Incoan

Part 3 of the American English lesson !! Linking words !!! :) What I've noticed from continuously recording myself that despite my attempts to perfect my English, these tips did not have an instantenous result. Moreover, the low quality of mic recordings also contributed to this significantly. And you never know how bad you sound until you record yourself :). Also it seems like my interview went ok, but since my deadline for fellowship application is very soon, I feel like it is a waste of time to try. Besides, if I go to USA next year it means a whole year where I can actually make something useful - work on my super plans :). People would want to ask these questions expressing their worry about application, but I don't see the point in it. You can always do what you want and not worry too much about what decisions others will make about you. A rule - do and forget. Can't really manipulate your reality further than that. Do you know a rule of never to multi-task and to be productive, not "busy"? Read Timothy Ferris' book - it is good. It is quite counter-intuitive, but the principle does exist. How many times has worrying about problems solved anything? I don't think you will come up even with one instance of that. Also whenever you try to accomplish too much at once your brain "overburns" and distracts you from the most important goal. One said that whenever you want to do anything you want to ask yourself - 1) What is the most important thing you should do to achieve that? 2) What is the second most important thing to do AFTER that? 3) Don't even bother with the third most important thing. Actually, I've tweaked the rules, because initially they suggested having 3 priorities. Errhhh, I would say that learning GRE vocabulary also contributed to polishing that mindset of mine. I had the most success when I stopped pursuing too many methods and just focused on one method, because vocabulary is about repetition. You can't learn new words after glancing at them just once (well, I still haven't figured how to do it consistently. Magicians have a trick that does that).

I should agree that there is not much point reading the whole text before answering questions.

So I'm still waiting for Carnegie Mellon to tell me the results and continue writing my Spoken English Tutorial series. It was a 11 am morning time and I was ill, but the interviewer was very energetic to my surprise. I couldn't really focus on the interview and that's why I wasn't very sharp in answers and wasn't very sharp when doing the writing task. Oh, to my surprise the questions were very simple - Why did you decide to apply to this major , do you have hobbies, who do you think a leader is , what is the difference between a leader , how would you explain what class and object are to a history major and etc. Some questions were general while others were not so much. He explained me what the major was about and I was pretty happy to hear it, because it sounded very promising. I'm still working on my websites. EDIT BY MODERATOR Anyway, I've completed my second series of Spoken English Tutorial and I got some ideas on how to organise my thoughts in a more friendly manner, to make it less "textbookish". I decided to link the other parts of Spoken English Tutorial in the first part.

If you are not limited by time, then you should take GRE first. Then you will at least know if you have a good GRE or bad GRE score, and then you can make your own judgement on how to approach the situation. (I think you would take GRE anyway, considering you will be applying to financial aid) I mean, having a good GRE should definitely raise you in the eyes of the admission committee, no questions. It is mostly up to your decision and how you evaluate yourself, again.

I've been thinking a lot about what content I should be filling up my blog with, and came to a conclusion that all I need to do is to provide "value", I will be having an Interview with Carnegie Mellon, Masters in Software Engineering, tomorrow, but I just can't get my head off the fact that I have to quicken the process of adding content to my website. Anyway, I've been researching the net for some time, and since I couldn't come up with anything particularly awesome, I decided to go with the idea of going two ways : -I will be adding some class lessons on how to have an American accent (did a lot of research on it) -I will be adding reviews on various English Speaking Softwares. -I will write about how to score high on TOEFL and GRE. Here is the first part of my series - Spoken English Tutorial - Acquiring that American accent. Improve your Pronunciation.

Now the funny thing is that even after finishing GRE I sometimes get people asking me what was that that helped me get a good GRE score (well, at least my friends are surprised). Now, I didn't do anything extraordinary. You might check the article on How To Improve English Speaking - it speaks on this topic in detail. Yes, I went to classes and they really helped. But what helped me even more was that I constantly visited urch forums and practiced Big Book tests. I know for sure that without extensive practicing I would not be able to be even confident to get a 1450 score. Relax and do your best. :)

I have been talking yesterday to a pilot from France. I'm not joking. Although there were a lot of interesting things I've asked and learnt - I will keep them for another day. :) This reminds me of this blog post of mine from English Speaking Tips website: Spoken English Tutorial No kidding. I always thought that France was a country that had the least problem with English languages (because they are in Europe and I always had an impression that European people have it easier learning English), but apparently it is not. Go figure.

I talked to a friend from Boston university, masters in Financial Mathematics. The only one who had financial aid was a Mexican (20%). A lot of others received student loan, though. So if it is acceptable. :) You should retake the GRE, obviously, though :). If you have time.

You know, I have 1450 GRE , 118 Toefl and I am not sure if I will get admitted to 2 universities I've sent my applications to, either. I don't care though. (I had 3.0 AWA , but not many people care about AWA.) Also my opinion, that's why you never want to set your main goal in life as something that depends on other people's decision entirely. (and ultimately that means you can't do anything about a lot of things. And that's exactly what creates anxiety or as you said - tension.) That's my solution to relieving your tense feelings at least :). But regarding your main questions, my answer is probably stereotypical - GRE is okay. TOEFL is almost ok (for some universities it is ok, some have a cutting point of 100). AWA probably doesn't matter. Write a good, convincing essay, have good recommendations, and that will boost your chances. I did receive an interview invitation from Carnegie Mellon, Silicon Valley, though, and it is scheduled on February 2nd. It seems to be a pretty complicated interview, on the other hand, the duration of which is 1-2 hours (they seem to be strict with it). 1. University is NOT THE END of life. Release your tension. You've sent the application - now do something better than fortune guessing. :) 2. You will get accepted somewhere eventually. Man up. :)

I want to find a (few) person who wants to practice English Speaking over skype. Not really for my own practice, because I already got my TOEFL score (118/120) but because I want to collect some data for myself. Also - I don't really care if you are good at English or not. Either way is fine.

This is what my teacher told me : Everyone is different. For some flash cards work , for me Excel File written by myself worked (although I dabbled in many methods, including quizz softwares and other) It always takes a few Times of exposure to the word to remember it, though. Don' expect to learn everything in one go - you probably will forget some later. Sentence Completion - learn strategies from Kaplan, for example. And practice. Focus on trigger words and clues. In my opinion, if you take time and read the forum of people who have just finished GRE you will find the information. And also find that people are different. So identify your weak spots and grab Barron's, Kaplan's, whatever. Practicing test along the way is also crucial.

Good start. You need to figure out though, where are your exact problems and learn the strategies. Getting a qualified teacher is a very good idea. Toefl is very straightforward.

You can do it better :)

I did first a very emotional essay on my admission to Carnegie Mellon Computer Science, then I edited it to cut down to the facts. Here is what I would do (and I'm editing on the go) : ------ (details about how your background) (say honest reasons why you took a break) (say honest reasons why you found it to be great and how it helped you with clarity of your goals) ------ Or ------ (Background) (Some qualifying that you are good and that you have interest in the subject. List achievements) (before conclusion add a note : You might notice that I took a one year break. Here is why ... . While it was (for example, immature or impulsive or just ignore it altogether) I did learn this. ----- Do it first with emotion, full Brain-storm mode, then with editing cut down to just facts. If you think that your break was insignificant and immature to the main point you want to convey, then hint or say it clearly in your essay. Be assertive and honest. But show the confidence and facts that you are qualified for this major. I DID see SoPs that received admission (and fellowships in Carnegie Mellon, for example), while being super childishly wishy-washy though! And I saw SoPs that were very detailed and technical. But either way they were focusing on positive characters and were honest. You just need to frame the one year break somehow so that it contributed to your main idea that you are qualified for Economics and have everything required for it. There is a blog post on Timothy Ferris' blog and there was a quote excerpt from admission office of ...Ivy league, I presume (they stated what they looked in a student)? You might want to search for that, since Timothy Ferris does not update his blog too often. And I also think every college is different. (they SHOULD be , right?)

For Quantitative people with Maths background have it much easier. Practice in correct direction with correct strategies is the key, I guess .

Find a speaking partner, who can give you feedback. I CAN help you over skype.

The only thing that I would need for 700+ Verbal was more practice. Analogies and Antonyms are piece of cake when your Barron's vocabulary is perfectly memorized. Sentence Completion has its blunders here and there, but overall - stellar results. Reading Comprehension was pretty volatile for me. If anyone is wondering, I would change my strategy to this. -Get used to how standard. tests work, what's their logic. -Easiest way to improve Verbal is to learn vocabulary and do antonyms\analogies. They require the least amount of strategy - the most consistant source for freebie scores. -Learn vocabulary in a more efficient way. I think I still haven't figured out why I spent so much time on this. I knew like 3% of Barron's at first. In a sense, strategies are more important. Once you figure out another piece of puzzle of what is the logic behind stand. tests, it becomes easier to focus your study energy. And I'm Vietnamese, and I didn't read much English literature in the past, so my sense of English language (not casual, spoken, but more literal and formal) was skewed from the beginning.

Write a good personal statement. Express passion and strong reasons, strong descriptions of your own capabilities. Including reasons why you had such GPA. If I understand correctly, Universities don't want a class chock full of boring Perfect GPA TOP athletes (include more), as was quoted in one's famous person's blog. At least not all universities are like this. Take your chance. I don't think you have anything to lose (unless you actually do :) ).

I think it is good, but I think that while your reasonings are good, they are disconnected from the main idea. And that idea was "what would YOU change". It was about you. Your flow of ideas were basically : 20% - Ok , these I would change transition - Ok, forget it, now the topic is merits of Parks! 80% - General arguments for merits of having a park In conclusion there was no strong direct link to why the parks were recreations YOU would want to have in the past . Feel free to argue with me :). I am just an enthusiast. Also : 2 line : Even though it is a nice city, nowhere it is perfect so it could use some changes. I'd say 4/6 or 5/6 :)

I think 2 weeks is really accurate. I received my scores on New Years and I took exam on 19th December. Just refresh your online TOEFL page to see if scores are there! Good luck to you, young man! :)

Reading 30 - GRE preparation helped Writing 30 - GRE preparation helped, although I did 3.0 there, but GRE has different evaluation standards. Some super minor mistakes as indicated in online score reports, but still 30 Speaking 28\30 - minor mistakes as indicated in online score reports. Listening 30. I can give you some advices on every part. Here is free advice for now : To get better at Speaking - practice with a girl whose name starts with A and ends with A with a space between the letters. Over Skype. Good luck!

Well, I was having fun during New Years and then I went to ets.org and I saw both GRE and TOEFL scores of mine came up. I prepared 2.5 months straight for this GRE. 10-15 hours PER DAY EVERY DAY. The initial score of mock tests were about 1150. NOW THE SCORES 800 Quantitative - that's 94% percentile. 650 Verbal - that's 93% percentile. Ok , I could do better here, but still. I so wanted to do 700. AW sucked -> 3.0 , but I didn't prepare much for it anyway, so... and I don't care about it. TOEFL iBt is 118\120 by the way. I only didn't do 30 on Speaking part - 28\30. I misused a word, I think, while I was talking on the flow. :) Listen to Will Smith. There is no point in having plan B. The only thing that it does is it distracts you from plan A. :) Unless you are already confident that you can score high. Or genius of first breed. I wasn't. First try and jackpot. :) Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEARS, friends!

Thanks for answers. I received my scores. Don't bother putting so much effort into painting these ovals. They don't care, even though they state it on papers that you are advised to do it. I mean do paint them as much as you can, but not that much that it deteriorates your chances of answering everything. I received good score. Check my Results thread I'll be creating in a few moments. Cheers.

I've sent you a pm. (everyone who is also interested - feel free to contact me) I have an aim of 29\30 for all sections.

Count me in, too. I will drop you all a PM , though. Kot and Hanoi's pm boxes are full , though.