GRE English Lit (Sept/Oct 2014)

[hreaðemus]

Oh, I empathize, IQ84 - my test (in Berkeley) started super late too. We waited until 9:45 AM for three "standby" testers to arrive. What is a standby??? What was most desperately annoying about it was that I COULD HAVE GOTTEN COFFEE and I didn't. *dies*

[Dr. Old Bill]

As I recall, my test started around 35 minutes late too...though I was very fortunate in that it was a remarkably quiet room. I do NOT work well with any sort of noise around. I even have a pair of industrial earmuffs at home for when I'm doing some serious reading or writing. So I would have been completely unhinged by IQ84's situation. I don't do well without my morning coffee either so...yeah. Lots of empathy from me for both of you.

[sillyrabbit]

Wow - that's crazy. Luckily my test started exactly at 9:01 (our instructor was a stickler about testing process/procedure).

 

I think with this test, timing definitely was an issue. I completely expected a decent amount of testers to leave at the 2:30h mark...but I think only one girl ended up leaving at 2:30h (out of a room of 50+). When the proctor announce 2:30, you could hear a wave of page ruffling...I presume because people just then realized how little time was left...

 

I barely completed all the questions on the test because I was determined to make an educated guess on every question...but at the cost of rushing the last few passages....

[1Q84]

Did you take your test at CSULA? That's where I took mine last month and I was shocked at the way the admin really didn't care about timing. My test started at 8:55 because apparently being told to show up at 8:30 is showing up 30 minutes before the test start. It was odd and anxiety-inducing to sit at the testing center for over an hour.

No, I was at USC this morning. Yeah, it was really anxiety inducing, especially because the max parking was 4 hours, which I thought would be enough and since they delayed the test an hour, it was not.

Oh, I empathize, IQ84 - my test (in Berkeley) started super late too. We waited until 9:45 AM for three "standby" testers to arrive. What is a standby??? What was most desperately annoying about it was that I COULD HAVE GOTTEN COFFEE and I didn't. *dies*

I actually thought it was really disrespectful to put a warning on the ticket that test takers would not be admitted after 8:30 am (causing me to wake up at 6am, just to be safe) and then force me to sit around and wait for stragglers (ours were standby too). It's just like at the airport how they let people late for their flights go through the fast lane... it's rewarding slackers!

 

Plus the fact that they make hundreds of thousands of dollars each round of testing and they can't even pull it together to organize the darn thing? Just make the whole thing computerized like the General Test and things will flow much better.

</rant>

Edited October 26, 2014 by 1Q84

[katecruel]

No, I was at USC this morning.

 

Hey-- good to find you online. I actually googled this to see if anyone else complained; I'm the girl from Nebraska (and just got home.) I plan on calling ETS on Monday and issuing a complaint of my own. Our proctors were great moodwise, but it sounds like three people didn't show up, they didn't know protocol, and the standbys took longer than usual to prep.

 

I've never taken the GRE Literature test before, but found this test to be very different than the practice tests ETS provides. It was much more interpretation. I did manage to finish, but felt very rushed, especially toward the end.

[unræd]

"Oh no" and other commiseratory noises to all: it sounds as if the October test was a bit of a bungle all around. When I took the test in September, I was (mildly) frustrated because we started about fifteen minutes late--I see I should have been grateful!

 

It also sounds like the October and September tests were at least little different in content. There was a touch more interpretation than on the practice tests, but I expected that since the fora here the last few years have consistently said the test is moving toward more interpretation. But it didn't seem to be quiteas skewed toward interpretation as what you guys are describing--there was more reading, sure, but also plenty (if, as Wyatt's Torch says, perhaps not as many) identification questions, and some of an even more direct identification "Who wrote X, Y, and Z?" variety that I hadn't seen on the practice tests I did.

[queennight]

Actually, now that everyone's mentioning it, it did seem strange how my experience was similar: there was a 'standby' for some reason, and we also started about 20 minutes late. My proctors also kept whispering to each other for the first thirty minutes, which was killer, but what can you do. I was considering asking them to be quiet, but I didn't want to be that rude kid.

 

The weird thing about the October test was that there really wasn't a section longer than 3/4 questions that talked about direct identification (that I can remember) - the longest sections on the test (and there were a bunch crammed together) were maybe 5/6 questions directed towards interpretation, which really was completely different from the four practice tests that I had written in preparation. Princeton, sadly, didn't really prepare me for that at all!

 

Just as a side rant - I find this exam deeply problematic in so many different ways (maybe I'm just bitter about it), but you start to assume that all writing is white British men (granted I love white British men, but still), with side pockets of 'feminists' or 'African American writers' or 'world literature' that still privileges the original authors. I can imagine that somebody who majored in English literature but focused during their undergraduate career on postcolonial literature would be at an insane disadvantage for this exam (except for the one or two questions which might allude to say, Nadine Gordimer or Chinua Achebe, etc.), which is a really strange and effed up way of kind of maintaining the negative forces of ~imperialism~ .. it's a deeply, deeply ironic test. Also the interpretation questions really rubbed me the wrong way - it was such a highschool way of testing what the 'right' answer was .... while we all, no doubt, are aware of the fact that in our discipline we pride ourselves on often having a multiplicity of answers for the same question. I think I can wryly remember one or two (pardon my sarcasm) essays that I've read where the wrong answer is proven to be a valid reading through a fascinating analysis (and I think we can all agree that those essays are often the most memorable ones).

 

Ah, well. At least we're all done! On to the final cramming stages!

[Dr. Old Bill]

September GRE scores are in!

 

Using my patented emoji system, my score is... .

 

I'm admittedly a tad disappointed. I'm in the lower end of what I thought I had scored, but I don't think my score should hurt me in applications. After all, if I've said it once, I've said it a dozen times (you know, I probably have): anything other than a bad score on the GRE subject test is likely not going to affect an otherwise strong application.

[wetheplants]

Waah. =[ Anyone else feeling grumpy this morning? About 40 points lower than I was hoping, and only in the 65% percentile.... sigh. More mediocre than I was hoping.

Edited October 27, 2014 by wetheplants

[jhefflol]

I got 50 points higher than I was expecting. While it's still a terrible score (23rd percentile lol), I'm pretty happy that I did better than expected. I'll take it.

[wetheplants]

I got 50 points higher than I was expecting. While it's still a terrible score (23rd percentile lol), I'm pretty happy that I did better than expected. I'll take it.

Better than expected is always good! Cheers to you!

[universitydays]

650, but my plan of study was murdureous (3.5 months of prep time, flashcards every day - and I really do mean every day - for 2-5 hours).

 

This was advised against by graduate students and Professors in my department who 1) questioned the relative value of this exam and 2) worried about my sanity. I don't recommend this plan of study to anyone who values their sanity...

Edited October 27, 2014 by universitydays

[jhefflol]

650, but my plan of study was murdureous (3.5 months of prep time, flashcards every day - and I really do mean every day - for 2-5 hours).

 

This was advised against by graduate students and Professors in my department who 1) questioned the relative value of this exam and 2) worried about my sanity. I don't recommend this plan of study to anyone who values their sanity...

 

At least it paid off! Congrats!

[universitydays]

At least it paid off! Congrats!

 

Thanks! It seems that 650 qualifies as scoring in the 82nd percentile (not the 88th percentile as Berkeley claims they want), but I'll take what I've got!

[Dr. Old Bill]

82nd percentile is great! Remember: this is among fellow English graduate hopefuls, so you're on the upper end of test-takers...and subject test takers usually take the test for the top-tier schools, meaning that your company among test-takers is quite strong. 82nd percentile among strong candidates is very good.

 

I should also point out once again that unless you have a particularly bad score, you shouldn't be dissuaded from applying to top-tier programs. Perhaps this goes without saying, but I suspect that more than a few folks over the years have avoided applying to Berkeley or Harvard, simply because they post "ideal numbers" on their sites. Heck, after seeing my decidedly average score this morning, I had a moment (or a few moments) of feeling that maybe it actually said something about me as a candidate. If I hadn't already applied to all but two of the places that require the subject score, maybe -- just maybe -- I might have had second thoughts. But that's quite silly, for reasons dotted throughout this and other threads.

 

Apply to where you feel you're a great fit. Chances are that if everything else in your application is strong, and you're a great fit, your GRE will be barely considered.

 

 

P.S.: Welcome to the forum, Universitydays!

Edited October 27, 2014 by Wyatt's Torch

[hypervodka]

670. **collapses into a puddle of THANK GOD THAT'S OVER**

[universitydays]

82nd percentile is great! Remember: this is among fellow English graduate hopefuls, so you're on the upper end of test-takers...and subject test takers usually take the test for the top-tier schools, meaning that your company among test-takers is quite strong. 82nd percentile among strong candidates is very good.

 

I should also point out once again that unless you have a particularly bad score, you shouldn't be dissuaded from applying to top-tier programs. Perhaps this goes without saying, but I suspect that more than a few folks over the years have avoided applying to Berkeley or Harvard, simply because they post "ideal numbers" on their sites. Heck, after seeing my decidedly average score this morning, I had a moment (or a few moments) of feeling that maybe it actually said something about me as a candidate. If I hadn't already applied to all but two of the places that require the subject score, maybe -- just maybe -- I might have had second thoughts. But that's quite silly, for reasons dotted throughout this and other threads.

 

Apply to where you feel you're a great fit. Chances are that if everything else in your application is strong, and you're a great fit, your GRE will be barely considered.

 

 

P.S.: Welcome to the forum, Universitydays!

 

Thank you for the reassuring words!

 

I actually completed my undergrad at Berkeley - according to one of my letter writers (who has also been on the admissions committee in prior years), it's really your writing sample, SoP, and letters of recommendation that are scrutinized. Your test scores alone can't get you in, but there's also a chance that scores can be used to choose between two candidates with very similar qualifications.

 

I suppose I cite Berkeley's numbers because going on to do a PhD at the same place that I received my BA means that they might look for any reason to cut me. There's no policy in Berkeley's department against doing your BA / PhD in the same place - in fact, one of the graduate students I worked with had done this without the most stellar test scores - but this only goes to show how much applying to grad programs is far from an exact science. In any case, getting / not getting into Berkeley is certainly not the be-all end-all, especially when I'm considering nine other schools. You do what you can, move on, and hope for the best, right?

[queennight]

In any case, getting / not getting into Berkeley is certainly not the be-all end-all, especially when I'm considering nine other schools. You do what you can, move on, and hope for the best, right?

[Dr. Old Bill]

It's times like these ^^^^ when I hate hitting my quota of upvotes!

[zanmato4794]

Do they still tell you how many you got right and wrong? I'm curious about the curve.

[Dr. Old Bill]

Do they still tell you how many you got right and wrong? I'm curious about the curve.

 

No, not from what I can tell...which saddens me, really. In the case of my score, at least, the "scaling" looks exactly the same as it was for the 2010 practice test, which makes no sense. I would gladly pay to see a breakdown of scores (yep, I would pay ETS even more than the $1200 or so I've already paid them).

[unræd]

I know--I expected a raw score as well. As if ETS didn't do enough already to keep the process inscrutable and opaque!

[Dr. Old Bill]

Fun fact: Inscrutable and Opaque is the name of my next heavy metal album.

[universitydays]

I've a quick question (technically unrelated to the GRE) - do writing sample lengths typically count works cited pages at the end? (Some programs will specify this, but some programs simply say 12-20 pages). I'm assuming that if they don't specify, works cited don't count towards the page limit.

[Dr. Old Bill]

I've a quick question (technically unrelated to the GRE) - do writing sample lengths typically count works cited pages at the end? (Some programs will specify this, but some programs simply say 12-20 pages). I'm assuming that if they don't specify, works cited don't count towards the page limit.

 

It honestly depends. Typically, page counts don't include works cited, appendices etc., but one DGS I contacted basically said that the adcomm doesn't want to read more than fifteen pages...period (the page count has 15 as the maximum). Having a WS that is around fifteen pages (not including back matter) seems to be a good idea, as it allows you to trim or expand by small portions, depending on the program you are applying to. And you can only be so creative with font and margin sizes.