legatrix

I second the Adger book. It has an unfortunate collection of reviews on the US Amazon, but this may be because you have to read it from start to finish rather than dipping into it randomly to get up to speed on certain topics. He has a great writing style and doesn't treat you like an idiot, so if you stick with it, you'll come out feeling smarter! If you prefer the style of book with many worked examples to drill it in to you, I can recommend Andrew Radford's ever-updating series of introductory books. The one I used was 'Analysing English Sentences'. While not as dry as some, it does have an overly pedagogical feel to it which sometimes makes you wonder what the whole thing is leading up to, whereas with Adger you feel the sparkle of usefulness to current research from the beginning. That's my take, anyway.

Yes I had seen the UPenn table! Good of them to make that information available! UCLA is your first choice, then? I must admit, it's a tempting place to live. I was getting ahead of myself somewhat by looking at rents in the area. Scary stuff.

Alright chaps. Is everybody on here American? Anyone hoping to end up at Stanford or UCLA? Can I enquire as to how seriously you all treated the GRE? Personally I paid it the same heed as I did the Street Fighter II game built in to the aeroplane entertainment system I was using the day before I sat the test (hows that for computational load?). Rumours have reached me of late, however, that certain applicants prepare thoroughly in advance. This makes me nervous. I look forward to hearing from any fellow grammarians! (And I trust you have all scoured the results pages from last year - heart-rending stuff!) best Luke