I just started studying, today, for the Graduate Record Examination. I should have started in December 2010 when I first checked out some preparation books from the library and when I told my friends I was going to study.
But now it’s March and I just started. I haven’t even registered but that’s because I’m waiting for a voucher that can get me half of the $160 registration fee.
I’m looking at these analytical writing topics and I feel that I’m currently not prepared to respond to any of these topics. Obviously the point of looking at them before the test is so I can be prepared. You can view the list of topics that I will see on my test.
I write a lot in my blog, and I try to write correctly and accurately, but rarely do I write analytically. I provide critiques sometimes but I don’t think they’re the same genre of writing. Perhaps I don’t write analytically because I lack confidence in my writing and that I won’t be understood or I will be too harshly criticized. I also believe it may be in part that I don’t know on what topics to write.
Then maybe writing about the possible topics in the GRE pool will be easier.
Okay, there’s one more problem: I can be easily swayed. If I’m not presented or I don’t find opposing views or information quick enough, then I may agree or support the first view.
Here’re a few topics with which I agree:
“Laws should not be rigid or fixed. Instead, they should be flexible enough to take account of various circumstances, times, and places.”
“Originality does not mean thinking something that was never thought before; it means putting old ideas together in new ways.”
“It is always an individual who is the impetus for innovation; the details may be worked out by a team, but true innovation results from the enterprise and unique perception of an individual.”
It’s quite alright to agree with the topic when I respond to it in the test – the purpose is not to agree or disagree, but to describe my perspective on the topic “using relevant reasons and/or examples to support [my] views.”
I’m taking the GRE because I may want to go back to school for a Ph.D.
I don’t want to take the test – I just want to watch trams out a bedroom window in Bremen, Germany.