GRE Woes

[littlegirlvik]

I take the GREs this Thursday at about 2pm. I've been studying like a madman for about a month and a half now. However, I am starting to freak out. The more I study, the worse my practice scores get

Comments

[starrynightsky]

in my experience, the kaplan practice tests are far more difficult than the real thing. my advice would be to just keep studying, take the test, and see how it goes. you'll probably exceed your expectations on test day!

[littlegirlvik]

Oh man I hope so. Those scores are from my princeton review book, which for the vocab, I find a great tool, but considerably easier than the kaplan for quant. So even though I've been using kaplan and princeton review for both vocab and quant, I kind of consider princeton review = my vocab studying and kaplan = my quant studying. When I got to the quant on kaplan, I seriously almost cried. There were a couple of questions I couldn't even figure out what they were ASKING for, let alone how to do them.

[agentdanger]

It's possible that as you get more nervous about the test, your scores are declining due to anxiety and second-guessing yourself.

There's not really a lot you can do between now and test day besides sleep well, eat good meals and try to do the best you can!

If you do poorly, it's not the end of the world. Test scores don't indicate your intelligence or ability to do great things in your field. I think many programs recognize this, and if the rest of your application is solid, you've still got a chance!

[littlegirlvik]

I definitely agree with this. I have really bad anxiety to begin with (when I was in college, after being diagnosed with panic disorder, I was given "special accommodations" to get 1.5 time for all texts if I felt I needed it due to panic attacks. I never realized how nice this was until it wasn't an option, and now wish I hadn't "cheated the system," so to speak), and I'm certain it's getting worse and worse.

I'm trying to go through my books a little more because I know I forget a lot of the tips once I start, so hopefully that helps.

And yeah, most of my ap should be pretty good. 3.4 overall GPA with a 3.8 in both majors, and the last 9 semesters on the deans list (my first year sucked), and I have letters of rec coming from 3 extremely well known researchers in the field, all of whom I've done extra research with. Hopefully this test will be a footnote in the long run.

[heldc]

Relax. Take some downtime. Make sure you get 8+ hours of sleep tonight, tues night, and weds night. More if you've been not sleeping enough. Eat good healthy food in reasonably sized portions. Let studying go some for these last few days (if you're not reading after 6 weeks of studying, 3 more days will not help). But most importantly, sleep. Not getting at least 8 hours a night on a regular basis causes cognitive deficiency. Ideally, you should have 7+ days of full nights of sleep before any major thing, but as you don't have 7 days left, make the most of what you do have.

[littlegirlvik]

The sleep shouldn't be a problem. I usually get 8-10 right now anyway (it's a good thing I'm not in college, though, because I used to get 4-6 then!). I'm fortunate in that right now, I only have a part time job, so I've had LOTS of time for studying and sleeping. :-)

[heldc]

That's good! But seriously, try to relax. Spending these last few days stressing will not help at all. After 6 weeks, you're either ready or you're not, and I suspect you are. Go get a massage, do SOMETHING to pamper yourself and take your mind OFF the GRE.

[purenoumena]

I really think your score can change considerably only based on the order and types of questions you get. (One of the reasons I don't like this test.) A few days before the test I took another practice test and got my LOWEST SCORE YET and i was totally sunk... I questioned all my studying and hard work. But I think I was just burned out from all the studying! I allowed myself to rest the day before the test, and only did a little vocab. When I went in to take the test I got slammed with all my hardest questions and started to freak out... but I calmed myself down and wound up doing okay... why? because I did what I was supposed to do: I brushed up on my math and studied appropriately the months before - just like you did, and you'll do fine too

[littlegirlvik]

I really like that link. I hope it's right.

Seriously, at this point, I guess all I can do is breath, relax, repeat.

Maybe tonight I'll take a hot bath. Because that is relaxing, and if I get the urge, I can even flip through a few vocab words. :-)

[littlegirlvik]

I hadn't actually thought about this, but I do have LOTS of left over time on both the math and verbal sections (almost 10 minutes on math, and 8 minutes on verbal). This is a great point; thank you for it!