Taking the GRE in Japan

Hey everyone!

As you may or may not know, I recently took the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) in Tokyo. I've taken the GRE twice before, and I was hoping to improve my score to help my chances of getting into graduate school in the future.

A bit of background on the GRE:

The new GRE is a 3.5 hour test which many graduate schools require for admission. It is scored on a scale from 130-170 in one point increments. There are a total of 8 sections: 2 Analytical Writing sections (each consist of 1 30-minute essay), 2 Verbal Reasoning sections (evaluating knowledge of arcane English vocabulary), 2 Quantitative Reasoning sections (high school level math), and 1 experimental or research section. With the exception of the Analytical Writing section, which is always at the beginning of the test, the rest of the sections can be in any order. In addition, there is an optional 10 minute break after the 3rd section.

During the weeks leading up to the test, there wasn't a lot of information regarding taking the GRE in Japan (presumably because not many people in Japan want to or need to take the GRE), so I hope that this post is helpful to someone in the future...

I took the GRE in a placed called Kayabacho Tower, located in the Nihonbashi neighborhood of the Chuo district in Tokyo. After the GRE, I planned to take a night bus to Aomori to spend Golden week with Ryan.

After taking the 4:30 bus from Komagane to Shinjuku, I took the Tokyo Metro subway (Marunouchi Line to the Hibiya Line) to Kayabacho Station. Since the GRE testing centers in my previous experiences had strict procedures regarding what you could or couldn't take into the testing center, I had planned to stow my luggage (a small suitcase and a backpack) in the lockers at the station.

This was a horrible idea. -___- All the big suitcase lockers were taken by the time I had arrived. I guess that you have to get there super early to claim one of those...  Anyways, this left me with no option but to take my luggage with me to the testing center and pray that a test center associate (...why does saying it like that remind me of Portal...?) would take pity on my vagabond condition and be nice enough to watch over it while I tested.

Luckily, they did just that! Even though my luggage was too big to fit in the lockers provided at the testing center (they were long and thin enough to hold a jacket on a hanger and big enough to hold a backpack and snacks for your break, but they were definitely not wide enough for a small suitcase), they took it into their custody while I tested.

Although I knew that the GRE was going to be entirely in English, a very irrational part of me worried that the test would be in Japanese on test day. What a nightmare THAT would have been! As I expected, the test was, in fact, in English. :D The staff, however, spoke minimal English. Having taken the test before, I was all too familiar with what was required of me, but if you have any questions about the testing procedures, don't expect to get any answers from the receptionists. Well, at least not in English. In that regard, I don't recommend that first-time test takers who speak little to no Japanese take the test in Japan. If you can brave the Japanese at the reception desk and the Japanese spoken before being ushered into the testing room (I believe they went over rules and procedures...), you can take solace in the fact that one of the testing proctors was able to speak English.

This proctor signed me in and out of the testing center and made sure I wasn't doing or bringing anything illegal into the room. She was also in charge of attending to inquiries I had during the test (at the push of a button, I could request more paper, another pencil, or opt to take my 10-minute break after the 3rd section). I kinda felt sorry for my proctor...she was so nervous! Visibly nervous! Her breathing was really fast, she stuttered a little bit, and I'm pretty sure that, if I had listened carefully enough, I would've been able to hear her heart pounding through her chest. I think that she was more nervous to speak English to me than I was to take the GRE...

Anyways, immediately after taking that horribly long test, they give you the results for the verbal and quantitative sections on the computer screen! Following the longest 30 second wait of my life, I found that I had scored 9 points better than I did on my last run with the test, and, overall, I scored a whole 13 points better than my first test! This may not seem like much, but taking into account the new scoring scale, it actually is a very decent improvement (if I may say so myself ^^;).

In my preparation for the test, I was really worried about how I'd do in the verbal section. Having been living in Japan for 9 months now, I've noticed an increased difficulty in the recollection of more and more English words in conversations. Even simple words! >.< If I forget simple words, how can I expect myself to do well on the verbal portion of the test???

Turns out that I actually scored 2 points better on my writing, and, even more surprisingly, a whole point and a half better on my Analytical writing portion (I found this out today! ^^)! I guess my native English speaking proficiency is here...but buried somewhere deep in my brain...

To sum up my experiences:

1. Be sure to print up maps of how to get to your testing location! This made getting to the testing location swift, painless, and stress-free.

2. Know how to read the kanji/katakana for whatever building that you need to enter. Sounds straight-forward, but I can see this giving some people some issues...

3. For the Tokyo Kayabacho testing location, it's ok to bring large luggage into the testing center, provided that you leave it with a receptionist or proctor. Speaking Japanese here helped me (and the testing associates) a lot.

4. Knowing Japanese is helpful, but not quite mandatory. Highly recommended though!

5. The test is in English. This probably doesn't need to be said, but for all you irrational worry-warts like me out there...I wrote it anyways.

...That's pretty much it! Other than the 5 points above, the test itself was the exact same as it was back in the states.

I'm really pleased with my score...and I'm so glad that I never have to see that useless test ever again in my life...

Up next...a long post with lots of pictures featuring another trip up to Aomori and Hokkaido with Ryan, Kevin (Ryan's longtime friend from high school and former roommate in college), and Wesley (Ryan and Kevin's friend from working at Anime Expo). Stay tuned! :]

***Special thanks to Ryan, who probably raised my Math score by at least 2 points with his patience in explaining easy-to-understand math concepts to me. While I had some trouble remembering and understanding simple concepts (some explanations took more than 30 minutes...>.<;;;), he did his best to help me. I appreciate all your hard work and patience!! Thanks, Pumpkin~ <3***