COLUMN: "Grab Your #2 Pencils, Kids!"

From John Lennon's "Stepping on the Big Man's Toes," Spring '92. For those of you who aren't in the know, the GRE is the exam that demonstrates your ability to successfully complete postgraduate work by carefully testing your proficiency at filling in little ovals with a pencil. This, of course, is a skill that will be of great value to you while writing your doctoral thesis, provided that you're working toward a degree in two-dimensional elliptical ovoid darkening. At any rate, I spent hours preparing for the exam. I purchased a little book published by the Educational Testing Service called Practicing to Take the GRE, which contains a few sample tests, and I filled in ovals until my left hand politely asked to be removed from my body. As a result, I know the GRE General Test inside out, and I'm going to tell you how to take it. So, in this column's spirit of Me Sacrificing My Precious Personal Time To Benefit The Reader, I offer: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO TAKING THE GRE The Test The GRE is made up of six sections: the Verbal, the Analytical, the Catalytic, the Amiable, the Rhapsodic and the Section In Which You Can't Possibly Get The Answers Right. Each section between 25 and 50 questions about subjects ranging from how many apples Fred has to eat in order to find out the inverse obtuse angle of the hypotenuse radius of arc AB, to whether or not "maculated" and "galidictis" are real words, or if somebody is just making them up. This guide will give an example of each type of question and an explanation of why you got it wrong. · Sample Questions 1. If the length of each of the sides of three square garden plots is increased by 40%, by what percent is the sum of the areas of the three plots increased? a. four b. Abraham Lincoln c. Upper Volta d. seven e. cannot be determined from information given The correct answer is e, although if the gardener had any sense at all, it would be zinnias. 2. Four lifeguards - A, B, C, and D - work at a swimming pool open Tuesday through Sunday. Two lifeguards are on duty each day, with the following conditions: · Lifeguard A always wears red trunks. · Lifeguards B and D cannot work on consecutive days. · Lifeguard C is in love with lifeguard A. · Lifeguard D only wears white nose cream on Wednesdays. If lifeguard B is wearing a floppy hat on a Thursday, and lifeguard A has a sunburned nose, what is lifeguard D's real name? a. Algernon b. Eldridge c. Dave d. Abraham Lincoln e. Thaddeus The correct answer is c, because lifeguards are always named Dave. 3. Select the lettered pair that best expresses a relationship similar to that expressed in the original pair. MOHAIR:SPUTUM:: a. sputter:thickness b. valvular:gregarious c. androgynous:Duke Ellington d. cat:dog e. pabulum:briefcase The correct answer is d, because both words have the same number of letters. 4. Last year Bob earned $500 per month for each of the first five months of the year, $1200 per month for the next four months and $2100 per month until the end of the year. Where does Bob work? a. IBM b. Vegas c. 734.92 d. Bob sells Avon products e. cannot be determined from the information given The correct answer is e, because if we told you what Bob was doing, you wouldn't have to take the GRE in the first place. 5. Choose the set of words that best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole. "Many behavioral studies indicate that although chimpanzees are awfully ______, they are hardly as ______ as orangutans." a. egregious . . . loquacious b. solvent . . . overpriced c. outspoken . . . fluent d. cone-shaped . . . noodle-like e. bespeckled . . . likely to burst spontaneously into flames The correct answer is c, because statistics indicate that orangutans regularly defeat chimps in debate tournaments. 6. Read the following passage, then select the phrase that, if true, would most seriously weaken its argument. "Sports analysts argue that Monica Seles has a distinct advantage over Abraham Lincoln in the upcoming Women's Wimbledon Finals, but a scientific study of Lincoln's serve suggests that he is unbeatable, particularly on grass." a. Abraham Lincoln is dead. b. Abraham Lincoln is not a woman. c. Seles is rumored to have sabotaged Lincoln's racket so that, upon his opening serve, it will explode, severing his arm and rendering him unfit for competition. d. Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address. e. Wimbledon hasn't started yet. The correct answer is d, because if Lincoln could fit the whole speech on the back of an envelope, we don't see why he shouldn't be able to kick Monica Seles' butt. 7. Circles L, M, and N are in the same plane, have a common center, and have radii x, 3y, and 4x + y/2, respectively, where 0 < x < y. What is the capital of Peru? a. Vicksburg b. -3 c. pi d. Pickford-on-Sludgeworth e. I can't quite remember, but I think it's right near the equator and it's named after some kind of bean, like Kidney or Garbanzo, or something like that. The correct answer is e. -- STOP -- Put down your pencils. Your time is up. We're not kidding, if you fill in one more oval, we swear to god we're going to come on over there and whack you silly. That's better. Now hand over your wallets. John Lennon, a senior English major from Phillipsburg, New Jersey, is outta here. History. Gone with the tide. Out with the trash. Stepping on the Big Man's Toes appeared alternate Mondays.