard a huge chunk of it. It seems like they would have required the MAT instead.

Adisa said:

This is pretty common, especially for engineering programs. Top programs may require 700 or better for the Math portion and disregard a low score on the verbal and writing because of a wide spread stereotype that mathematicians or techies aren't good writers/communicators.

Adisa said:

Yeah, my school took the two highest scores.
One of things I did to prepare for the test was to buy those logic puzzle books. They help on the (I can't think of what it's called! ) part. I took them in 2002...