V 800, Q 700, no verbal prep and about 10 hours quant

[eris]

Seriously guys and guyettes, COGNITION ENHANCEMENT FTW. Not talking about anything prescription only or controlled in ANY way (USA; YMMV). A good herbal store (eg. Scarlet Sage Herb, 21st(?ish) + Valencia here in SF) or the Googles is all you need.
I so very highly recommend:
Rhodiola rosea - adaptogen, mild nootropic, increases physical and mental stamina and resistance to stress. native to himalayas, used traditionally.
Gotu kola (Centella asiatica) - boosts memory, reduces anxiety, generally AWESOME. long history of use in ayurvedic medicine.
Bacopa monnieri - memory, straight-up cognitive performance enhancer. Get the bulk powder from an online vendor.
DMAE - Dimethylaminoethanol is related to choline and is a biochemical precursor to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Which you need to think. So nom this. Tastes FOUL (rotten lobster or really, really, nasty...go figure )

That's my half a groat's worth, anyway...

(YMMV. Use at own risk, if you're smart enough to get into grad school, you're smart enough to use Google Scholar and read the literature on these plants/compounds. Good luck, and good huntin').

[Goldust]

This has got to be the weirdest debrief I have ever seen. I suggest that you come back with some better posts about your prep and your test, or at least your background before taking the test, so that it is helpful to us mere mortals who follow boringly conventional techniques.

[gradschule]

most interesting debrief ever.

[bergmc00]

Originally Posted by eris

Seriously guys and guyettes, COGNITION ENHANCEMENT FTW. Not talking about anything prescription only or controlled in ANY way (USA; YMMV). A good herbal store (eg. Scarlet Sage Herb, 21st(?ish) + Valencia here in SF) or the Googles is all you need.
I so very highly recommend:
Rhodiola rosea - adaptogen, mild nootropic, increases physical and mental stamina and resistance to stress. native to himalayas, used traditionally.
Gotu kola (Centella asiatica) - boosts memory, reduces anxiety, generally AWESOME. long history of use in ayurvedic medicine.
Bacopa monnieri - memory, straight-up cognitive performance enhancer. Get the bulk powder from an online vendor.
DMAE - Dimethylaminoethanol is related to choline and is a biochemical precursor to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Which you need to think. So nom this. Tastes FOUL (rotten lobster or really, really, nasty...go figure )

That's my half a groat's worth, anyway...

(YMMV. Use at own risk, if you're smart enough to get into grad school, you're smart enough to use Google Scholar and read the literature on these plants/compounds. Good luck, and good huntin').

weirdo alert!!!

[raza5680]

First of all bravo ....
and secondly English please

[eris]

Verbal: Honest to god, I did one of the online practices, got every question right, didn't bother. FWIW - my undergrad is Classics (@Cambridge) (so, I have 8 years' Latin and 6 of Greek - plus I speak Dutch and French fluently, tho my first language is English). Upshot of the above is that I can, at a pinch, work backwards through the derivational morphology of the contemporary English word - including loads of fun biomedical terms...

Quant: Went thru Miller's "math for the GRE" book, which I cannot recommend. Typos, scant explanation, etc. That was it. 700 was at the high end of what I'd expected.

I'm applying for sociocultural anthropology, PhD, with new media emphasis, and a side of ethnolinguistics n ethnobotany. At a school where the grad assistant told me "I wish they'd just drop the GRE requirement, it's not like anyone pays attention to it."

[eris]

Originally Posted by bergmc00

weirdo alert!!!

I refer m'learned colleague to the articles below. @Goldust - what's "conventional", if not practice grounded in empirical evidence??

The chronic effects of an extract of Bacopa monniera (Brahmi) on cognitive function in healthy human subjects C. Stough · J. Lloyd · J. Clarke · L. Downey · C. W. Hutchison · T. Rodgers · P. J. Nathan.

The study was a double-blind placebo-controlled independent-group design in which subjects were randomly allocated to one of two treatment conditions, B. monniera (300 mg) or placebo. Neuropsychological testing was conducted pre-(baseline) and at 5 and 12 weeks postdrug administration.
Results: B. monniera significantly improved speed of visual information processing measured by the IT task, learning rate and memory consolidation measured by the AVLT (P<0.05), and state anxiety (P<0.001) compared to placebo, with maximal effects evident after 12 weeks. Conclusions: These finding suggests that B. monniera may improve higher order cognitive processes that are critically dependent on the input of information from our environment such as learning and memory.

Rhodiola rosea in stress induced fatigue – A double blind cross-over study of a standardized extract SHR-5 with a repeated low-dose regimen on the mental performance of healthy physicians during night duty.
V. Darbinyan, A. Kteyan, A. Panossian, E. Gabrielian, G.Wikman and H. Wagner

The tests chosen reflect an overall level of mental fatigue, involving complex perceptive and cog- nitive cerebral functions, such as associative thinking, short-term memory, calculation and ability of con- centration, and speed of audio-visual perception. These parameters were tested before and after night duty during three periods of two weeks each: a) a test period of one RRE/placebo tablet daily, b) a wash- out period and c) a third period of one placebo/RRE tablet daily, in a double-blind cross-over trial. The perceptive and cognitive cerebral functions mentioned above were investigated using 5 different tests.
A statistically significant improvement in these tests was observed in the treatment group during the first two weeks period. No side-effects were reported for either treatment noted. These results suggest that RRE can reduce general fatigue under certain stressful conditions.

Effect of different extracts of Centella asiatica on cognition and markers of oxidative stress in rats
M. H. Veerendra Kumar and Y. K. Gupta

All doses of aqueous extract increased the number of avoidances in shuttle box and prolonged the step through latency in step through apparatus in a dose dependent manner, while only two doses 200 and 300 mg/kg of aqueous extract showed significant increase in the step down latency in step down apparatus and transfer latency (TL) in elevated plus maze. Among doses of aqueous extract tested on oxidative stress parameters, only 200 and 300 mg/kg showed a significant decrease in the brain levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) with simultaneous significant increase in levels of glutathione. There was a significant increase in the levels of catalase at the 300 mg/kg but no significant change in superoxide dismutase (SOD) levels were observed. The present findings indicate that the aqueous extract of C. asiatica has cognitive enhancing effect and an antioxidant mechanism is involved.

[Death Knight]

Originally Posted by eris

@Goldust - what's "conventional", if not practice grounded in empirical evidence??

Wow