DDswife wrote:I used to think that MGRE, same than TOEFL and verbal GRE was a stupid test, but now I think that it has some good sides.
It forces you to “merge” all the knowledge since a problem might need tools from different subjects.
It’s not easy to solve a problem in the amount of time you have for it. So, you need to be able to design more efficient ways to solve it. It’s good practice to work different ways to do the same thing till you find the one that takes maybe seconds instead of 10 minutes, like the one you learn in Calculus 3.
Some of these questions force you to think out of the box rather than to use your automatic pilot. I have grown to respect them. This learning you do if you take your preparation seriously will help you be a better researcher. Some of these tests questions are very “slippery”. They trick you, and you get them wrong because you are going too fast. You have to... But this let’s you make mistakes you don’t even notice. This opens your mind, though, and help you disregard what seems obvious, and to see beyond it.
I remember a question which had almost the same thing, but one of the functions had + and the other one, a -. I discussed it with another tutor. He thought that both were “the same thing”, and I first agreed. But, after a while, I wondered: why asking the same thing twice? It didn’t make sense to me. So, I paid more attention to it. And I realised that this - changed completely the behavior of the function. They appeared to behave the same, but they were completely different.
What I dislike is that people can’t discuss openly problems. Why? Just so that ETS learns money? This discussion leads to more learning.
If you don't mind me asking, what is your background in mathematics? Have you done a PhD or graduate work?