Has anyone ever taken the GRE?

[when will we be new skin]

I'm taking it Saturday morning and I am not confident. =(

Words of encouragement?

[anomalous]

My advice: do whatever you can to calm your nerves before going in. I'm someone who generally handles tests well and doesn't let anxiety keep me from performing to my potential, but the time crunch and nightmarish format of the GRE really got to my head. Personally, I did moderately worse on the real thing than I did on the practice tests I took beforehand, but then again my anxiety/stress level was already high before I even started the test (had to drive 1.5 hours to the test site, then had major issues checking in... just a bad day overall).

What do you plan to study in grad school? Have you talked to the departments at any schools you're interested in? For me, I was told that for all intents and purposes, the math score was all that really mattered (as long as I didn't completely bomb the other sections). For other fields, I'm sure the opposite is true. Knowing stuff like that ahead of time can make things slightly less stressful.

Definitely go to their website and download the practice tests if you haven't already.

[when will we be new skin]

I'm going to grad school for Anthropology. Focusing on Primate studies. The school I want to get into only has minimum requirements for the verbal section. But I am really bad at math and I'm sure it wont look good if I completely bomb it.

I don't think I want to take the practice tests because I only have a few days til I take it and I will only freak out if I don't do well on them.

[SilentLoner]

Originally Posted by when will we be new skin

I'm going to grad school for Anthropology. Focusing on Primate studies. The school I want to get into only has minimum requirements for the verbal section. But I am really bad at math and I'm sure it wont look good if I completely bomb it.

I don't think I want to take the practice tests because I only have a few days til I take it and I will only freak out if I don't do well on them.

Neat - I want to go to grad school for anthropology too, focus in forensic anthropology though.

But are you really sure you want to take it if you're not feeling confident? Do you feel you've reviewed enough for it? I am lacking in math as well and really need to review (esp. due to the no calculator rule).

I took a free practice GRE last week (offered by Kaplan), though I won't be taking it this year and they gave us some pretty good advice at end of the session - among which they said that even though you can take the GRE up to five times it looks best if you take it once (unlike the SAT where you're expected to take it more than once) and do well.
While GRE scores aren't the only factor in grad school admission, they are a determinant in handing out financial aid.

Not trying to stress you out, really - if you do know the material then go for it and good luck.

Just in case you feel the exam hasn't gone well, you do have the option to cancel your scores at the end. Keep that in mind.

[when will we be new skin]

Well I already took it. And I think it's lame that you can't look at your score before you have the option to cancel.

I was actually more worried about the math than the verbal because math has never been my strong suit. However, this is the outcome:

Verbal: 420
Quant: 610

I did MUCH better on the math I thought I would, so I was rather pleased with that. But my verbal score is unexceptable. I'm only in the 40th percentile. I really would like to get my score up to 600.

So I'm taking it again next month. Just bought more study materials and plan to study A LOT. Like every day til the test date.

Btw I never took the SAT twice.