VIJAYAWADA: Multiple attempts to crack GRE/TOEFL by most of the students of Vijayawada seeking admission in foreign universities bring to the fore the fact that English language skills of the students are not up to the mark and their grasp of the language at even undergraduate level is not that good.
The reason, according to experts, is that to get more admissions in professional colleges, most of the corporate colleges focus on core subjects and neglect languages for high pass percentage. However, students lose touch of fundamental language and later struggle when they go for higher education.
“Recently, I wrote GRE exam and got only 260, whereas to get into the university of my preference, I need to get more than 290. Though I was from an English medium background, even from my schooling, the language turned too difficult for me to crack the test. In engineering, the colleges only focused on group subjects and completely neglected English and as a result we are now suffering,” said P Swathi, an engineering graduate from the city.
“Along with students of Telugu medium, the students with English medium background also face a lot of difficulties to crack GRE/TOEFL in a single attempt, as they have only some understanding of grammar and verbal skills but lack effective reading skills. This affects not only their communication skills but also their grasp of knowledge. As the corporate colleges only focus on the group subjects and neglect the languages, students are the ultimate sufferers,” said B Suresh Babu, general manager of the Vijayawada branch of Conduira GRE and IELTS training institute.
As admission to foreign universities depends on the GRE score, the students are making numerous attempts to get a good score, as they can write GRE a number of times till they get a good score.
“The GRE tests verbal, quantitative and analytical writing skills. The GRE verbal section will have questions on sentence completion, analogies, reading comprehension and antonyms and the success depends on the students’ vocabulary. In this situation, a flexibility in GRE test is that they can write it many times till they get good marks,” he said.
However, the students need to spend more to make multiple attempts of GRE test. “Recently, I wrote the test a second time, but was unable to get the required score. Till now I have spent nearly Rs 50,000 on coaching but it in vain,” said K Satyakar, a graduate from the city.
