Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Monday, November 18, 2013

November Meeting Highlights

We had a fabulous meeting this November. We discussed the Call For Papers for the AGSE Spring conference, "Intersections." We also announced that we are planning on having a panel of first-year students at the conference; we are accepting full-length papers from first-year students. If you teach or SI for a first-year comp class, have your students send us their essays by email (agse.csunorthride@gmail.com). 

We are also very excited about the AGSE workshop on Wednesday, November 20th at 2:30 p.m. in Jerome Richfield 319 on How to Write an Abstract for a Conference, hosted by the brilliant Dr. Ranita Chatterjee. We hope you can all attend.

We also had a very informative discussion, lead by Hannah Jorgenson, about what to do to study for the GRE. Here are a few highlights from that discussion:

1. One of the best books that you can buy to help you study for the GRE is by Manhattan Prep. You can also pay for classes through this company, as well as companies like this, but all of the information that you will need can be found in their prep books.

2.Study the format of the GRE. You need to know how the questions are worded and what kind of answers the test will expect from you. The GRE is written with a specific logic to it that once you understand you will be able figure out what answers the test finds to be the most correct (sometimes there will be several options that look correct on a multiple-choice question). 

3.Studying vocabulary words will only take you so far. It may be helpful to make flashcards and memorize a few hundred of the most commonly used GRE words, but if you only have a limited amount of time, you should stick to studying the logic and format of the GRE.

4.Take lots of practice tests. The more familiar you are with the style and kind of language typically used on the test, the more comfortable you will be on the test day. 

5. Give yourself lots of time to study for the test, maybe a few months in advance, depending on how much time you plan on dedicating to studying each day. 

6. The night before the test, you might want to just give yourself a break because you've probably already studied enough at this point.

Hope to see you next month for our final meeting of the semester on Friday, December 6th from 1:00-2:00 p.m.!