Now, let me write something about the exam which didn’t allow me to pursue my career in engineering. Not gonna give you any substantial reason, just a number of excuses. The Villain of this post is neither me nor an AU guy, for a change it is the ETS. For those of you who don’t have any idea what that means or stands for, its only point of importance is that it spoils people’s interest in the field that they chose, Engineering and also to a certain extent helps India reduce brain drain. It conducts the GRE, i.e. Graduate Record Examination.
Well, in short, it is a computer adaptive test which has two sections, verbal and quants. Each section is worth 800 marks. The verbal section is one screwed up affair. The syllabus is simple: Anything and everything related to the English language. There’s a book that helps us prepare though, The BARRONS. I actually know people who put in all the effort in the world to try and learn every single word covered in the Barrons only to find out that these words are used only in the instruction set and not the actual paper. Of course, they understood how to use the mouse better through these instructions and ended up screwing the paper all together.
And I almost forgot, it also has two huge essays which you have to write back to back. No, no, it isn’t essays on automobiles or microprocessors, a perfect example would be “Give reasons why a guy died of lack of iron when all that he ate was spinach” (personal experience). Quant section is comparatively very easy. It is actually criminal to drop marks in quants. The rule is simple. Try and maximize your verbal score and get the 800 marks that quants has to offer.
How could an engineer be rated on his score in the verbal section is what I have to ask. It is fair enough to say that he or she should know English really well. But that’s what TOEFL is there for. One could easily just while away his time during engineering, enjoy and prepare in the end for a month or two and catch a flight to the US. (I wanted to do the same, couldn’t, so writing against it now) This is where I believe the format that GATE has, ensures fair mode of selection. Also to add to this confusion, there are people looking for favourable dates and venues to score higher. You write in May or June you score higher than in August or you write in Bangalore and your score is better than in Chennai. All in all, for people looking forward to write GRE, please remember you can get married any day but think twice before you book your GRE date. But I must say, GRE does help people improve their vocabulary to a great extent.If at all my personal opinion matters, join lycuem for coaching, Sir James rocks.
One would think. Here is a guy who has screwed up every exam that matters and still survives. How couldn’t I?? There are more engineering seats than there are students and the I.T boom needs more people than the this huge country can offer. I’ll survive.
