Mar 26 2009
Nontraditional student & major test anxiety
Biggest thing on my to-do list this weekend is to type up a whole bunch of practice questions about pest control techniques for hubby.
I made him write the questions - partly because I didn’t have time and didn’t much care to read his textbooks quite that closely, and partly because I figured that it might help him study and retain the material better.
He is more than a little stressed about this whole examination thing!
He is 57 years old and hasn’t been in school for a very long time, and, he insists, even when he WAS there, he didn’t do all THAT well.
Now he has to write two multiple choice tests - and not only that, but the mark he has to get on each to pass is not 50% … or even 60%…but 75%!!!
He is SO not looking forward to it.
I made a testbank for him in MS Access… so he can practice with all the questions we’ve come up with …I did write some for him when he first got the books. Now I just have to get all of the new questions he’s written typed up for him, so that he can spend a couple of days practicing using that.
Hopefully it will help …. but he is going to stress about it till it’s over; that is clear.
The thing is that everyone he knows who has taken it didn’t pass both tests on the first attempt…and if he doesn’t pass, nothing really bad happens…. he would just have to study some more and try it again - and could work in the meantime.
But I think tis a point of pride…and I really, really hope he does pass it on his first attempt.
I’m taking the GRE on Tuesday. I haven’t had to use most of the math on it since 1992. Nervous and anxious doesn’t even begin to describe it. I just keep telling myself that for a MA in Library Sciences they’re more than likely going to weigh the Verbal/Essay portion of the test much much more than the Quantitative. At least I’m really hoping that’s the case - because while the algebra is sort of starting to come back to me - all the various rules and formulas for geometry are still not quite there.
Good luck to your husband!
BEDMAS - most important thing to know for Algebra
best of luck with the GRE…I never had to take it but I hear a lot about it on the grad cafe forum