Eris

Oh, yes, Rep #3 said that they won't always show up online within the 15 (calendar) days, but they will be sent out to your schools, and as soon as a date appears next to the schools on the score report page online it means the scores have been sent to them and that you can call the phone line if you need them for applications.

My scores still haven't posted online, but it shows that they were sent out January 11th, and I was able to get the score by phone on the 11th. Which is good because they had to be at the school by the 15th. With bells on. Also, because I am self-admittedly a little crazed about this and have learned that when dealing with a bureaucracy of "trained representatives" sometimes you just have to call again and ask the same question until you get a better answer, I spoke to another representative (we'll call her Rep #3) who said that it is regular not business days and that the representative who told me otherwise was a fool and a scoundrel. (Well, perhaps she didn't SAY that, exactly, but her tone was trending in that direction.) I had asked Rep #2 to speak to a supervisor about it, and he said that he had, but in retrospect I think he just put the phone on mute and hummed a Justin Bieber song under his breath. Oh well. All's well that ends well. The takeaway lesson here, children, is that it is regular and not business days and, also, that you should never take a representative at face value. Poll a few. Thanks, everyone, for your help!

I'm waiting for my general test scores to post online. I took the test on December 29th and have a January 15th deadline, which is cutting it close, I know. I had originally spoken to an agent at ETS who said specifically that the 10-15 days was NOT 10-15 business days and the ETS website says this: If you take the computer-based test, the View Scores Online service is available approximately 10 – 15 days after your test date. I just spoke to a representative again today who said that the 10-15 days DOES mean business days, which poses a considerable problem. Does anyone have any experience with this issue? Have you generally found that the 10-15 day period for the general GRE computer test tends to reflect business or calendar days?

Tests of this breadth can be formidable. I used the Princeton Review book and the Vade Mecum site that Wellspring mentioned. The advice that I can offer from my experience is don't get bogged down too much in the detail of the works -- you really do just have to have a passing familiarity with the names and authors to be able to identify them for the purposes of the test. I would just use the list of works to know as a the outline and read up on them on Wikipedia to achieve this level of (as the Princeton Review puts it) cocktail-party level knowledge. However, I did notice that the November test that I took also had a heavier slant towards analysis of poetry and reading comprehension passages (than the 2007 test ETS sent to practice with). For this part, I would take as many practice tests as possible to understand what the test is looking for and to practice its particular brand of analysis. Reading the Norton Anthology is helpful to steep oneself in the ethos of the language, but if you don't have the time for it, these are some other ways to go about familiarizing yourself with the body of knowledge necessary to do well. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them. I scored a 760 on the November test. Best, Eris