That’s right, I am officially “Gree Certified.” In other words, I officially took the GRE test on Monday. After months of worrying and preparing, I walked in on Monday at 11AM to the Gateway Center Room #140 at the University of North Texas to take the GRE exam. I was scheduled for 12PM but I was allowed to start early.

After filling out a form promising that I would never disclose the questions on the test I took and placing my belongings in a locker, I sat down at my cubicle / workstation to start. I have to admit that I was intensely nervous. After chugging through the questionaire in the beginning, I started the Analytical writing section. Since the writing prompts are all posted on ETS’s website, I don’t see any harm in referencing them:

Issue prompt:
“Most people recognize the benefits of individuality, but the fact is that personal economic success requires conformity.”

Argument Prompt:
“The nation of Claria covers a vast physical area. But despite wide geographic differences, many citizens are experiencing rising costs of electricity. A recent study of household electric costs in Claria found that families who cooled their houses with fans alone spent more on electricity than did families using air conditioners alone for cooling. However, those households that reported using both fans and air conditioners spent less on electricity than those households that used either fans or air conditioners alone. Thus, the citizens of Claria should follow the study’s recommendation and use both air conditioners and fans in order to save money on electricity.”

These were fairly simple; I finished the issue prompt with about 15 minutes remaining and the argument with about 10 minutes remaining.

The verbal felt tough but I could tell from the words thrown at me in the analogies and antonyms that I was not doing that well. I ended up having 4 reading comprehension passages which are incredibly time consuming. The quantative grew very difficult very fast; I had to guess on question #9. I finished the math with 5 minutes remaining but I felt I could have done much better.

At the end, there was a research section. I decided to complete this for 2 reasons: 1) to find out what the next GRE will look like and 2) because there was a reward of $250 bucks for the top 100 scores. I figured most people will choose not to complete this section if not required so I figured I’d give it a go.

When I took a diagnostic sample test on the Kaplan CD (included with one of the many books I bought), I scored a 470 on both sections (that’s a 940 total). After 3 more practice tests and 6 practice verbal and quantative sections (kinda like 6 more practice tests without the writing), I felt prepared. UT of Dallas requires a 1200 but will let slightly lower scores slide if compensated for on other parts of the application. My official score was a 490 Verbal and 730 Quantative (or 1220 Combined).

Money and time well spent.