By TINA IYER
Features Editor
 

I signed up for Kaplan's four week GRE preparatory course, paid them $795 dollars, and in return got twenty-eight hours of instruction, seven or eight GRE study guides, and some computer software for practice at home. A good deal for me maybe, but it made me wonder.

Graduate school admissions can be highly competitive, and the GRE plays a large role in the admissions process.

Kaplan and Princeton Review courses really can help increase one's scores. Thus, the person with the money to spend on a course might have a greater chance of doing better on the exam, and thus a better chance of getting into their choice grad school, than someone who doesn't. Grossly unfair.

This connection of money and education seemed glaringly obvious to me as I watched the students in my class jump out of their Jeeps and talk about their weekends at their summer homes on the Cape.

But I too had paid my money, accepted my privilege, and was going to make the best of this course.

On the first day of class we spent our three and a half hours taking an assessment GRE exam. The GRE is similar to the SAT; it was difficult only because it was so boring.

Think irrelevant reading passages about protons and obscure anarchic movements in the third century, math problems that won't help you figure out how to tip at a restaurant, and logical analysis questions that are of no logical use to anyone. I couldn't comprehend how Kaplan was going to make me able to concentrate on the test.

It didn't. What the course did was increase my confidence, remind me how to add, and force me to learn every possible meaning for the word "rent."

Days after the class had finished, I took the test by computer. It was relatively painless and surprisingly short.

My scores flashed on the screen seconds after I'd answered the last question, and I walked away pleased.

It hadn't been so bad. I 'll probably get into graduate school.

At the very least, I never have to take the GRE again.

My favorite Kaplan course memory: my instructor telling me that I wouldn't have to do well on the math section because I'm a religion major. "There's math in the Bible," I retorted. "Remember 666?"

666 wasn't on the GRE.