Merrill

I complained to the testing center and they said "we don't have anything to do with the test format. Contact ETS" I also asked them from a printed score report, but they told me the same thing. And I later found out that ETS will only take complaints within one week of the test. Since I didn't have a printed score report, I was hesitant to start complaining, and then have them "lose" my score. I'm surprised no one else has complained about this. It could be really bad, especially if English is not your first language.

I took the GRE September 1st. On the verbal section, i ran into a formatting problem. On the reading comprehension questions, they put the text in a 3 inch "side-pane" to the left of the question, instead of putting the text in normal paragraph form above. I was on a 14 inch monitor and COULD NOT read the text! I was furious! The space was so small, it looked something like this... In the year 1959, a group of scient- ists, go toge- ther and... total nonsense! Was I the only one to get a test like this? I knocked at least 100 points off my verbal score.

Has anyone taken the subject test in English Lit? I hear it is one of the most difficult.

That's called a dangling participle. We don't know if "it" refers to the post or the security forum. And yes, it should be when it is completed, not was. better to say "Once it is complete, I could post in on the security forum."

Your quantitative score is good, and you are going into engineering. I doubt the schools pay much attention to the verbal. They will also understand that English is not your first language. Where did you do your undergraduate work? If it was a really good univeristy, and your major was a tough one, a 2.6 GPA doesn't look that bad. Here is my advice... To improve the English, take a Berlitz course -very intensive. Also get a comprehensive grammar book and study it like crazy. Then go take the TOEFL again. You'll get a much better score. There are tons of universities in the States, including some big state schools which have pretty lenient admissions policies. The only reason they are lenient, is because they are in a part of the country which does not attract a lot of students (Utah, Kansas, etc.) You can get a good education at a good price.

man I wish I had 4-5 months! I had 3 weeks to prepare. The reason is, PhD programs in writing require original research papers and creative work to be submitted along with transcripts, GRE general scores, not to mention the GRE subject test. I just didn't have the time. I used a prep book that was a total waste of time -the math on the actual exam was totally different. Very little geometry and straight algebra. Tons of complex word problems, and huge calculations. I had one that was something like 2.735 x .000045638923401 I'm not kidding! I had to guess -no way do I have time to do something like that. My RC selections were jammed into a side-bar so narrow, only 3 words would fit on a line, and my monitor was 14 inches. Highly questionable indeed! have you taken any of the subject tests? Where did you go to college?

I took the GRE yesterday in order to continue on and do my PhD in English. Naturally, my score was pretty heavily on the verbal side (Verbal: 640, Quantitative: 450 -not including writing section). One thing that infuriated me, was that the reading comprehension questions didn't put the text in paragraph form above the questions. Instead, the ETS sticks the selection into a "side-bar" that can only fit three words accross at one time. It was next to impossible to read, on a 14 inch monitor! This was clearly intentional. Did anyone else have the same experience? This cost me about 100 points on my verbal, and I wasn't happy. Fortunately, I still did pretty well in that section. Now here is my next question. Has anyone taken the GRE Subject test in English Literature? Does ETS jam the selections into a tiny side-bar? Or is the format different?