This past weekend, the Kaplan company, whose stellar reputation for being one of the ‘world’s leading providers of lifelong education with operations around the globe,’ was altruistic enough to supply a limited number of worried college students a taste of what I may refer to as an excruciating mental sting.
I had the opportunity to take a practice Graduate Record Examination, more simply known as the GRE, at the behest of Kaplan. I walked out with a free Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions pencil, an empty granola bar wrapper (also free) and a feeling of panic.
With their pretentious motto, ‘Higher Score, Brighter Future,’ adorning each page of the practice exam and information fliers, I contemplated dropping out of Binghamton University and becoming a permanent employee at my seasonal sales job at the Woodbury Commons Shopping Center.
The test in general and math section in particular provided me with nothing more than a headache, not an idea of what I’ve learned collectively in school over the past eight years. To be honest, I didn’t give a damn that Henry had two times the amount of apples that Jack purchased, which just so happened to be ten apples less than two-thirds the number of apples that Henry purchased. How is answering a question of this nature relevant to anything I studied in any of my English or psychology classes? The GRE states that their mission is to measure different reasoning and analytical skills that ‘have been acquired over a long period of time and that are not related to any specific field of study.’
Herein lays the problematic declaration: ‘NOT RELATED TO ANY SPECIFIC FIELD OF STUDY.’ I can’t speak for everyone, but surely there are few students paying over $65,000 taking classes just for fun. The whole concept (especially your junior and senior years) of college is to select a major that will hopefully provide you with a satisfying educational experience and offer a successful professional life after graduation. So why then does the GRE, which effects our admittance to specific graduate programs, test us on such irrelevant topics?
Educational Testing Service’s supposed ‘vision and mission’ is to ‘advance quality and equity in education by providing fair and valid assessments.’ If this is so, then why are we as test takers not allowed to use a simple calculator on the exam as we have been able to our entire academic careers? I can’t even do long division by hand or multiplication that involves more than two numbers, let alone a complicated scientific notation problem under pressure and time constraint.
To my dismay, as the Kaplan representative stood in front of us explaining format and grading of the test, she began to enlighten us that not only will the format of the GRE be changing after November, but it will become even more complex. The ETS will now be testing our competence with more demanding math and verbal questions, including numeric entry in place of multiple choice. That’s right, no more eenie, meenie, miney mo or choices to fall back on.
How much preparation have our courses and educational experiences granted us these past four years for this test of ultimate knowledge and capability? Apparently not enough, which is why Kaplan uses the profit-free ETS tests to further their own wealth and popularity by overcharging students for tutoring sessions, study outlines and crash courses which, in my opinion, should be provided for a lesser cost or included in our already expensive tuition price. Special programs do exist but only to a degree; many are only offered to minority groups or for first generation children attending college in their families. Whether these programs will eventually expand their services to the rest of us middle class students in need is yet to be determined.