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universitydays

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  • Gender
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  • Location
    California
  • Application Season
    2014 Fall
  • Program
    English PhD

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  1. Oh yes, most certainly. Let me add: I haven't been very present on GradCafe when it comes to posting, but I have been diligently reading through everyone's posts. It's heartening to see so much support, courage, and bravery on here. Despite the negativity surrounding academia (especially in the humanities) seeing everyone work this hard even against the greatest possible odds has given me so much hope. This is one of the only things that has gotten me through the application season.
  2. Harvard as well. I'm in complete shock and thought this was a mistake.
  3. The GRE Literature is a horrific exam because no matter how much you rehearse, it still catches you off-guard in some way or other. As other users have mentioned, the exam is now skewed heavily towards interpretation rather than identification, although learning your IDs will still help in the long run. I personally think it's rather cruel that the official tests the ETS has released (1989, 1995, 1999, and 2010) have chunks of questions that have nothing but identification but then give us exams this year that basically have passage after passage of comprehension questions with an ID or two scattered throughout. I'd been taught to do "two passes" - one simply getting through all the ID questions which are supposed to be "easy" points, and one where you're really buckling down on comprehension questions. The September exam (and, from what I gather, the October exam as well) was nothing like this since IDs were attached to comprehension questions. Princeton Review's guide no longer has a strong bearing on this exam, and neither do the comments that you should spend the majority of your time learning IDs. IDs should by no means be neglected, but what everyone (both online and in real life) advised me to only brush over - reading comp. - is the one thing that shouldn't be overlooked. Learning how to read quickly and developing an instinct for spotting the "correct" answer in reading comp. will take you just as far as learning IDs. Perhaps this is a skill that prospective grad students are expected to have, but guides (and word-of-mouth advice) should focus on acknowledging the large amount of comprehension questions that are now on the exam. The reading comp. is an onslaught, and it wittles away at anyone's concentration after the first two hours. In any case, don't worry too much about your score! What's done is done and you've survived a really tough exam that grad students and Professors still shiver over...give yourself a pat on the back and move on.
  4. Thanks, guys! I called in to each department I was applying to this morning and they all told me that works cited don't count towards the page limit. wetheplants - I wouldn't call my plan of study "necessary" or even "advantageous." There are two factors that went into my thinking: 1) I had a lot of time to prepare, so I was going to use it. 2) I've never been great at standardized tests so my strategy has always been consistent practice over a long period of time. I also get nervous under testing conditions, so drills / practice problems help me to focus on the actual exam rather than what's going on around me. I think the key is to know yourself and how you work - I was getting pressure from people around me to take the exam in the Spring because they assumed that I would be ready, but I really, really wasn't. So I put the brakes on a lot of things and did what I felt I needed to do in order to prepare.
  5. I've a quick question (technically unrelated to the GRE) - do writing sample lengths typically count works cited pages at the end? (Some programs will specify this, but some programs simply say 12-20 pages). I'm assuming that if they don't specify, works cited don't count towards the page limit.
  6. Thank you for the reassuring words! I actually completed my undergrad at Berkeley - according to one of my letter writers (who has also been on the admissions committee in prior years), it's really your writing sample, SoP, and letters of recommendation that are scrutinized. Your test scores alone can't get you in, but there's also a chance that scores can be used to choose between two candidates with very similar qualifications. I suppose I cite Berkeley's numbers because going on to do a PhD at the same place that I received my BA means that they might look for any reason to cut me. There's no policy in Berkeley's department against doing your BA / PhD in the same place - in fact, one of the graduate students I worked with had done this without the most stellar test scores - but this only goes to show how much applying to grad programs is far from an exact science. In any case, getting / not getting into Berkeley is certainly not the be-all end-all, especially when I'm considering nine other schools. You do what you can, move on, and hope for the best, right?
  7. Thanks! It seems that 650 qualifies as scoring in the 82nd percentile (not the 88th percentile as Berkeley claims they want), but I'll take what I've got!
  8. 650, but my plan of study was murdureous (3.5 months of prep time, flashcards every day - and I really do mean every day - for 2-5 hours). This was advised against by graduate students and Professors in my department who 1) questioned the relative value of this exam and 2) worried about my sanity. I don't recommend this plan of study to anyone who values their sanity...
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