balderdash

Ah, you couldn't be more right. I did indeed mean Wood, but I guess reading a Blattman article at the time created a communication breakdown between brain and fingertips.

Wow. Preliminary suggestion might be a reduction in caffeine intake, and although I'm trying hard to resist the urge, your other comment on being the best at everything including gardening in your HYP Ivy triangle makes me dislike you and read (misplaced) smugness into your comment.

To get to your answer: I can't actually find that you provided any sort of a claim or source for what a percentile is, and as such, I'm having a hard time following your line of reasoning which suggests that I'm "unknowingly cheating out hundreds or thousands of people". I did my own research, and it turns out that there isn't a solid definition of a percentile - in fact, the Merriam-Webster definition contradicts the one you appear to be reasoning with.




http://regentsprep.org/REgents/math/ALGEBRA/AD6/quartiles.htm
http://cnx.org/content/m10805/latest/



Working with definition 2, the 100th percentile would in fact be an 800 - the smallest score greater than or equal to 100% of all other scores. The GRE also makes no definitive claims on the score sheet about what a percentile is, because they list only "% Below", which obviously doesn't resolve the issue of what a percentile is..

You can figure this one out on your own. If you can't, then your independent research skills suggest that a PhD isn't for you.

I mean, I appreciate the effort you've expended, but I'm fully aware about how CAT works. So are the people who write Princeton Review and Kaplan, and both counsel spending more time at the front than the back. No offense, but I'm going with what they say.

Also, you're ignoring other beneficial effects of spending more time on the front. Usually, you have to warm up and take your time at the beginning to get your brain working, even if you're mid-test. Also, getting a few answers solidly right to start the test boosts your confidence and helps you with the rest.

So I'll keep my "misconception," thanks.

To be more strategic about it, every question has a particular way of being solved that must be drawn from a discrete set of fields (ie, algebraic equations, geometry, etc). So the key is to look at the question and first understand what bit of knowledge the question is testing. When you approach it from the perspective of the test itself, you can get a grasp of what equation, set of rules, or skill is required. Once you get that sorted, you know what you have to do and it's just a matter of executing.

Also, remember that the first half of the section is much more important than the second half. Thus, budget your time but stack it toward the front end: don't be afraid to spend 3 minutes on each of the first few questions, but by midway through the test it should get shorter and shorter.

Yeah, no one cares about the GPA as long as you have good GRE scores. I mean, you could technically blow off all four years off undergrad and still get into Columbia, Yale, Princeton, etc. I don't know why I was so worried about grades in undergrad when I could've simply gotten "real world" experience for a year or so and sported my 2.5 GPA all the way to my Ivy League school. That would have been a lot easier than studying my butt off 24/7... The moral of the story is schools care about one day, the day you take your GRE... They could really care less about the past 4 years... lol

Get used to this feeling. XD

To succeed you really do need to publish. I am not sure if you need to publish while in grad school. I am just starting but from what I have heard there are competing camps on this issue. I have spent some time trying to publish an article, it is a lot harder than you would think... I would check out www.publishnotperish.org which has a really great set of articles on publishing in journals.

Relevancy wins out. Waiting tables is admirable, but I think everyone will have done some sort of work on the same level (I worked cash register in a grocery store, pulled pints at a pub, and made sandwiches in a deli). Much more important are the work experiences that give you experience, knowledge, and preparation for your intended field of study. Whatever makes you a professional ________ (for me, political scientist) is what they're looking for. That said, if it was something really prestigious or something to which you had a continued commitment, it's probably worth inclusion. Since you said you didn't have a steady job throughout, the latter doesn't apply. But if one of your jobs was, say, interning in the White House, then put it even though it's not relevant.

Relevancy wins out. Waiting tables is admirable, but I think everyone will have done some sort of work on the same level (I worked cash register in a grocery store, pulled pints at a pub, and made sandwiches in a deli). Much more important are the work experiences that give you experience, knowledge, and preparation for your intended field of study. Whatever makes you a professional ________ (for me, political scientist) is what they're looking for. That said, if it was something really prestigious or something to which you had a continued commitment, it's probably worth inclusion. Since you said you didn't have a steady job throughout, the latter doesn't apply. But if one of your jobs was, say, interning in the White House, then put it even though it's not relevant.

I decided I was going to take it mid-June and scheduled it for 3 weeks later. When I started studying, I was getting around 1300. After spending about 3-4 hours per day studying after work, I ended up with a 1570. So if you're willing to work at it pretty consistently and thoroughly, a few weeks is enough time.