Anyone else gearing up for Oct. 13?

[justkeepswimming]

Scores are online for October test takers! I legitimately thought I bombed the exam (almost cancelled, actually), but ended up doing more than just fine. Hope that's of comfort for those who took the test this past weekend ....

Edited November 12, 2012 by justkeepswimming

[somer8077]

Oh dear...just checked my score. Thought I did better than I did on all my practice tests, but ended up doing a little worse than I did on those. I really hope this doesn't keep me out of schools.........ugh.

[bfat]

AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!

That is to say, I just found my October score online.

What is considered "good" and what is considered "abominable"? Because I think my score falls a little closer to the latter... Wondering if I should reconsider some of my apps now...

[justkeepswimming]

I've heard that anything above a 600 is considered good. Harvard's website also says, "High scores in the Verbal (700) and Subject tests (650, i.e., English and American literature) are positive additions to the application but are by no means the most important aspect of one’s candidacy. (The Quantitative and Analytical scores carry less weight than the Verbal and Subject scores.)"

[practical cat]

I'm taking "good" to be approximately "she took it and it seems that she's probably read some books before, cool." I think shooting for 650 is reasonable/normal but I don't think it's going to be the end of the world unless the final score is something like the 9th percentile.

I'm also at a point where I'm really forcing a kind of aggressive optimism on myself so grain of salt.

[lisajay]

FWIW: 600 // 67th percentile

*forget 'good,' here's hoping for 'good enough' emoticon*

[rwarzala]

FWIW: 600 // 67th percentile

The disparity is weird. 630 put me in the 77th percentile, and someone earlier said 650 is 85th. What accounts for this? The small number of people taking the exam? The difficulty of the test?

You would think with the increasing number of schools discounting or downplaying the Subject Test score that ETS might be incentivized to improve the test as a reliable measure of success in graduate school.

[bfat]

I really just don't see why this test is required at all, especially by programs that encourage applicants with backgrounds outside the field of English. Right now, my score on this test is the weakest part of my application, and I'm actually worried that it might be the thing that keeps me out of my top choice(s).

I really tried my best, but for the life of me, I still cannot identify or distinguish a single goddamned poem written between 1750-1900. Nope. Just can't do it.

When I (inevitably) fail to get in this year, I guess I'll sign up for a survey course on romantic/Victorian poetry over the summer...

[rems]

I really just don't see why this test is required at all, especially by programs that encourage applicants with backgrounds outside the field of English. Right now, my score on this test is the weakest part of my application, and I'm actually worried that it might be the thing that keeps me out of my top choice(s).

I really tried my best, but for the life of me, I still cannot identify or distinguish a single goddamned poem written between 1750-1900. Nope. Just can't do it.

When I (inevitably) fail to get in this year, I guess I'll sign up for a survey course on romantic/Victorian poetry over the summer...

This absolutely. I took the test last year, bombed it, and decided not to apply to schools that require it. In the 11th hour, I've decided to apply to one that does require it. It's too late to take it again, but my scores were abysmal. We're talking 52% abysmal (cold sweat breaks out just typing that number). I had one really nice and optimistic prof tell me that the important thing is I took the test, and I scored above 10%. I also already have a MA in English Literature where I have a good array of survey classes demonstrating my ability to read literature outside of my field... She's just trying to be nice. I know the truth about this score. I'm still going to apply because I don't want to say wouldacouldshouda my whole life, and, hey, I was just gonna spend that $125 application fee on booze anyway, so why not? But I'm fully aware that I'm doomed. DOOMED I SAY.

Oh life, why you no easy?

[rwarzala]

One source I used that really helped me prepare (not that I did awesome by any stretch of the imagination) was actually an AP prep book: 5 Steps to a 5 500 AP English Literature Questions to Know By Test Day. This is the Amazon link. The difficulty is there isn't an ability to practice similar content to the exam, and this was the closest I could find. One of the poems in the book actually showed up on my test, and I only recognized it because I'd recently reviewed those questions. Well worth the $10.

Edited November 15, 2012 by rwarzala

[thestage]

I really just don't see why this test is required at all.

I still cannot identify or distinguish a single goddamned poem written between 1750-1900. Nope. Just can't do it.

not to be a dick, but these two things are related

[bfat]

not to be a dick, but these two things are related

Thank you for implying that I'm not worthy of or prepared for grad school. I'm sure you're right. I'm sure everyone who has ever been successful in a top program had absolutely no holes in their knowledge at the time they applied. I've changed my mind completely--I'm so glad that test exists so that we can make sure everyone who gets into good programs took a wide range of survey courses and is excellent at memorization.

I'll just go back to eating paste now and dreaming about a good ejukashun.

[thestage]

You did not say you were poor at memorizing things; you said you could not distinguish poetry written in 1750 from poetry written in 1900. Regardless of whether or not this fact is indicative of your inability to do graduate work, it is certainly the kind of thing this test exists to determine. You answered your own question.

And yes, I am implying that someone interested in graduate study in English literature should be able to tell, based on reading it, if a poem is more likely to be neoclassical, romantic, victorian, or proto-modern. The secret to these tests is that such distinctions are not at all based on memorization, they are largely based on syntactic and semantic comprehension. Yes, reading Keats helps you identify Keats, but knowing anything about romantic literature should be more than enough to pin a Keats poem as belonging to that period.

I'm not saying the test is fantastic, and I'm not saying every question is a matter of century bingo, but I do believe that people interested in advanced study in a field should be interested in the parameters of that field and intellectually humble enough to recognize their faults and holes as faults and holes rather than irrelevant fluff. If you, PhD in English literature hopeful, cannot muster enough energy to not summarily dismiss entire swaths of poetics and literary history, who will?

Edited November 18, 2012 by thestage

[bfat]

You did not say you were poor at memorizing things; you said you could not distinguish poetry written in 1750 from poetry written in 1900.

That's actually not really what I said. I have difficulty with romantic and Victorian poetry, just because of the way my coursework has been structured (I've covered almost none of this). I studied my brains out for the test, but have a difficult time identifying individual poems from this period. While I obviously can identify some of them, it's an area that, for me, would require a lot of memorization, and also more coursework. But hey! That's what grad school is for! I never said that I couldn't tell the difference between a poem written in 1750 and one written in 1900, just that I can't identify individual poems from this period (and Jesus, have you never heard of hyperbole? I was just bitching about the test...).

If you, PhD in English literature hopeful, cannot muster enough energy to not summarily dismiss entire swaths of poetics and literary history, who will?

...

I want to address this, but I also want to remain civil.

There's a difference between knowing where your weaknesses are and dismissing entire periods of literary history, which is absolutely not what I did. Again, hyperbole. It's a thing. I maintain that the test is bullshit.

Anyway, thanks again for making me feel extra shitty about the holes in my knowledge. I needed to be brought down a peg during this application process.

[practical cat]

You did not say you were poor at memorizing things; you said you could not distinguish poetry written in 1750 from poetry written in 1900. Regardless of whether or not this fact is indicative of your inability to do graduate work, it is certainly the kind of thing this test exists to determine. You answered your own question.

And yes, I am implying that someone interested in graduate study in English literature should be able to tell, based on reading it, if a poem is more likely to be neoclassical, romantic, victorian, or proto-modern. The secret to these tests is that such distinctions are not at all based on memorization, they are largely based on syntactic and semantic comprehension. Yes, reading Keats helps you identify Keats, but knowing anything about romantic literature should be more than enough to pin a Keats poem as belonging to that period.

I'm not saying the test is fantastic, and I'm not saying every question is a matter of century bingo, but I do believe that people interested in advanced study in a field should be interested in the parameters of that field and intellectually humble enough to recognize their faults and holes as faults and holes rather than irrelevant fluff. If you, PhD in English literature hopeful, cannot muster enough energy to not summarily dismiss entire swaths of poetics and literary history, who will?

Oh, if only that were ANY of the questions on the test. The IDs were not: "Who wrote this poem?" "A. Percy Shelley B. Milton C. Plath D. Pound E. Chaucer." If they were like that I, who have a similar weakness in poetry from Milton to Whitman, would've been able to do quite well. They were "who wrote this poem?" with, for example, five imagists as choices.

[thestage]

oh believe me, I know. I recall a question asking to ID a poem where both Keats and Shelley were possible choices. If you hadn't read the poem in question, good luck (and no, it wasn't a Keats ode). I was not responding to the frustration so much as the form behind it, which came off as a curt dismissal of knowledge more than a lamentation of bfat's specific performance (well, I started off by answering a question, really).

[waparys]

My problem right now is that the test I took last weekend could not have had more than 15 ID questions on it. My studying, sadly, did not encompass "how to read 50 unrelated passages and stay sane."

[practical cat]

My problem right now is that the test I took last weekend could not have had more than 15 ID questions on it. My studying, sadly, did not encompass "how to read 50 unrelated passages and stay sane."

Yeah, that. And in some ways, that made it easier. In others, aaaaaaaaaaaargh.

[asleepawake]

I was not responding to the frustration so much as the form behind it, which came off as a curt dismissal of knowledge more than a lamentation of bfat's specific performance (well, I started off by answering a question, really).

Well, some of us do find it frustrating that ETS assumes there is a single set of knowledge that every literary scholar ought to have. We are questioned extensively on the British canon, but if you are rusty on world lit, just learn the names of a couple of Russians, Chinua Achebe, and Gabriel García Márquez, and you're set. And, increasingly, schools are agreeing with this frustration. I'm only sending my subject GRE to 2 schools out of 15. Being frustrated by the specific set of knowledge ETS wants us to have is not the same as dismissing knowledge in general.

[thestage]

ETS does not assume you should have all this knowledge, they want you to show how much you have. The test is supposed to be broad enough to give you opportunities to show things, and to ensure you aren't ever going to get everything. Of course there is selection bias, it is literally impossible to get this "right"--whatever that would mean. And the field is English literature, it stands to reason that British authors would be privileged. Works in translation are not even considered for serious scholarship.

[marlowe]

Works in translation are not even considered for serious scholarship.

Though the subject test will, without a doubt, include Heaney's translation of Beowulf (and some Virgil or Ovid or Foucault in translation, perhaps).

[asleepawake]

Though the subject test will, without a doubt, include Heaney's translation of Beowulf (and some Virgil or Ovid or Foucault in translation, perhaps).

Spot-on. Let's remember that Foucault is the single-most cited scholar in the humanities. How often do you see a citation of the original French and how often the translation? Right.

[rems]

Actually, quoting "theory" can be done in translation, but if you were going to write a book on Foucault or your dissertation, then you must work with the original. Also, studying a piece of literature or text has to be done in the original language. That's why we have language requirements for a PhD in English Lit. Not trying to say it doesn't have its place, and that we shouldn't read translated pieces, but ever read an English written article on The Divine Comedy? The poem is quoted in Italian, the rest of the article is in English.

Also, once you get to the publication level, even the edition from which you quote matters -- these things are very particular once you get into the "professional" levels of being an English scholar.

[marlowe]

Actually, quoting "theory" can be done in translation, but if you were going to write a book on Foucault or your dissertation, then you must work with the original. Also, studying a piece of literature or text has to be done in the original language. That's why we have language requirements for a PhD in English Lit. Not trying to say it doesn't have its place, and that we shouldn't read translated pieces, but ever read an English written article on The Divine Comedy? The poem is quoted in Italian, the rest of the article is in English.

Also, once you get to the publication level, even the edition from which you quote matters -- these things are very particular once you get into the "professional" levels of being an English scholar.

Well, obviously, but isn't this thread about the GRE Subject Test?

[rems]

Well, obviously, but isn't this thread about the GRE Subject Test?

Yes, yes it is. Sorry about that -- I honestly didn't think before commenting! That is, as the cool kids say, my bad.

Translated pieces will be on on the GRE Lit. Sorry for the confusion!