"The decision to cancel the revised GRE General Test best serves the interests of test takers and the graduate institutions that use those scores to make admissions decisions," says David Payne, Executive Director of the GRE Program at ETS. "After much debate and evaluation, it became clear that the current format offers students more convenient and flexible opportunities to test when and where they choose, while still providing score users with valid predictors of test takers' preparedness for graduate school study."
With all the speculations and ETS canceling further registrations for the exam , on 2nd April ETS and the other GRE committee decided not to scrap away the old format. According to the reports, they found the old format to be more convenient for the users. Also in terms of students it was more Student Friendly than the new format which was supposed to be implemented.
This would definitely be a relief for the students who have been preparing for the same for the last 1 year and who were planning to take up date later this year.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Some Grammar Tips
Among and Between
"Distribute these chocolates among yourselves"
"Distribute these chocolates between yourselves"
What is the similarity between the two statements above, what we observe here, is that even though the statements may look to be the same, the number of people involved is different. In the first statement the number of people involved are more than 2 and in the second statement the number of people 'between whom the chocolates are to be distributed are 2.
However in the first statement clearly the number of people involved are more than 2. Hence what we observe here is that,use between for two things, among for more than two.
Normally what happens is that its good to avoid using like as a conjunction. In other words, something can be like something else (there it's a preposition), but avoid "It tastes good like a cigarette should" — it should be "as a cigarette should." Quickie test: there should be no verb in the phrase right after like. Even in phrases such as "It looks like it's going to rain" or "It sounds like the motor's broken," as if is usually more appropriate than like .
Apostrophe
The most common way to form a possessive in English is with apostrophe and s: "a hard day's night." After a plural noun ending in s, put just an apostrophe: "two hours' work" (i.e., "the work of two hours"). If a plural doesn't end in s — children, men, people — plain old apostrophe-s: "children's," "men's," "people's." It's never "mens'" or "childrens'."
There's also the opposite case: when a singular noun ends in s. That's a little trickier. Most style guides prefer s's: James's house. Plain old s-apostrophe (as in James' house) is common in journalism, but most other publishers prefer James's. It's a matter of house style.
Note that, with the exception of the little-used one, the possessives of pronouns never get apostrophes: theirs, not their's; hers, not her's; its, not it's. See It's versus Its.
Apostrophes are sometimes used to make acronyms or other abbreviations plural (another matter of a local house style). My preference: don't use apostrophes to make abbreviations plural — not "They took their SAT's," but "They took their SATs." The only exception is when having no apostrophe might be confusing: "Two As" is ambiguous (it might be read as the word as); make it "Two A's." Never use apostrophes as single quotation marks to set off words or phrases (unless you need a quotation within a quotation).
Using an apostrophe to refer to a decade — the 1960's versus the 1960s — is another matter of house style; again, journalists tend to use the apostrophe, and most other publishers don't. I prefer to omit it: refer to the 1960s or the '60s (the apostrophe indicates that "19" has been omitted), not the 1960's or (worse) the '60's.
"Distribute these chocolates among yourselves"
"Distribute these chocolates between yourselves"
What is the similarity between the two statements above, what we observe here, is that even though the statements may look to be the same, the number of people involved is different. In the first statement the number of people involved are more than 2 and in the second statement the number of people 'between whom the chocolates are to be distributed are 2.
However in the first statement clearly the number of people involved are more than 2. Hence what we observe here is that,use between for two things, among for more than two.
- Anxious versus Eager.
- "Am too anxious about my results which are to be announced today"
- "Am also eager on meeting you over this weekend"
- Anxious is related to the word anxiety; it traditionally means "worried, uneasy." It's often used, though, where eager or keen would be more appropriate.
Normally what happens is that its good to avoid using like as a conjunction. In other words, something can be like something else (there it's a preposition), but avoid "It tastes good like a cigarette should" — it should be "as a cigarette should." Quickie test: there should be no verb in the phrase right after like. Even in phrases such as "It looks like it's going to rain" or "It sounds like the motor's broken," as if is usually more appropriate than like .
Apostrophe
The most common way to form a possessive in English is with apostrophe and s: "a hard day's night." After a plural noun ending in s, put just an apostrophe: "two hours' work" (i.e., "the work of two hours"). If a plural doesn't end in s — children, men, people — plain old apostrophe-s: "children's," "men's," "people's." It's never "mens'" or "childrens'."
There's also the opposite case: when a singular noun ends in s. That's a little trickier. Most style guides prefer s's: James's house. Plain old s-apostrophe (as in James' house) is common in journalism, but most other publishers prefer James's. It's a matter of house style.
Note that, with the exception of the little-used one, the possessives of pronouns never get apostrophes: theirs, not their's; hers, not her's; its, not it's. See It's versus Its.
Apostrophes are sometimes used to make acronyms or other abbreviations plural (another matter of a local house style). My preference: don't use apostrophes to make abbreviations plural — not "They took their SAT's," but "They took their SATs." The only exception is when having no apostrophe might be confusing: "Two As" is ambiguous (it might be read as the word as); make it "Two A's." Never use apostrophes as single quotation marks to set off words or phrases (unless you need a quotation within a quotation).
Using an apostrophe to refer to a decade — the 1960's versus the 1960s — is another matter of house style; again, journalists tend to use the apostrophe, and most other publishers don't. I prefer to omit it: refer to the 1960s or the '60s (the apostrophe indicates that "19" has been omitted), not the 1960's or (worse) the '60's.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Major Upset
Today was a major upset for me, with a month of hard work and some decent preparation , I gave a mock GMAT with a confidence of decent score in previous Kaplan GMAT which were 660 and 680 , my score dipped to 540 in the mock I gave today. 41 in Quant and mere 21 in English.
It’s like now or never for me and the current score is making me go into abyss of failures. A dream which is a long awaited for me seems to be turning into a catastrophe amalgamated with a night mare of 540.
With more than 50 days left for my GMAT, it seems that time has come to revamp and re-design my strategies. An exam more this weekend when am at home would help me decide what I need to redesign. Maybe a bit of excitement and agony , marked as the spoilers in today’s exam.
Coming to the preparation side, have to concentrate more on co-ordinate, permutation and combination and probability part. The statistics part still remains untouched and need to practice a lot on the same. Plan to finish of with OG soon and take up Manhattan guide.
Esnips a wonderful place, a heaven that has help me download some unavailable material. Wren and Martin needs to be concentrated upon more, and the pages starting from the mid 200 where in, correct usage of prepositions etc are given has to be reached before mid April and has to finished off within next 5 days. Maybe writing more blogs and thanks to the Microsoft editor and also Pagalguy threads, my English may come to the original picture , which obviously has been ripped apart into pieces after certain changes have been taken up by me, and a major one of them is the 'Slang Dude English. Still cannot believe how could a boy like me could come to this.
Previous PowerPrep practice sessions made me a bit over confident, with critical reasoning involving 3 mistakes out of 15 and sentence correction involving only a single mistake.This made me refrain from further practices.However now , in addition to Wren and Martin , have taken up Oxford Dictionary, and am trying to mug some important words up and also get to understand and know the meaning of few words, which though English look and sound to me as Latin in the latest taken up novel by me, which is the Snow Country.
Well from today a post daily starts with what are the updates on the GMAT front.
It’s like now or never for me and the current score is making me go into abyss of failures. A dream which is a long awaited for me seems to be turning into a catastrophe amalgamated with a night mare of 540.
With more than 50 days left for my GMAT, it seems that time has come to revamp and re-design my strategies. An exam more this weekend when am at home would help me decide what I need to redesign. Maybe a bit of excitement and agony , marked as the spoilers in today’s exam.
Coming to the preparation side, have to concentrate more on co-ordinate, permutation and combination and probability part. The statistics part still remains untouched and need to practice a lot on the same. Plan to finish of with OG soon and take up Manhattan guide.
Esnips a wonderful place, a heaven that has help me download some unavailable material. Wren and Martin needs to be concentrated upon more, and the pages starting from the mid 200 where in, correct usage of prepositions etc are given has to be reached before mid April and has to finished off within next 5 days. Maybe writing more blogs and thanks to the Microsoft editor and also Pagalguy threads, my English may come to the original picture , which obviously has been ripped apart into pieces after certain changes have been taken up by me, and a major one of them is the 'Slang Dude English. Still cannot believe how could a boy like me could come to this.
Previous PowerPrep practice sessions made me a bit over confident, with critical reasoning involving 3 mistakes out of 15 and sentence correction involving only a single mistake.This made me refrain from further practices.However now , in addition to Wren and Martin , have taken up Oxford Dictionary, and am trying to mug some important words up and also get to understand and know the meaning of few words, which though English look and sound to me as Latin in the latest taken up novel by me, which is the Snow Country.
Well from today a post daily starts with what are the updates on the GMAT front.
World Cup 2007 'Fiasco
This day the first match though a warm up match was played in the tournament. A major upset was averted by
Tuesday March 6
A major upset though went unnoticed, which caused one of the major upset of the World Cup occurred, where in Bangladesh defeated New Zealand in a warm up match.
So these were supposed to qualify and the cup was supposed to be a tough one.
Coming to this point, let us peek into future, a date which was the major attraction since the schedule of the word cup was made, “
A match was to be played by those two countries, which have a good history of the so called understanding between them. An understanding, in terms of rivalry, rivalry, in every single sphere of activities, whether Sports or Politics. Well this is future and what lays ahead no one knows, so let us get into what we know.
Two countries set to compete against each other on 15th April, 29 days remaining.17th March, two countries play those two countries which are sure to loose. Pakistan plays Ireland and India plays Bangladesh. After loosing the first match, this match is crucial for
End of the day, the results are head spinning,
Now
A Billion prayers on March 23rd could not save
As if this was not sufficient; another fiasco, in the world cup took an ugly turn, which even raised questions of the world cup being continued and that was the death (murder or suicide or natural or accidental) of
Anyways or whatever, coming to the so called Team
As reported by a leading newspaper, and further reports, a 10 second slot which was sold between 2.5 to 3.5 lakh involving India, would come down to 1 Lakh. This marked a huge loss for the broad caster. This makes up a lot of money which is sufficient to have a decent stretch of road, in the so called some bumpy areas of Mumbai, where millions commute using the road transport due to non availability of trains during rainy seasons, which statistically and strategically speaking is few months away. Well coming to the defeat of team
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