I came across 18th century poet William Cowper in the Slate article “Why are William Cowper’s poems so witty?”

For instance, this one (source):
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This comic from XKCD is not only hilarious, but presents a remarkably GRE-like scenario:

So, here’s a question — what is the area of the “donut” shape in which the man in the comic is legally permitted to move?

Answer the question yourself before clicking “More.”

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You may not be aware of the new GRE Diagnostic Service, available to any test takers who have already taken the Revised exam. Did you know that you can actually see how many questions you missed, the difficulty level of each question, how long you spent on each question, and the categories of the problems you missed? (You can’t see the actual questions, though).

Of course, this information is mainly helpful to those who have taken the real exam and intend to take it again. Here’s a screenshot of a small portion of my results:

Of course, we all want to avoid having to retake the real exam. One way to do that is to make sure you are practicing with serious computer-based practice exams. Studying on paper, without time limits, is just not the same!
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The practical applications of math in the real world, from intrepid U.S. Post Office employee James Wu.

“This is a wall panel for an apartment building in Boston. It has five floors, and each floor has the same number of apartments. I have a package for #49–the buzzer doesn’t work very well, but they tell me to go up. What floor do I go to?”

Work out a solution before clicking “More”.

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It’s been awhile since we’ve done a Visual Dictionary post, but let’s take on the word turgid:

Turgid (adj)
1. swollen; distended; tumid.
2. inflated, overblown, or pompous; bombastic: turgid language.

What would you describe as turgid (or its synonym, tumid)?

Reader Thomas M. writes:

“My withering tomato plants became turgid and vibrant after yesterday’s rain. An heirloom tomato becomes so turgid that it will split open with ripe juices … the best tomato you’ll ever taste. Isn’t it amazing how a succulent plant like the aloe vera plant stays turgid in the arid desert, while a plant native to our climate would wilt and wither in the desert?”
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The English language has a lot of words for being less than serious.

Some of those words describe smart, sarcastic people (Dorothy Parker had a mordant wit), and some describe silly, foolish people (I find most of the humor in Everybody Loves Raymond to be unbearably fatuous).

Jocular, jocose, and jocund are three very similar-sounding synonyms that just mean “joking around.”

Waggish means “roguish in merriment and good humor; jocular.”

Facetious means “not meant to be taken seriously or literally.”

When I said that that burned grilled cheese you made me was the most sophisticated meal I’d ever eaten, I was being facetious. I mean, Kraft singles?

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Take a sneak peek into Manhattan Prep’s 500 Essential Words and 500 Advanced Words GRE flashcard sets!

When writing these cards, we wanted to make sure that everyone could get something out of every card — even if you already know the word on the front. So, you may know whimsical, but do you know mercurial, capricious, and lark? Check it out:

Want to adopt 1,000 new flashcards? Visit our store here.

Manhattan GRE’s three-day boot camp is a program designed for students who have strong math backgrounds and/or have been studying for the GRE for at least 1 month. Taught by top-notch teachers and built on content-based learning, class sessions are interactive and challenging, building students’ proficiency and confidence for every question type on the exam.

The course includes a complete set of our 8 Strategy Guides, plus access to 6 online practice exams.

Course Details
Date: Friday, November 18th – Sunday, November 20th
Location: 138 W. 25th St (our NYC center)
Price: $590

Detailed Schedule
11/18 – 3 hour session 5:30PM – 8:30 PM Online
11/19 – 3.75 hour Online Practice Exam 10am-1:45pm (online or in our center, space permitting)
11/19 – 3.5 Hour Session 2:30 PM – 6:00 PM
11/20 – 3.75 hour Online Practice Exam 10am-1:45pm (online or in our center, space permitting)
11/20 – 3.5 Hour Session 2:30 PM – 6:00 PM

Please note: The session on Friday November 18th will be held in a Live Online classroom. Saturday and Sunday sessions will be held at the Manhattan GRE center (138 W 25th Street, New York, NY 10001). Student should also set aside time to take two 3 hour and 45 minute practice exams, one prior to each of the two in-person sessions. These tests can be taken at home or in Manhattan GRE’s testing center (testing center availability limited).

Meet the Instructor

Jennifer Dziura is Manhattan GRE’s Blog Editor and Lead Content Developer. She has scored perfectly on the GRE twice, has written or contributed to more than 10 published test prep books, and is the author of Manhattan GRE’s 500 Essential Words and 500 Advanced Words flashcard sets. In her M.S. in Education program, she worked on projects relating to using research into the brain to decrease stress and enhance learning and memory. She has helped over 2,000 people master the content for the GRE and other exams. Jennifer uses her obviously copious spare time to co-host an adult spelling bee.

Note: Images are from our favorite boot camp movie, GI Jane. Actual GRE bootcamp looks more like this (no pushups!)

Sign Up Here

Via Flowingdata via Raymond Johnson, credit to Ryan Grover.

If a multiple choice question has four answers, your chance of randomly guessing the right answer is 1 in 4, or 25% … right?

You’d think that — until you see that 25% is written twice.

So, since the correct answer appears twice, your chance of guessing correctly is 2 in 4, or 50% … right?

EXCEPT that if the correct answer is 50%, which only appears once, then the correct answer is actually 25% (since only one in four answers says “50%.”)

That’s sort of satisying — until you see that 25% is written twice.

So … (wait, this is hurting our heads!) since the correct answer appears twice, your chance of guessing correctly is 2 in 4, or 50% … right?

EXCEPT that if the correct answer is 50%, which only appears once, then the correct answer is actually 25% (since only one in four answers says “50%.”)

Whoa. (We’re nonplussed, flummoxed, addlepated, and just generally making a Keanu Reeves expression right now.)

Let’s stop here.

The word harrow has two definitions:
1. To break up and level (soil or land) with a harrow.
2. To inflict great distress or torment on.

We often refer to a dangerous or stressful incident as a “harrowing experience.”

As for the literal meaning, though — harrow is both the action of breaking up ground and the tool used to do it — I think that for years I had mistakenly been picturing a hoe.

Actually, a harrow is this terrifying web of spikes:

(Hey, we’re Manhattan Prep — what do we know about farming?)

So, a harrowing experience makes you feel as though someone dragged that over you! Yikes.

A similarly horrifying metaphor is found in the word excoriate, which we use to mean “to criticize harshly,” but which literally means “to run so hard as to wear the skin off of.” You could certainly excoriate someone with a harrow.

Also, here’s something interesting — the use of harrow as a metaphor is first attributed to Shakespeare, in Hamlet:

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres.

Harrow is also related to the verb harry:
1. To disturb or distress by or as if by repeated attacks; harass. See Synonyms at harass.
2. To raid, as in war; sack or pillage.

According to Etymonline, harry comes from the Old English hergian (“make war, lay waste, ravage, plunder”), the word used in the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” for what the Vikings did to England. So, when you say that you’re feeling harried due to all your responsibilities, you’re probably exaggerating a bit.

You can get a harrow like this one here.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, and that we here at Manhattan Prep are making the GRE a less harrowing experience for you.