The hell of standardized tests.

Y'know, once I'd gotten into college, I thought the whole standardized tests business would be over with. Little did my innocent mind back then know of things like the GRE, the GMAT, the MCAT, the LSAT, and other incomprehensible abbreviations. I guess I am somewhat more intimidated at the moment by the fact that such tests come with applications, for which I have to write essays, and try to twist the little I have done and fewer recognitions I have received into some kind of attractive representation of myself that will make grad schools want me. But at the moment, even the standardized tests make me quail.

It started with the GRE, which is thankfully over. I'm just out of practice with such things, I guess. I practiced analogies and sentence completions and reading passages all summer, so I was in some semblance of shape for that. But I simply don't have the practice with quickly organizing and writing a coherent essay anymore. Back in high school, there was AP U.S. History and then AP English, so I wasn't even worried about the SAT II Writing, as far as I can remember. But now... I mean, the main reason I decided I absolutely had to take the computer-based verison of the GRE was because it would let me cut and paste and play around with the words after I had written them. I'm worried about the LSAT, because not only will that involve writing by hand, the product will be sent to schools as a writing sample. It won't be just a score.

So yeah, I'm taking the LSAT, too. I've been back and forth with the whole going to law school idea, but I'm always about keeping my options open as long as I can, I guess. Especially since some schools I would kind of like to go to (like Stanford, if I could get in) have ChE departments that simply won't suit me, I might as well consider their law schools. (I know, that's not very sound reasoning. I just don't feel like going over the better ones. It's not like I've made a good case for my going to grad school either.)

I took a practice LSAT yesterday, and I did pretty well, so I'm not too worried about that anymore, aside from the writing, which I didn't do. But the thought of going somewhere at 8 in the morning, being crammed into a classroom for 2 hours at a time was just unpleasant. I guess that's another reason the computerized GRE was nice. Not only was it shorter because there were fewer sections, but when I finished ahead of time, I could just move on. Not that finishing ahead of time is any kind of concern for the LSAT. I always finished just as time ran out.

The other standardized test I have to take is the GRE Chemistry. At least, I think I'm going to take it. None of the grad schools I've looked at require it, but it seems that many grants do, so it might be better to take it after all. Assuming, of course, that I won't suck at it, which I very well might. For one thing, there exist absolutely no study guides for the test. There's an ancient book of real tests by ETS, which is so old it's only available used for something like $120. There's Princeton Review's thing, which only has one practice test, and gets criticism for having all sorts of errors. (They're supposed to come out with a 3rd edition in a week or so, but I wonder how much they can improve on a 1 star rating at Amazon.com.) And then there's the REA book of 5 practice tests, which is also full of errors, but appears to be the best thing available. So armed with that and a few outlines, along with Loudon, McQuarrie *shudder*, Griffiths, and OGN, I'll have to do what I can.

[To any former chemistry majors reading this, at some point I'll probably come asking about what you guys did to prepare and how you guys found the test.]

And to continue with the pattern of increasing difficulty... [actually, the GRE was probably harder than the LSAT will be, but it's considered "easiest" because it's over, and I don't have to take it again] the scariest test right now is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. I don't know if you can consider that a standardized test, per se, but it just seems to fall so neatly into my testing schedule that it gets lumped in. LSAT October 1st, GRE Chemistry November 15th (?), JLPT December 15th (?). *sigh* We went to Kinokuniya today to pick up some books, and I discovered that there are indeed study guides for the test. Which are all written in Japanese. Some of them are kind enough to include furigana, but most of them don't. The questions I glanced at all seem way over my head. I guess I'm in for a lot of studying. Hopefully Hirata-sensei will have some helpful material because I was kind of overwhelmed by all the different study guides, although I got one that seems to promise to do everything. It's fundamentally a grammar workbook, but then it claims that it uses vocabulary from the 2-kyu list, so you're supposed to improve naturally as you use the book. [I'm kind of amazed that I even understood that. And then I got tired of it after reading about the "features" and didn't even get to the "how to use this book" section. *sigh*]

Okay, I'm done griping. I think I'll go study for the JLPT using the more enjoyable, less efficiacious method: watching anime and translating manga.