my journey through grad school

The nerves…

chasingl — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:01:35 +0000

I am getting nervous and I am getting frustrated.
I feel like I’m in middle school studying algebra with my father again. I just want to get it right and I get so angry when I don’t. SO angry that it creates a domino effect and I end up with only three correct problems and a fistful of my own hair.

How am I going to fix this? Can I get it right by test day? It’s not like I don’t understand. Again…I have to undo a lifetime of doing thinks quickly and haphazardly.

I’ve been vacillating about pushing the GRE back. I just need it to be over with! Not because I don’t want to deal with it anymore, but –for those of you who don’t know– I won a scholarship in July and I can’t use any of the money for school until I am accepted into an actual graduate program. I need to take this GRE and get into grad school before I can no longer claim that money.
The questions is…If I take the GRE on Monday, will I get into grad school?

Attention to Detail is a Virtue

chasingl — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:00:28 +0000

I may have made a poor decision by studying at a cafe tonight. I finished the quantitative portion of my practice exam.

I fail to pay attention to detail. As with reading comprehension, it is much more effective to read and work problems out carefully than it is to go back and fix a mistake. During the exam I won’t be able to go back and fix it. I have 4 nights to train myself to do undo a lifetime habit of rushing.

The good news is that I am definitely capable of working out the problem!

The bad news is the distractions and my lack of attention to detail resulted in an hour and a half of math problems, rather than the 30 minutes it should have taken.

Tomorrow I will try again, in a quiet room.

5 more nights of studying…

chasingl — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:20:00 +0000

3 pages to go in my textbook and I’ll be ready to write my essay for Language Development…tomorrow.

I only got through 20 GRE math problems today. I’ll admit that I’ve been distracted.

Call it cheating if you must, but I am counting my textbook reading as training for reading comprehension.

I’m not nervous yet, but at this rate I’m going to have a stressful weekend!

Vocabulary

Fulminate: v. to attack loudly or denounce

Gambol: v. to skip about playful, frolic

Gauche: adj. Crude, awkward, tasteless

Germane: adj. relevant to the subject at hand

Glib: adj. marked by ease of informality; nonchalant; lacking in depth; superficial

Grouse: n. to complain or grumble

Impute: v. to attribute to a cause or source, ascribe, assign

Incipient: adj. beginning to come into being or to become apparent

Nice: adj. exacting, extremely or even excessively precise; done with delicacy or skill

Natty: adj. trimly neat and tidy dapper

Imagine a world without jokes and sarcasm!

chasingl — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:47:00 +0000

It’s 10:20opm. I want nothing more than to go to sleep. I’ve accomplished about 40 math problems. About 80% of them were correct! I still haven’t started the dreaded combination and permutation problems. I think I will start with them tomorrow.

I am about to submit multiple choice questions—part of my homework due Thursday— and I had to write a question about how patients with right hemisphere lesions don’t understand jokes and sarcasm. How humorous and yet unfortunate that is!

With that said, I’m going to do a quick vocab session!

Alloy: v. to commingle; to debase by mixing with something inferior

Anathema: n. a solemn of ecclesiastical (religious) curse; accursed or thoroughly loathes person or thing

Anodyne: adj. soothing

and so that I know some words that start with something other than “A” when test day arrives…

Sagacious: adj. having sound judgment, perceptive, wise

Salacious: adj. appealing to or causing sexual desire, bawdy

Salient: adj. prominent,protruding, conspicuous

Salubrious: adj. promoting health or well-being

Sanguine: adj. cheerful, confident,optimistic

Sap: v. to enervate or to weaken the vitality of

Quick review of words from days past…

Hackneyed: adj. rendered trite or commonplace

Harangue: v. to deliver a loud, pompous speech or tirade

Prolix: adj. long-winded, verbose

Umbrage: n. offense, resentment

Belabor: v. to explain, worry about or work at repeatedly

Precept: n. command or direction; rule for personal conduct

Time for reading comprehension and no bedtime in sight.

She works hard for the vocab

chasingl — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:39:00 +0000

I adore The Princeton Review’s “Word Smart for the GRE.” If you are taking the test, it’s a must-buy ($13.99 at Barnes and Noble). The review books, although they are absolutely necessary, do not have nearly enough vocabulary. I also like the fact that The Princeton Review gives you the pronunciation and part of speech. It also gives 2 to 3 examples of the word in a sentence.

I have reviewed some words that I’ve already covered or that most people already know. Context is so important on the GRE and you really have to analyze in order to figure out the context. Studying variations of the same definition is very helpful!

P.S. The Princeton Review book has little quizzes after every ten words. So great! I really wish I had purchased it a month ago!

Vocabulary

Aberrant: adj. deviating from the norm

Abjure: v. To renounce or reject solemnly; to recant; to avoid

Abscission: n. act of cutting off or removing

Accolade: n. an expression of praise

Accretion: n. growth; increase by successive addition

Acumen: n. quick, keen, or accurate knowledge

Admonish: v. to warn against; to reprove; to express disapproval

Adroit: adj. adept, dextrous

Adulation: n. excessive praise; intense adoration

Adumbrate: v. to foreshadow vaguely; to suggest or outline sketchily

Alchemy: v. magical or wonderful transformation

It never ends

chasingl — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:21:00 +0000

While my attention span gets shorter, my to do list gets longer and longer.

By Thursday I have to read an additional 40 pages for my language development class. (I say additional because I read around 40 pages yesterday) I am actually enjoying these readings on neurolinguistics (the roll the brain plays in language functioning); I never thought I’d be making such a claim. I have to write multiple-choice questions and an essay on issues of language and communication in non-humans. (I haven’t read quite far enough to start planning for that.) I’m juggling this with my cram-session for the GRE people. Show me the love!

It is becoming more apparent that my bedtime needs to be rescheduled. I have been an early-to-bed-early-to-riser for more than 2 years now. Higher education won’t be permitting that any longer. I am about to become a night owl and and early bird, which is likely to be an unpleasant combination, particularly while I am in training. Training starts tonight. Whereas I am usually in bed by 10:30 on a “work night” I am pushing the limit to 12:30 tonight. Let’s see if I make it until 12:30; even more important is if I make it through my Monday!

Despite my ever-shrinking attention span, I managed to read from The New Yorker!

This is not this week’s cover, but it will have to suffice!

I made it through 12 pages of ” A Reporter at Large–Eight Days: the battle to save the American Financial System”, by James B. Stewart in this week’s New Yorker. It’s a 20+ page article. It may be cheating, since it’s the most poetic way to read the news. However, the story wasn’t exactly easy to follow. It took me 30 minutes to get through those 12 pages. I vow to be reading faster and with more concentration by the end of this week!

The results of the practice test are in and…

chasingl — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:36:00 +0000

I’m not happy.
I feel like an idiot
I’m a nervous wreck

I have some catching up to do before the GRE. That’s a week from noon tomorrow. So…7 days 22 hours and 40 minutes from right now.

Allow me to be more specific. My verbal score was a 560, 82nd percentile. Had I answered 10 more questions correctly I would have scored a 650 and in the 95th percentile. Considering that 7 of the questions I got wrong were reading comprehension questions, I can definitely make this happen. (P.S. the root word studying really paid off). I have vowed to read 2 articles from the New Yorker every night from now until Sunday the 27th. With each of those articles I will ask myself about the tone of the author, his stance on the situation and the organization of the article.

Now…with as confident as I was about the quantitative section of this test, the practice quantitative section was a disaster. I got so frustrated that I didn’t finish it. Pathetic and very unrealistic considering I was trying to simulate the test environment. I have, however, pinpointed that it’s only the more complicated geometry problems, permutations and combination problems that I am really struggling with. This can definitely be remedied in 7 days. In order to aid in my quest to remedy my little math problem I went out (immediately after quitting the practice test) and purchased:

I plan on doing 30-50 practice problems a night. At that rate, by the time I get to the exam I will be more accustomed to doing 50 math problems consecutively. I’m giving myself a bit of flexibility, because I do after all have my first test for my class the same day that I am taking the GRE. Oh what fun!

Just to be safe I also purchased:

This book has quizzes after every 10 – 15 words. I am going to try to do two quizzes a day, but if things are hectic,I am giving myself the flexibility of only doing one. I know my goals seem lax, but I can’t exactly neglect my language development class. It would be more expensive to retake that than it would be to retake the GRE

Ok so now for a quick recap. Despite my efforts to study every day for the past two months, I am going to have to cram this week. My goals are to read two articles from the New Yorker and ask myself typical reading comprehension questions;to do 30-50 math problems a night, focusing on the problems that I most struggle with; to add 10-20 new words to my vocabulary each night.

I better get started!

GREWordGuy

chasingl — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:24:00 +0000

I am loving www.grewordguy.com. Adam creates humorous videos with popular GRE vocabulary words. If you forget a definition after watching these memorable performances, you should definitely have your memory checked out by a professional.

The videos are a great break from all of the reading, writing and repeating I’ve been doing. I’m hoping for some root words in his videos soon! (Maybe not soon enough to save me as there are only 8 days until exam day!)

If you get a chance head over to www.grewordguy.com and show your support!

Root Word Review

chasingl — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:15:00 +0000

VERS/VERT: to turn
As in: controversy, revert, diverse, aversion, introvert, extrovert…

VID/VIS: to see
As in: evident, video, adviser, survey

VIL: base, mean
As in: vilify, revile, vile

VOC/VOK: to call
As in: vocabulary, advovate, vocation,

PLE: to fill
As in: complete, deplete, supplement…

LECT/LEG: to choose
As in: elect, select…there are no examples of “leg” used within a word…how very helpful. If I think of any I’ll be sure to edit.

FLAG/FLAM: to burn
As in: flammable, flagrant, conflagration

MIN: to project, to hang over
As in: eminent, imminent, prominent…Min also is the root word for small, for obvious reasons, but I’m not so worried about that one.

MIS/MIT: to sent
As in: transmit, emissary, remit

NOUNC/NUNC: to announce (my understanding of romance languages keeps telling me that nunc means never!)
As in: announce, pronounce, renounce

GRE Weekend Edition September 19th

chasingl — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:44:00 +0000

words associated with boring

banal: adj. devoid of originality, cliched, boring

fatuous: adj. foolish or inane

hackneyed: adj. made commonplace or trite

insipid: adj. without distinctive or stimulating qualities

pedestrian: adj. lacking in vitality or distinction (This one would have thrown me for a loop on the GRE, if I hadn’t prepared!)

platitude: noun. trite remark, particularly is spoken as though it’s something deep or philosophical

prosaic: adj. commonplace, dull, matter-of-fact

quotidian: adj. usual or customary