The GRE
Well, I'm now 14 days away from taking the GRE, so there will be little posting between now and Sept. 29. I took the GRE nearly 6 years ago during my senior year of college, and I feel now even more acutely that neither this test nor any other standardized graduate admission exam is any indication of how one will do in a graduate program. The only thing it might remotely measure is one's attention span and intellectual stamina. I'm applying to history programs--explain to me how doing 60 math problems involving 9th grade algebra and geometry, 76 multiple choice vocabulary questions, and writing 2 short essays on topics I have never researched in an hour and fifteen minutes is going to help the admissions offices of the various schools to which I ultimately apply evaluate me as a candidate for their programs. I want to know how ETS has determined the correlation between the disciplines tested on the GRE and skill set required to pursue a career in history.
The Princeton Review manual that I'm using to help me study for the test, in describing why ETS added the analytical writing component to the test a few years ago, puts my complaint aptly: "The truth is that many schools complained that the current Verbal section simply did not test verbal skills in a way that was useful or applicable to graduate-level students. After all, why should an adult applying to earn a Master's in Psychology or a Ph.D. in Public Policy be taking a multiple-choice vocabulary test?" Exactly. Even the analytical writing component has little to do with what one actually does in graduate school: "Actualy, it's probably the 'fairest' of all three of the GRE sections. This is because all it purports to measure is how well you can write an essay in a limited amount of time, with no outside research materials. And that's what it tests." And since so many people take this exam every year, very little time or effort is expended in grading the essays. Thus, "ETS researchers discovered that the essays that received the highest grade from ETS essay graders had one single factor in common: length....To ace the analytical writing section, you need to take one simple step: Write as much as you possible can." How is that, on a standardized test taken to enter graduate school, one is punished for exhibiting a skill--economy of style--that is highly prized in every discipline I can think of?
Anyway, enough complaining. I do want to get into a program, so I need to do well on the test, no matter how unfair or how useless it is.
Labels: life
posted by J.W. at 10:05 AM
6 Comments:
Whoever invented standardized testing was an evil, misguided, horrible, evil person who wants graduate students to die miserable and alone.
11:39 AM
Yes, you are most definitely correct. The upside is that I'm learning all kinds of new delicious words, such as lubricious and stentorian. I've also finally been rewarded for the countless hours I spent playing computer games as a preteen. I thought all that time had been completely wasted, but, as it turns out, stygian is commonly tested on the GRE, and it is in the name of one of those games that I spent so much time on.
12:06 PM
I agree about standardized tests and would also throw in resumes, personality tests, IQ tests, and anything else that attempts to quantify a human being in a few data points that can be compared on a chart. I understand the necesity: with so many applicants it's nearly impossible to give them all an adequate and fair shake, but I agree, what can you really know about a person from a few "x is to y as a is to ___" questions?
12:41 PM
Good observation, Matt.
You know what ALWAYS does me in? Cover letters. I ABSOLUTELY hate cover letters. They might be the #3 worst thing about being a grownup.
I hate standardized tests so much that, senior year of college, I applied to only one graduate school, because it was the only one I could find that didn't require the GRE. The irony? It was Yale.
1:59 PM
I recall feeling similarly unimpressed at the AP testing system in high school - particularly when I discovered that the essays appeared to be graded by people who may or may not have had any knowledge of the subject being tested, but who instead had a list of key words in front of them. The more key words you used, the better your score; the best strategy was thus to vomit every scrap of possibly relevant information onto the page, in no particular order. The strategy worked for me - I got a 5/5 on the Bio AP test after having done only four of the fifteen labs I was supposed to do in prepration - but this was a bit discouraging...
12:33 PM
That's exactly how I got a 5 on the AP Bio test. Our teacher was the girls' soccer coach whose only method of teaching was to put the questions from the end of each chapter on the overhead projector, which we then copied down and which were due at the end of the week.
Once, during a lab, I flipped him off. I got college credit for that crap.
6:47 PM
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