"LIFE ETC."

An Eyewitness Testimony

Academic activities never stop in the middle of this exhausting transition from the desert sun to a tedious Ankara winter. I took the GRE today and received my TOEFL score yesterday. This week, in order to provide basic information about TOEFL iBT and GRE to my readers, I will draw on these fresh experiences as much as possible.

TOEFL iBT is the new version of TOEFL and is conducted on the computer. It has four sections: reading, listening, speaking and writing. The first two sections are multiple choice. The speaking section is what makes iBT different from the older versions (PBT and CBT). You may feel a little bit schizophrenic while talking to the computer… take it easy as you're not the only one.

Though half of the test is multiple choice, iBT, in contrast with CBT, does not tell you your score after completing the test. While TOEFL measures your ability to use English, the GRE is more academic and is taken into consideration by many graduate schools. The test is composed of verbal, quantitative and writing sections. To improve your vocabulary for the verbal section, you can find various lists of "GRE words" on the market but don't trust every list you find. The quantitative section won't be any harder than high school math for you, if you survived Turkey's massive education system. The moment you complete the GRE, you will see your verbal and quantitative scores on the screen out of 800.

To obtain a good writing score, in addition to knowing how to click the mouse, you'd better consider speeding up your typing. The faster you type, the more time you'll have for thinking and organizing your essays.

I must advise you to take these tests in the summertime or better yet, in spring. Otherwise you might be coughing or trying to wipe your nose while reading a complicated passage. You can't go to the bathroom whenever you want because in both the TOEFL and the GRE, all you'll have is a single ten-minute break.

Speaking of breaks… I must remind you: don't allow yourself to be hungry before the test. If you eat too much during the break, you won't have time to go to the bathroom until the end. Even if they let you out during the test, the test clock will continue ticking. You'll lose precious time. Thus, eat your meal and use the bathroom before the test. Don't be bothered with these during the test.

The GRE and TOEFL are generally exaggerated as if they're fundamentally different from ordinary tests we face, but they aren't. Study for them, but please, do not worship them. We have to remember that in ÖSS, most of us couldn't do our best because we thought it was a matter of life and death. "Memory is the thing you forget with," says Alexander Chase. But we should use our experience with ÖSS as a guide rather than throw it away as an unpleasant memory. Don't do the things you regret about ÖSS again. You know what they say: "once is a mistake but twice is the beginning of a pattern."