I was at the bookstore today, browsing, and opened a book which claimed to contain "the toughest words on the GRE."
I read the cover after I'd flipped through the book, and quickly put it down and walked away with a guffaw of disgust, because it contained definitions for words like axiom and anomalous. I thought, in all sincerity, that the book would be called something like Vocabulary Lists For Your Marginally Talented Sixth Grade Honors Student, not a preparation guide for graduate school entrance exams!
I'm sorry to sound once again like the snobby pseudo-academic elitist I am, but I was astounded and aghast (which, note, are probably words most twenty-one-year-olds seeking admission into an MBA program have to sound out phonetically if this book I flipped through is indeed any indication of the the pithy vocabulary of the illiterati morons it targets).
Burning questions I now have in earnest: Aren't American students required to read during undergraduate school? You know, like actual books, without color illustrations, plot summaries, or pop-up icons and characters that speak with bubbles over their heads?! Doesn't anybody else learn the Latin adjective pulcher, pulchra, pulchrum and marvel at the word "pulchritudinous"?! Don't today's kids at least listen to the crappy U.S. national news or, Christ, I don't know... watch Law and Order re-runs and therefore have at least some vague idea what "litigious" and "exculpate" might mean without having to miss major plot points of a) world history b) current events, such as the Anna Nicole Smith debacle?
And last, but not least: how, pray tell, can words like zeal and wretched wind up on GRE vocabulary lists? Those words might qualify for a fourth grader's spelling exam, but graduate entry level exams?!
Nobody says you have to Love Reading So Much That Etymology Is A Big Turn On For You, Like It Is For Jamie And Geeks Like Her, but come on, college graduates! I was hoping they were just kidding about that grade inflation piece they did on Ivy Leagues like Harvard, but now I'm not so sure.
The mind spins madly.
Katy, unwitting and brave teacher of the Those In Their Late Teens, what sayeth you of this trend of apparent illiteracy in college grads?
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3 comments:
Execrable. "Wretched"??!?! ZEAL??!? I envision very low pass rates for my future classes-- and many vocab quizzes which would have seemingly little to do with the course subject matter. This does nothing to deter my desire to relocate to Europe.
Yeah, I'm sorry, but I also thought words like ""catalyst" and "depict" shouldn't have been GRE vocab words, either, but apparently, I went to school in a parallel universe, where they actually teach you to read in grammar school, as opposed to after 17 years of formal education.
It could be worse - there are no GREs in Oz, nor did I have to do anything similar to get into Uni in the UK. I may well be studying with people who like to "orientate" themselves.
Mind you, they are mad keen on English proficiency grades (IELTS etc) for English second language speakers, and not very good at acknowledging that the colonies do in fact speak same.
Meanwhile, as long as I remain married to someone who keeps using "poignant" instead of "pertinent" just to piss me off, I will try not to judge others.
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