GRE

[gfish]

I just took the GRE again, just about exactly 7 years after the last time I took it. I miss the old analytical section, with all the constraint-based logic problems. Those were fun. Now you have to do 2 written sections instead. Not nearly as much fun, and you don't get the results back from those for weeks.

Part of the sign-in procedure is copying out this paragraph of 'I will not cheat or tell anyone about the contents of the test'. By hand. In cursive. Yes, they actually specific cursive. I have no idea what the legal standing of cursive is, but blah. Who uses cursive anymore? Do they still teach it to kids? What a waste of time. Nothing like starting an important test with a hand cramp.

For those of you who haven't taken it in the last 10 years, it's on a computer now. Which is nice, because the questions are adaptive -- correct answers mean you get harder questions, which means the test is more accurate at the extreme ends of the scale. You also get some of the results back immediately. But the computers they use are absolute crap Compaqs, several years old, with not-completely-clean mechanical mice. And the refresh rate was set to 60Hz, aaaaaaaa. I asked if that could be changed, and they gave me a glare filter. Which did help a bit, but no more than turning down the brightness would have. Bah. I'm all for using new technology, but use it in ways that doesn't make my eyeballs twist inside-out, kthx.

End result: I am extremely well-rounded. Or at least the non-analytical 2/3 of me is.

Comments

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Who uses cursive anymore?

Not I, said the little red hen.

Do they still teach it to kids?

Yup.

What a waste of time.

Except for signatures, yup.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

I'm all for using new technology too. I'm not sure what they were using can reasonably be described as "new". ;)

[dymaxion.livejournal.com]

Wow, I would so fail that test. I stopped writing in cursive when I discovered the joys of block printing in 9th grade, and have literally never used it since, although I've considered, lately, going back and picking it up again.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I *loved* the analytical section. PHOO.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

I just found out that ETS considers adjusting monitor height to be a disability accomodation, and that I'm probably not going to be able to take the GRE until right around the time some of my applications are due, and I find myself thinking longingly about throwing myself in front of a train.

I mean, seriously. I might have to go to Spokane to take the GRE. And I've ended up spending the last couple of years getting ready to apply to grad school, and getting tripped up on this proves that I am a complete idiot.

And a cripple.

Feh.

[arjache.livejournal.com]

Amusingly enough, the CS GRE is done entirely on paper still. And it also includes the cramptastic cursive paragraph.

[ilmarinen.livejournal.com]

What testing center/system is this? Trying to remember the name of the one that administered the LEED (environmental building accreditation) test...taking a test with multiple sections covering good work and ergonomic environments in the hell-hole of a windowless, low-quality fluorescents, low-freq monitors, lousy desks, chairs and etc. "center", was incredibly ironic.

People just don't care about doing things right, especially when it is privatized without accountability to the "customer" (jails, schools, testing centers, etc.)

Ugh.
-B.

[ilmarinen.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there has ever been any challenge to the "cursive" requirement--like you say, what's the legal standard for cursive? I don't recall it from when I took the GRE.

I mean, since when is that a legally required skill?

Only write a handful of things in cursive anymore--all of them having to do with old-style security. Although it is arguably much faster, engineering school completely broke me of it, and now I only write in all block caps. (Well, approximately.)

BTW, did you take a subject-specific or just the general? And I hate the abstract logic puzzles.

-B.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I was at the Thompson Testing Center up in Mountlake Terrace. Not the most aesthetic of places, no.

I only do the blocks-caps thing as well, and even that it getting extremely rare. The shopping list and credit card slips are the only things I write out by hand any more.

This was the general test. Not many CS departments care about the subject test.

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

I abandoned it in, I think, 2nd grade. I mean, I already knew how to write, so what was this for? :)

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Me too. I rather over-studied it on my GRE software way back when, because it was fun. Logic problems YAY! I did really really well on that section... and later discovered that the Master in Teaching program at UW didn't even look at that section. Bah.

[tmfkan64.livejournal.com]

I took the new GRE last year, although I think they've tinkered with the writing section since then. To be honest, I really don't miss the old analytical section... it was just like having two math sections. Better to have a writing section, IMHO.

I was well-rounded too. ;-)

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Oh, I understand WHY they switched to the written section. I just actively enjoyed the old logic problems.