I'm never taking the GREs AGAIN!

So I took my GREs last week in order to keep my options for grad school alive and.....

I gotta say I'm pretty pleased with the results!

The GRE is a standardized exam that graduate schools use as a measurement of your writing, reading, and math skills. It was just revised in August of 2011 so I had to learn the new format and get familiar with the new ways the GRE is going to pick your brain.

For those interested in the new format, here it is:

Part 1 - Essay Writing
- Section one: 30 minutes - You're given a quote like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." You have to write an essay on whether or not you support this statement and give reasons why.
- Section two: 30 minutes - You're given a letter or memorandum written by an employee or CEO. It will outline their argument for a specific change such as providing shorter lunch breaks in order to increase productivity, for example. Your job is to review the letter and decide whether or not the employee's suggestions should or should not be implemented.

Part 2 - Verbal
- This section is a jumble of vocab, synonyms, sentence completions, and reading comprehension of 1 paragraph - 5 paragraph passages

Part 3 - Math
- Pretty much anything and everything

Part 4 - Verbal
- Same as before

Part 5 - Math
- Same as before

Part 6 - Math
- Same as before


The whole exam is conducted on a computer which is nice because you can be on your own time line and take your breaks when you're ready to instead of having to take synchronized breaks with a whole classroom.

The exam is still pretty grueling. I think it was about a 4 hour exam for me. Each section is about 30-35 minutes long. And you're given a ten minute break half way through.

The nicest thing about this exam? It will tell you your score as soon as you've completed it (minus the essay scores -- those are scored later by grad students by hand). So there's no waiting period where you're contemplating the fate of your future.

The approximate GRE scores that the Masters of Nursing Program at Georgetown University is looking for is as follows:

Verbal - 155
Math - 148
Writing - 5/6

Let's just say that I think I've done well enough to qualify for this program!

How much preparation did I put into this? I went through and completed a Princeton review (Which had 2 complete practice exams) and finished 50% of another prep book...  which was just pure practice questions (It has 1,014 practice questions to be exact). I think these books definitely helped me to get familiar with the content and the format in which the GRE will test you but I'm not too sold on the accuracy of some of the questions. I found multiple typos and spelling/grammatical errors in both books which does nothing to validate the book contents. I also memorized 265 vocabulary words that I will never use again -- only ONE of the 265 vocab words showed up on the actual exam. Painful. BUT. I always think it's better to be over-prepped than under-prepped!

So now what?

I think I'm gonna expand my options and throw out a few applications to a few different institutions and see what I get.

ALSO: Gotta start studying for my October boards!!!!!!! AGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

It's been a studious summer to say the least. 2 down, 1 to go!