Anyone else gearing up for Oct. 13?

[bfat]

Can I just complain about the fact that the test tomorrow will literally be the first 3 hours I have had to myself in 2 months? (I have an 8 week old baby, so needless to say, I have done just about zero studying for this).

Whimper.

[Two Espressos]

Can I just complain about the fact that the test tomorrow will literally be the first 3 hours I have had to myself in 2 months? (I have an 8 week old baby, so needless to say, I have done just about zero studying for this).

Whimper.

bfat, no need to worry about studying for the Lit GRE exam: it's mostly a waste of your time! Lots of people seem to regard the GRE Subject Test in English Literature as a big fucking joke. Few people take it seriously.

[bfat]

So. Who else feels like they were just punched in the face?

Ah well. At least now I can focus on the rest of the application.

[sunshan]

That was awful. I didn't even finish.

[NowMoreSerious]

So. Who else feels like they were just punched in the face?

Ah well. At least now I can focus on the rest of the application.

A bloodbath. What made it worse is that it was far, far more difficult, as a whole, than any of the practice exams or questions I've encountered. I took it with 3 other MA English students and the best somebody did was 20 blank.

[NowMoreSerious]

That was awful. I didn't even finish.

I didn't even come close to finishing.

[sunshan]

Oh me neither. I must have left at least 50 blank. That 2 hours and 50 minutes went by SO quickly

[bfat]

I took a practice test the day before and scored in the 65%, but that was answering ALL the questions. I think I left about 40 blank on the real exam... I just hope my score doesn't get my app tossed into the trash without a closer look. At least only 3 of the schools I'm applying to require it, and I know for a fact (I asked) that Cornell reads the SoP and writing sample before they look at scores, so that's something of a relief...

[thestage]

I suppose someone should have mentioned that you should have went/should go into this test with a kind of jocular defeatist attitude. you have to know that you will feel like you have failed, because "success" is measured in very different terms from what you are used to. the goal should be to <i>see how much</i> you are able to get, rather than minimize the amount you are not able to get.

I don't know why I talk about these tests so much

[Dux]

Yeah that test was really rather different from the past test in the Princeton review book, and the practice test online. A lot more reading comp of incredibly difficult passages. And the IDs? So many authors I spent time reading in undergrad/recramming for this past week that I thought would get some points were simply... absent. The Princeton A List was rather helpful on the ETS practice test, but then the real thing was seriously lacking in a lot of the more major names/works, and also required what felt like more time-consuming close-reading. Lame.

Here's a request though: if you are lurking in this thread and think you actually did well, could you tell us? To be honest, seeing that everyone else thought it was pretty rough, too, is a good sign, since this thing is scored according to a curve. I don't want to get my hopes up though, if the only reason for this appearance is that people who thought it was a'okay just aren't posting because they want to be polite to the rest of us!

[waparys]

All this talk scared me into taking an old ETS practice test (the second one I've taken). Now I don't know if my almost 30 percentile-point increase (from the Princeton Review test) in any way reflects what's going to happen on the actual test...

I know the answer must be floating around on here somewhere, but what is considered a good score? I'm sort of blindly aiming for 650 as an awesome score...(typically around 85th percentile)...any thoughts?

[Dux]

Harvard says the students they accept average around a 650, if that is any help. Obviously some schools give it more weight, some give it less, and I have the general sense that it's more of a culling tool than anything. A 750 won't get you in anywhere, but a 400 will keep you out of a lot of places.

[lisajay]

with 230 questions to answer in 2 hours & 50 minutes, the expectation (to the best of my knowledge) is that you won't finish the test. i took the subject test straight out of undergrad in 2003 without studying & bombed miserably. took the test this saturday with a minimum of studying, but with the helpful advice to make a first pass through the entire test picking up any & all "easy" points first, then going back & answering questions based on longer passages with which i wasn't immediately familiar on the first pass. i wasn't able to make it all the way through to the end of my second pass before time was called, but i was able to answer 207 questions total, a majority of which i feel pretty confident about. factoring in the 1/4-point deductions for incorrect answers, my guess is that best-case scenario i'll land somewhere in the 80s percentile-wise, worst case scenario i'll maaaaaaaybe hit somewhere around the 60th percentile.

that being said, given that the subject test is so broad (& so heavily skewed away from 20th century literature for the most part (let alone contemporary lit)), depending on your area of focus, most programs really won't rely on the subject test score as any sort of indicator of your potential success in graduate studies. as i've seen others post in other threads, a great score can certainly help your application, but a less-than-stellar score isn't likely to keep you out. the hierarchy of importance re: app materials seems to be (1) writing sample, (2) letters of rec, (3) GPA, & (4) test scores.

also, bear in mind that your SOP (& personal statement if the program(s) to which you're applying have both) is really the chance for you to shine and let AdComm see your personality. it's what sets you apart as an individual. use that. & if you completely bombed the GRE subject test, you can use part of that space to state your case as to why that's not a valid indicator of how you'll perform in their program. the same goes for any aspect of your application package: if you're concerned that it might be held against you & you're confident that it's not representative of your quality of work, let AdComm know. just keep it short, sweet, to the point, & confident as opposed to whiny or arrogant. just my $0.02.

[waparys]

Thank you!

[thestage]

I didn't take this particular test, but I will say that I had the exact same feelings as you guys after the one I took last year. I felt like the test artfully dodged everything I knew and everything I had studied, and I felt like I completely bombed it. I ended up scoring worse than the couple practice tests I took, but I still got a 660, which was 87th percentile at the time (and has since dropped to 85 god damn it all).

[dazedandbemused]

So I took the test last year and had almost the exact opposite experience as you all, thoroughly convincing me that this test is bollocks. I took a TON of practice tests and did absolutely horribly, so I was definitely enjoying the jocular defeatist attitude that thestage mentions. Amazingly, when I did the actual test I ended up getting a weirdly large amount of questions that directly related to the 18th century lit class that I was taking that same semester, so I ended up with a 650/85%. And you know what? I'm applying to PhDs again because I really don't think that my pretty good score did anything at all to help my application; even if I had the most perfect app ever (which I really didn't) I still don't think it would have made much difference. So don't worry about getting tossed out for crappy scores, you guys should be fine.

[Datatape]

Yeeeeeah. I'm gearing up for this on November 10 (was out of town at a family wedding on the 13th, otherwise I would have taken it then). I've done okay on the practice exams, but I've been brushing up on my weak spots (reading Paradise Lost, re-reading Canterbury Tales, brushing up on Shakespeare) and doing my best to keep from feeling like this.

[waparys]

Almost a week away. Kill me. Kill me now.

[waparys]

Also, quick question. If a school marks the subject test as optional, are you sending them your scores? I won't know mine until it's too late, so I have to decide now. Thoughts?

[rems]

Also, quick question. If a school marks the subject test as optional, are you sending them your scores? I won't know mine until it's too late, so I have to decide now. Thoughts?

I'm been debating this recently. I took the subject test last year, scored pretty bad (55%), and didn't plan on entering my score. But I had a prof tell me that sometimes it looks good that you even attempted the test no matter what the score.

I second this question.

[Datatape]

I have four schools that require the subject test and two more that say it's recommended, but not required. I'm using my four free reports on the schools that require it and I'm going to wait to see how I feel about the test before I decide whether or not to report my scores to the other two schools. I generally have a pretty good gauge about how I did on standardized tests, so I'm going to go with my gut.

[bfat]

I just kind of assumed I did horribly, so I'm not sending it to anyone that doesn't require it.

[waparys]

I just kind of assumed I did horribly, so I'm not sending it to anyone that doesn't require it.

I'm with you.

Also, it's TOMORROW, you guys. I'm guessing I'll be taking it about 6-9 hours before most of you. Just wanted to come on here and wish everyone luck.

I took my final practice test yesterday (I can't believe there are so few in existence--it's just not fair) and bombed it, so I'm going in with very low expectations.

At least once this is over I can finish up my remaining SoPs and say goodbye to these applications forever (well, until early next year).

Anyway: good luck. And, as we say in Poland, "break a pencil."

[rems]

I'm with you.

Also, it's TOMORROW, you guys. I'm guessing I'll be taking it about 6-9 hours before most of you. Just wanted to come on here and wish everyone luck.

I took my final practice test yesterday (I can't believe there are so few in existence--it's just not fair) and bombed it, so I'm going in with very low expectations.

At least once this is over I can finish up my remaining SoPs and say goodbye to these applications forever (well, until early next year).

Anyway: good luck. And, as we say in Poland, "break a pencil."

I took it last year, and I took ALL the practice tests I could find and they didn't help that much. Just FYI that I think you'll do fine with or without the practice tests.

BEST OF LUCK TO ALL OF YOU TAKING THE TEST TOMORROW!

[Datatape]

Well, I feel like I was just run over by a bookmobile. In honesty, though, that wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was expecting it to be. I don't know if I was just taking really horrifying practice tests or what, but I feel really good about it. There were only 11 questions I left blank because I had no idea and I was able to get through each other one, feeling either confident or comfortable with my answer.

Would that everything turned out that way. :|