Overtraining

The GRE for those who don't know, has recently been revamped. They removed the logical reasoning section (familiar to our legal readers from the LSAT - its the games section), and replaced it with two essays, a statement of issue and an analysis of argument. After law school and writing for judges for 2 years, I should be able to handle that, but I'm actually better at the MATH, for goodness sakes.

And here is the reason: the GRE folks give us penetrating questions like, "It is important for higher education to challenge established traditions and values." Arrggh! What the hell kind of question is that?? What "traditions" are you talking about? What "values?" What do you mean "important"? For the love of God, give me something! Give me something more than the platitudes of a late night high school bull session about the meaning of life. I don't even know how to answer a question like that. I want to define terms, divide the question into 37 different subparts. Limit the scope of my answer. I could write for a year about a question like that, but how can I be expected to write for just 45 minutes? I can't even use footnotes for godness sake! Arrggghhhh! A pox, a pox I tell you, a pox on all the houses of ETS!!
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 7:48 AM