GRE Graduate Record Examination The GRE ROOT words (part 1)
GRE Graduate Record Examination The GRE: It's not that bad
GRE Graduate Record Examination Everyday Barron's wordlist 1076-1100
GRE Graduate Record Examination GRE Model Essay 30. "In order to improve the quality of instruction at the college and university level, all faculty should be required to spend time
GRE Graduate Record Examination GRE Model Essay 29. "Imaginative works such as novels, plays, films, fairy tales, and legends present a more accurate and meaningful picture
Call me crazy, anxious, anal or idiotic, but I took the GRE this summer. I decided to get the dreaded test out of the way for the simple reason that the scores are good for five years, and the last thing I want to do after graduation is relearn the Pythagorean Theorem. I signed up for Kaplan's four week GRE preparatory course, paid them $795 dollars, and in return got twenty-eight hours of instruction, seven or eight GRE study guides, and some computer software for practice at home. A good deal for me maybe, but it made me wonder.
Graduate school admissions can be highly competitive, and the GRE plays a large role in the admissions process.
Kaplan and Princeton Review courses really can help increase one's scores. Thus, the person with the money to spend on a course might have a greater chance of doing better on the exam, and thus a better chance of getting into their choice grad school, than someone who doesn't. Grossly unfair.
This connection of money and education seemed glaringly obvious to me as I watched the students in my class jump out of their Jeeps and talk about their weekends at their summer homes on the Cape.
But I too had paid my money, accepted my privilege, and was going to make the best of this course.
On the first day of class we spent our three and a half hours taking an assessment GRE exam. The GRE is similar to the SAT; it was difficult only because it was so boring.
Think irrelevant reading passages about protons and obscure anarchic movements in the third century, math problems that won't help you figure out how to tip at a restaurant, and logical analysis questions that are of no logical use to anyone. I couldn't comprehend how Kaplan was going to make me able to concentrate on the test.
It didn't. What the course did was increase my confidence, remind me how to add, and force me to learn every possible meaning for the word "rent."
Days after the class had finished, I took the test by computer. It was relatively painless and surprisingly short.
My scores flashed on the screen seconds after I'd answered the last question, and I walked away pleased.
It hadn't been so bad. I 'll probably get into graduate school.
At the very least, I never have to take the GRE again.
degradation N. humiliation; debasement; degeneration; V. degrade: debase; disgrace; degenerate; reduce (something) in worth; demote (someone); reduce in rank dishonor V. ,N. disgrace; ADJ. dishonorable dehydrate V. remove water from; dry out deify V. turn into a god; make a god of; idolize; Ex. Kings were deified; CF. deity deign V. condescend; stoop stoop bend forward and down; lower or debase oneself; fall to a lower standard of behavior by doing something; condescend; Ex. stoop to lying delete V. erase; strike out deleterious adj. harmful deliberate adj. consider; ponder; ADJ: done on purpose; slow delineate V. portray; depict; sketch; describe; N. delineation delirium N. mental disorder marked by confusion; uncontrolled excitement; ADJ. delirious delta N. flat plain of mud or sand between branches of a river delude V. deceive deluge flood; rush; V. delusion N. false belief; hallucination; deluding; Ex. delusions of grandeur; Ex. under the delusion that delusive adj. deceptive; likely to delude; misleading; raising vain hopes; Ex. delusive promises delve V. dig; search deeply; investigate demagogue N. person who appeals to people's prejudice; false leader of people; CF. demagoguery demean V. disgrace; humiliate; debase in dignity; behave demeanor N. behavior; bearing demented adj. insane demise N. death demographic related to population balance; N. demography: statistical study of human population demolition N. destruction; V. demolish demoniac(demoniacal) fiendish; cruel; N. demon: evil supernatural being; devil fiend evil spirit; devil demotic adj. of or pertaining to the people
... working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach."
Whether college faculty should also work outside academia, in professional work related to their academic fields, depends primarily on the specific academic area. With respect to fields in which outside work is appropriate, I strongly agree with the statement; students and faculty all stand to gain in a variety of respects when a professor complements academic duties with real-world experience.
As a threshold matter, the statement requires qualification in two respects. First, in certain academic areas there is no profession to speak of outside academia. This is especially true in the humanities; after all, what work outside academia is there for professors of literature or philosophy? Secondly, the statement fails to consider that in certain other academic areas a professor's academic duties typically involve practical work of the sort that occurs outside academia. This is especially true in the fine and performing arts, where faculty actively engage in the craft by demonstrating techniques and styles for their students.
Aside from these two qualifications, I strongly agree that it is worthwhile for college faculty to work outside academia in professional positions related to their field. There are three dear benefits of doing so. First, in my experience as a student, faculty who are actively engaged in their fields come to class with fresh insights and a contagious excitement about the subject at hand. Moreover, they bring to their students practical, real-world examples of the principles and theories discussed in textbooks, thereby sparking interest, and even motivating some students to pursue the field as a career.
Secondly, by keeping abreast with the changing demands of work as a professional, professors can help students who are serious about pursuing a career in that field to make more informed career decisions. The professor with field experience is better able to impart useful, up-to-date information about what work in the field entails, and even about the current job market. After all, college career-planning staff are neither equipped nor sufficiently experienced to provide such specific advice to students.
A third benefit has to do with faculty research and publication in their areas of specialty. Experience in the field can help a professor ferret out cutting-edge and controversial issues--which might be appropriate subjects for research and publication. Moreover, practical experience can boost a professor's credibility as an expert in the field. For example, each year a certain sociology professor at my college combined teaching with undercover work investigating various cults. Not only did the students benefit from the many interesting stories this professor had to tell about his experiences, the professor's publications about cults catapulted him to international prominence as an expert on the subject, and justifiably so.
In sum, aside from certain academic areas in which outside work is either unavailable or unnecessary, students and faculty alike stand everything to gain when faculty enrich their careers by interspersing field work with academic work.
... of human experience than do factual accounts. Because the creators of fiction shape and focus reality rather than report on it literally, their creations have a more lasting significance."
Do imaginative works hold more lasting significance than factual accounts, for the reasons the speaker cites? To some extent the speaker overstates fiction's comparative significance. On balance, however, I tend to agree with the speaker. By recounting various dimensions of the human experience, a fictional work can add meaning to and appreciation of the times in which the work is set. Even where a fictional work amounts to pure fantasy, with no historical context, it can still hold more lasting significance than a factual account. Examples from literature and film serve to illustrate these points.
I concede that most fictional works rely on historical settings for plot, thematic, and character development. By informing us about underlying political, economic, and social conditions, factual accounts provide a frame of reference needed to understand and appredate imaginative works. Fact is the basis for fiction, and fiction is no substitute for fact. I would also concede that factual accounts are more "accurate" than fictional ones--insofar as they are more objective. But this does not mean that factual accounts provide a "more meaningful picture of the human experience." To the contrary, only imaginative works can bring an historical period alive by way of creative tools such as imagery and point of view. And, only imaginative works can provide meaning to historical events--through the use of devices such as symbolism and metaphor.
Several examples from literature serve to illustrate this point. Twain's novels afford us a sense of how 19th-Century Missouri would have appeared through the eyes of 10-year old boys. Melville's "Billy Budd" gives the reader certain insights into what travel on the high seas might have been like in earlier centuries, through the eyes of a crewman. And the epic poems "Beowulf" and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" provide glimpses of the relationships between warriors and their kings in medieval times. Bare facts about these historical eras are easily forgettable, whereas creative stories and portrayals such as the ones mentioned above can be quite memorable indeed. In other words, what truly lasts are our impressions of what life must have been like in certain places, at certain times, and under certain conditions. Only imaginative works can provide such lasting impressions.
Examples of important films underscore the point that creative accounts of the human experience hold more lasting significance than bare factual accounts. Consider four of our most memorable and influential films: Citizen Kane, Schindkr Last, The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars. Did Welles' fictional portrayal of publisher William Randolph Hearst or Spielberg's fictional portrayal of a Jewish sympathizer during the holocaust provide a more "meaningful picture of human experience" than a history textbook? Did these accounts help give "shape and focus" to reality more so than newsreels alone could? If so, will these works hold more "lasting significance" than bare factual accounts of the same persons and events? I think anyone who has seen these films would answer all three questions affirmatively. Or consider The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars. Both films, and the novels from which they were adapted, are pure fantasy. Yet both teem with symbolism and metaphor relating to life's journey, the human spirit, and our hopes, dreams and ambitions--in short, the human experience. Therein lies the reason for their lasting significance.
In sum, without prior factual accounts fictional works set in historical periods lose much of their meaning. Yet only through the exercise of artistic license can we convey human experience in all its dimensions, and thereby fully understand and appreciate life in other times and places. And it is human experience, and not bare facts and figures, that endures in our minds and souls.
