What was your SAT/ACT score?

I don't count my SAT score because I had to take a dump really bad during the english part.

er, yeah.

i didn't ... i wanted to go to princeton or penn.

xpost - I know!

btw, were there any witnesses when W. took his SATs? I'm thinking like that time Christopher Moltisanti got some Asian guy to take the broker's exam for him.

I don't actually know what that would have meant as far as college. My parents told me that I wasn't going to be able to get in anywhere and shouldn't even bother applying to the places I wanted to go (UT-Austin, Reed). I was a moron and believed them.

(I'm happier at the CC than the glorified-CC, at least)

I took the SAT several times and my scores always hovered around 1300 - 1350, which is probably kinda low-ish for these parts but at the time I received those scores I was pretty damn proud of what I got. ACT? I think around 30? I can't remember that one because that was the one I took toward the beginning of senior year and I can't even remember what I got on my finals that year, let alone the score to some test I took toward the beginning of it.

Bah. *just clicks "Submit" for the hell of it*

(It's very easy to recall my final grade because a lot of hard work and effort went into getting that.)

I can always remember my SAT scores, but am never certain of the raw scores for my GRE; but it's the GRE scores I've actually needed, since Hampshire didn't look at SATs.

(I had taken it because I tried to go to Hampshire without graduating high school; they said "stop failing math, and sure," and it took me the rest of the year to not fail math, by which point I had graduated anyway.)

Nah, I estimated my score. Gave myself a 5 out of 6--basically even if I don't excel at whatever they're looking for from a high school senior, I know that at the very least my grammar, spelling, essay construction etc will be excellent. fwiw the essay is the part of the test I dread the most, by a longshot.

I wrote a weird rambling essay about John Cage's "As Slow As Possible" as some sort of allegory for human knowledge and tradition and got 5/12 :(

whoa!

Yeah all they're apparently looking for is:
1) that you take a position (and all the essay questions are pro/con)
2) intro with clear thesis statement
3) three body paragraphs, each with a supporting example from yr life, or your reading, or history, etc.
4) a conclusion

all this in under ≈350 words

Makes me want to put a no. 2 pencil through my forehead

three body paragraphs, each with a supporting example from yr life

omg so basically they are looking for liars with impeccable grammar???

exactly. The Princeton Review book i've been using to prepare goes out of its way to tell you 'it doesn't matter what you say just as long as you take a position and it's coherent'.

g00blar tell us the truth, you're applying to write for the National Review

wait I posted that before I saw 'coherent'

Bingo, HI DERE! Genuine writing talent among 18 year olds is too rare to be subjected to an SAT test. Grammar and organization is about as high as it can rise.

I don't think there's any possible way I would have gotten less than 800 on the essay part unless I misspelled something.

It would depend on whether you revealed your sense of humor in all its twisted glory - that might dock you some.

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

Nowadays nothing is private: our culture has become too confessional and self-expressive. People think that to hide one's thoughts or feelings is to pretend not to have those thoughts or feelings. They assume that honesty requires one to express every inclination and impulse.

Adapted from J. David Velleman, "The Genesis of Shame"

Assignment: Should people make more of an effort to keep some things private? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

do you have any idea how difficult most people find writing? organization and grammar really is asking a lot of many teenagers.

omg G00b, that would have been a FIELD DAY for me! Basically my problem would have been staying under 350 words.

I've been finding them very difficult, only because doing well requires a complete negation of pride--I'm also a little concerned about using 'personal examples'...like am I supposed to pretend that I'm 17 and in high school? Or can I mention my wife, my impending child?

Or you can MAKE SOMETHING UP

I'm pretty much coming to the conclusion, though, that whoever marks the essay will be reading so fast that it makes no difference whatsoever what you talk about as long as it *looks* like a good essay.

xpost exactly!

As long as it's consistent to the point you're trying to make, you could say something like "Through experiences in my family, I have decided it is always for the best to keep certain things about yourself private" then start talking about your transvestite uncle.

rofl

Yes. Take professional advice on this point. Tranvestite uncles play well, if presented in well-structured sentences that display a sound vocabulary and good control over subordinate clauses.

Pets play well, too. Give yourself a menagerie, if the question calls for it.

I can now predict with confidence (after doing a number of practice essays) that one of my three 'supporting examples' tomorrow will be Rosa Parks.

Also, re: yesterday's practice test:

r x r does not equal 2r you fucking idiot

Apparently, on the GRE, the standards for grading the essay ARE seriously so mindless that a computer can do it. Not kidding.

Rosa Parks -> +1
9/11 -> +3
Our Founding Fathers -> +4
That time you had to go to the bathroom so bad but you held it for hours -> -12

I find out my score tomorrow. I'm confident I'll be above the 2200 threshold, but I'm a little nervous about my essay, for which I didn't end up using Rosa Parks.

what was the topic?

I've been going through a book to study for the GRE tomorrow, and I'm quite nervous about the essays because I can't practice for them and the practice questions in my book are ridiculous, especially the ones where you have to take a position on a statement they give you. Examples:

"A country's obsession with celebrity always increases when its citizens need a distraction from the harsh realities of war and economic strife." (You want me to just talk out of my ass about that? Because with my 23 years of life experience I can't say I've been carefully observing celebrity trends. I'd feel much more comfortable with some ACTUAL INFORMATION, like statistics to throw around or some information on celebrities in Iraq or somesuch.)

"Scientific theories, which most people consider 'fact,' almost invariably prove to be inaccurate. Thus, one should look up on any information described as 'factual' with skepticism since it may well be proven false in the future." (Clearly this question was written by an idiot. As was the sample essay arguing in favor of it.)

Yeah the essay questions are just soul-sucking in the extreme; I found I had to basically pretend I was someone else and ventriloquize some sort of answer I thought they'd want to read.

Honestly, I can't even remember my essay topic. I had to wake up at 5am, travel for three hours on a freezing cold day (I could see my breath on the tube!) to get there, and the essay was the first part of the test. Hence why I'm worried about its effect on my score.

I made the essay question bit more bearable by taking up the opposite position from what I would normally argue.

That sounds pretty grim. I'm going to get to sleep in until about 6:15, lucky me! (xpost)

Isn't the essay scored differently than the rest of the sections, so if you do badly you'll have whatever that number is listed separately from the total out of 1600? That would mean you don't have to worry as much about doing badly, because I can't imagine anyone would value that score over seeing an actual writing sample.

yeah, the score is broken up, but dude told me I need to get a 2200 (out of 2400 total), and I'd rather not have to explain away the essay. (Although at this point, if dude doesn't think a PhD in English can't teach a high schooler how to write a persuasive essay, I don't know why he'd be interested in me in the first place.)

Wait are you taking SAT/GRE for a job application? That's an interesting requirement.

I am hoping to get a job tutoring SAT for a new company/agency. To show that I can teach the SAT, this guy's logic goes, I should be able master it myself.

took mine two or three years ago, got 650V 710M 720W
my essay topic had something to do with teamwork, and all i can really remember writing about terrell owens (the football player) and MacBeth. (I'm an Eagles fan, and it was a hard time!)
my mom beat me on the two basic sections though. she got a 1430 back in the day i believe.

Critical Reading 800
Math 740
Writing 770

aces!

Awesome, only 90 points dropped.

sweet dude

excellent!

on the gre today i got 700 verbal, 780 math, which is the opposite of every practice test i took. weird. i'm happy enough with it, definitely not retaking in december.

huh, i didn't need to take the GRE to get into my arty grad school. thank god.

SAT: 800 verbal/720 math . that said, i was one of those little genius kids who took the SATs for the first time when i was 13, and then go scholarships to all sorts of nerdy camps where i studied philosophy and etymology and politics and whatnot. so my score as an 18 year old wasn't that surprising, to me at least.

braggin

not really-- it was more because my parents were insane, though not wealthy enough to pay for tutors.

they also didn't realize that the nerdy camps were really just excuses for lots of weird, smart kids to get together and experiment sexually.

i wish former ilxor Eppy was here to back me up-- he was a counselor of mine. if it weren't for him, i probably would've stayed a hardcore kid until much later. thank god he gave me all those tapes of the Stooges and Big Black.

whoa!

you experimented sexually with him?

huh, i didn't need to take the GRE to get into my arty grad school. thank god.

SAT: 800 verbal/720 math . that said, i was one of those little genius kids who took the SATs for the first time when i was 13, and then go scholarships to all sorts of nerdy camps where i studied philosophy and etymology and politics and whatnot. so my score as an 18 year old wasn't that surprising, to me at least.

― the table is the table, Thursday, November 20, 2008 7:27 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

740V/750M on the old SATs, prior to the 1994 revisions (calculators allowed, etc.). 760V/790M on the GREs.

no, no sexual experimentation with the counselors. and none with former or current ilxors.

anyway, it was CTY, situated at Hamilton College-- beautiful summer in the hills.

he knew i was kinda weird and gay and into weird music, so he just gave me a tape. and it was awesome. mid-to-late 90s college student making tapes for a 13 year old? that's like being an awesome older brother.

and yes, a little weird.

760V/790M on the GREs.

740 V / 800 M

oooh that burns :-(