On Monday I went to take the
GRE. If you'
ve ever taken the
GRE, this story will probably sound familiar. I paid
ETS $99.00 for this joyous privilege, and I was determined to enjoy it. I got my two
photo IDs ready and drove to the testing center. When I got there, the
nice lady behind the counter handed me a clipboard with two sheets of
legalese, two sheets of instructions, and what essentially boiled down to an
affadavit to
swear out. The document she wanted me to fill out was a statement swearing that I would never release the contents of the exam to anyone. I felt like I was signing a
EULA, stating that I was only
leasing the information they were about to pump into my brain, and they expected it back when I left the premises. I understand why
ETS wants to keep their test questions "secret", but this was a bit much. There would probably be
agents busting down my door if I told you that the test contained the words 'of', 'the', and 'discommode'. That's why I won't tell you these things. On with the node.
The test was a
CAT, Computer Adaptive Test. Since
dead trees are so passé, they feel the need to use "modern technology" to "improve testing standards". So I
plop myself down in front of the
monitor, after having confirmed my
identity to the (now 2)
nice ladies at the counter. This is when the thought first struck:
Taking the GRE on a 60Hz vertical refresh rate monitor might not be such a good idea...
I decided to go ahead and take the "
tutorial". Boy was that interesting. It was essentially a step-by-step guide on
How to Use a Mouse to Click On Stuff. I've never felt like such a
reject from the
Apple®
House of Incompetent Mouse Users. After 20 minutes of instructions on how to navigate through their menus, I got down to work. I worked through their
seemingly endless, banal test questions, and the minutes crept by. Two hours into the test, my
headache starts raging. I tend to work on a
21" monitor, at a resolution of
1600x1200 at about a 100Hz
refresh rate. 85Hz isn't bad either. Oftentimes, I'll use
14" monitors at 60 Hz for
web browsing or
whatnot. What I never quite realized was the
excruciating pain induced by reading badly worded test questions off a 60 Hz refresh rate monitor for
three hours.
By the time I finished, I was so despondent over how my
headache was really starting to get in the way of the overall joyousness of the exam, I was tempted to have my scores canceled. At the end, there are two choices: have your score reported to
ETS, or cancel your scores and pretend like none of this ever happened. I realized that this $99.00 per installment plan would be bad for my checkbook, and really, how badly could I have done? So I took the scores, headache and all. I did pretty well, considering. What I took from this adventure and would like to now share with you kind folks is this:
The GRE at 60 Hz is a Bad Idea
Not that you have much choice in the matter, of course.