The answer to the title is: Bitter, Extremely. That is my feeling and I haven’t seen anyone yet who disagrees.
Before continuing, let me mention my marks:
GRE: Verbal 610/800, Maths 800/800, Writing 5.5/6.
TOEFL: Reading 29/30, Listening 30/30, Speaking 24/30, Writing 30/30; Total 113/120.
A noble soul may say, “Boy, thee have got enough, why whine?”
The point which came to me during my 5-month Sisyphean labour is that most of it will be fruitless during my later studies. I will illustrate why.
I do not blame the ETS. They are doing their best to make the students’ life difficult; otherwise they will make the universities’ life difficult. And this is no joke – I have seen talented doctorate students and professors who say “I will learn you Statistics today.”
But the target of the tests, as perceived by us, is to ensure that the students have a minimum level of English knowledge required for proper sustenance in the universities abroad. And in this context they fail miserably. Consider the verbal section – which contains antonyms, and of such difficult archaic words which even the erudite professors do not use in their daily writings. The word ‘patina’ which means ‘the greenish crust on old bronze’ is in the high-frequency GRE word list of Barron’s preparatory book. We are at loss to understand what a Maths Ph.D. student will ever do with it. Even bronze statues are rare today for being told by his wife to clean them…
The guaranteed success route everyone suggests for GRE verbal is thus the good old memorization – grab the large word list and shove the words into your memory till the exam date. After that they find no use of such words and forget soon. So when the students enter the university, their vocabulary is poor again.
I wanted to counter the noxious result by trying to understand the origin, meaning, uses and nuances of the words using the fine book ‘Word Power Made Easy’. It really gave good results, but ended up consuming a good share of the 5-month preparatory time without teaching me a good part of the nasty words in the word list – thereby putting me in tension. But it paid to read the book – one may confuse between the meanings of the close words conic, laconic, lacuna; but one who read the book won’t. It teaches the word using the enthralling story of the laconic U.S. President Calvin Coolidge famed as ‘Silent Cal’ – the story tells that a journalist, seated next to him at a dinner, said to him “Mr. Coolidge, I’ve made a bet against a fellow who said it was impossible to get more than two words out of you.”; and received the famous reply “You lose.”
Being a Maths student, I felt the grade-10 GRE Maths questions easy. Unfortunately, that’s where they give good time (45 min for 28 problems) and squeezes in verbal (30 questions in 30 min) which is much more complicated. The only confusion I felt is that sometimes the figures are drawn to scale and sometimes not, which is not clearly mentioned within the question but only in the starting instructions.
The writing section is usually relatively ignored by students because it takes a lot of labour to write an essay but there is no grading by the test softwares, making preparatory evaluation difficult. I did the wise choice of practicing a lot – it turned out that finishing is difficult in time, and I had to design my speed & word-limit accordingly, a problem which many felt in the exam.
The argument section is quite difficult at the first try – unless you get the tone from the guide books. I tested this on my ignorant friends (who didn’t sit for GRE) by giving them argument topics (paragraphs) and asking to find three logical mistakes – they were bewildered by the seemingly accurate texts. But once you find the three wrong logics and understand why they are wrong (i.e. the counter-statement), developing the essay is cakewalk.
In contrast, writing the topic essay is much difficult – within few minutes one has to make the tough choice of selecting between two prompts. For me it was easy – one contained an arts topic and the other an environmental topic which is easy for an circumspect newspaper reader. I panicked regularly in my sleep thinking what will happen if I get two arts topics – so when I saw one good prompt I rejoiced by throwing up my hands up and retracting them instantly realizing that the hall guards will think I am calling them.
After finishing the essay and revising it, I still had 2 minutes when I realized that the essay doesn’t contain any ‘good’ word like those found in the word list. Then I just put in some hard words where I deemed fit – in front of ‘natural pollution’, I put ‘ubiquitous’, as ‘ubiquitous natural pollution’ is reasonable. That is the way I got 5.5!
The TOEFL is a much more reasonable, easier test with a better online system of viewing, understanding and reporting scores. The GRE does not have an online score reporting system (thus incur extra cost), neither an explanation of my performance.
The only matter that creates helluva trouble is the speaking section, as all the examinees start talking at the same time creating a lot of noise which makes difficult to catch the instructions. Some students thus put the headphone volume to full, creating even more noise. The start, initiated by the guard, is slightly different for everyone, and the questions and responses are mixed up heavily. Just when you try to start responding, your next-cubicle neighbour starts shouting the answer. You get dazzled and delayed in your response.
A mentionable thing is that unlike GRE, all students sitting for the same time on the same date get same questions. We got stuck on a reading question which read “which of the following statements from the passage is the” – an incomplete statement with no meaning – but if I don’t answer I lose some marks. I just hit a random answer. We’ve informed this to ETS but the case is still pending.
The TOEFL is a 4.5-hour long test and I felt hungry in between, probably affecting my performance. I knew the duration and brought food, but was told that I can’t take food, only taking in and giving out water is allowed.
I feel sorry for myself as the poor soul who went through the strenuous preparation period, which almost led to an unnecessary tiff between me and my parents. I blamed them for not giving me enough English books, and they blamed my apathy towards English books. I accused them why didn’t you force me to read them – such silly statements, result of sheer frustration looking at the monstrous word list. I couldn’t ignore study as well - the mark sheet is another determining factor for admission.
After all, it is over, and considering my marks I don’t have to sit for it again, that is the relief! I consider the tests as quinine – bitter but useful.
