This postThis morning I had my mom drive me up to Lindon to take the GRE. (I have no car.) Got there 40 minutes before the scheduled time, not quite knowing what to expect. The first thing they had me do was read through a list of rules and copy out a statement of confidentiality, in cursive. And then sign it. I realized then that it’s been a really, really long time since I’ve written anything in cursive besides my signature (which has degenerated into doctor-looking scribbles anyway). It was hard. So now I want to pull a George Washington and learn calligraphy. :)
Anyway, I had to show my ID (and they accepted my temporary driver’s license just fine), then put my cell phone and wallet and pens in a locker. Went in and took the test. Because of the statement of confidentiality I can’t mention specifics, but it wasn’t too bad. I breezed through the two essays (blogging was the main reason I found it so easy), did fairly well on the verbal (though there were a few words I had no clue on), and did somewhat well on the math. I should have spent a lot of time studying, but looking back, I think I only ended up studying for about four hours altogether. If only I’d had more time…
All in all, it felt very much like the ACT or SAT all over again. Not terribly painful, other than the math part where a little voice popped into my head saying, “Ben, you haven’t studied math in six years. Do you have any idea what you’re doing? No, we both know that. You’re not going to finish in time.” And then it sat back and watched as I went into a mild panic mode, staring at the clock and trying to calculate how much time I had left with the questions. Almost paralyzing, but not quite. I did end up guessing on four or five questions. Oh well. :)
