Students planning to take the GRE, LSAT or MCAT can get a preview of the exams on Saturday, Feb.16, at 9 a.m. Practice exams, offered by SGA and Kaplan Test Prep, are available to all students and will be administered at Lloyd Hall.
“The tests will be just like the real tests, and they will be proctored as if the students were in a real testing environment,” Feleccia Turner, campus manager for Kaplan Test Prep, said. “Students will receive scores immediately afterward on their mobile devices or laptops.”
Turner said there was no coursework preparation necessary for the GRE and LSAT, though the MCAT would cover material from Physics and Chemistry I.
“Most students who take advantage of this are juniors and seniors, and there will be some proactive sophomores,” she said. “A lot of students go without knowing anything about these tests and only hearing about them.”
Turner stressed that “practice is available,” and the practice tests were the beginning of a spectrum of resources UA students have at their disposal.
“Take these results and begin preparing a prep plan for grad school,” she said. “Test results are an anchor.”
She said comprehensive Kaplan courses in all three tests are available, and books from the SUPe store can be incorporated in to a study strategy.
“You need to know your competition and adequately prepare,” she said. “Students need to be familiar with their test.…Kaplan actually recommends three to six months of preparation for grad school, including test prep.”
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Kristen Alexander, a junior majoring in communicative disorders, will be taking the practice GRE to prepare for taking the actual exam this summer and applying to speech pathology graduate programs.
“For my program, you have to have a certain score to even be considered for grad school,” she said. “The score is as important as my GPA.”
Alexander is not preparing for the practice exam because she wants to know where she stands at a “base level.”
“The results give a synopsis of each section, so I know which sections to focus on more when I’m studying,” she said.
Evan Chodora, a freshman majoring in mechanical engineering, is taking the practice LSAT on Saturday to see how viable an option law school would be in the future.
“There are a greater number of options for people with both degrees,” he said. “There are opportunities in patent law for people who understand both the technical aspect of things as well the legal knowledge.”
Chodora has already taken a practice test and will use the results to plan for the future.
“It takes a lot of preparation to do well,” he said. “I feel like if I get a taste of it now, I can know what to work on if I choose to take it for real when I’m a junior or a senior.”
He said he would consider the breakdown of the test and look into other resources offered by the University.
“I really have no experience with this, because it’s so different than any other test I’ve taken,” he said. “Mainly, I just feel a lot of curiosity.”
Workers will be at the door to guide students, who can register online at http://bit.ly/UANPTSpring13.
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