Panic over the GRE
I am scheduled to take the GRE exactly one week from today because I'm going to be applying to Ph.D. programs in history. I have spent all summer studying vocabulary and reviewing with the Kaplan workbooks.
I just took an online GRE practice test on the Kaplan website and I only scored a 500 on Verbal and 220 on Quantitative. I'm horrified at my Verbal score because I have been studying vocabulary so hard. It appears my weakest points were reading comprehension and sentence completion. I knew I would blow the math section, but I was shocked at how poorly I did without the book. I just don't know what they're asking of me. I have no clue how to answer any of the problems.
At this point I don't know what else I can possibly do. I am in a panic. I have a 3.78 GPA, I'm writing my MA thesis on a great topic, I've presented at four conferences including an international one at Cambridge University, and I've been extremely involved in the graduate program at school. I know I'm a good scholar and a good historian, but it seems like this horrible test is going to prevent me from ever moving forward. I feel like my only options at this point are to give up on the idea of applying to any Ph.D. programs at all, OR I should only pick schools outside of the US that do not require a GRE score at all.
I'd be grateful for any advice. Thanks.
I just took an online GRE practice test on the Kaplan website and I only scored a 500 on Verbal and 220 on Quantitative. I'm horrified at my Verbal score because I have been studying vocabulary so hard. It appears my weakest points were reading comprehension and sentence completion. I knew I would blow the math section, but I was shocked at how poorly I did without the book. I just don't know what they're asking of me. I have no clue how to answer any of the problems.
At this point I don't know what else I can possibly do. I am in a panic. I have a 3.78 GPA, I'm writing my MA thesis on a great topic, I've presented at four conferences including an international one at Cambridge University, and I've been extremely involved in the graduate program at school. I know I'm a good scholar and a good historian, but it seems like this horrible test is going to prevent me from ever moving forward. I feel like my only options at this point are to give up on the idea of applying to any Ph.D. programs at all, OR I should only pick schools outside of the US that do not require a GRE score at all.
I'd be grateful for any advice. Thanks.