habanero

When you need to get a 770+ to be competitive, getting a ranged score is torture. If I get a 750, I will need to retake it. Being able to logically think that I will likely get 780 makes me feel much more comfortable.

I looked at your profile and you are applying for MFA programs...many of those do not even require a GRE. Those of us wishing to get into top science programs have very little wiggle room with quant scores. A similar analogy would be applying to top MFA programs with a 2 photograph portfolio. Your genius might shine through, but it'd be hard for the admissions committee to justify even giving the app a second look.

When you need to get a 770+ to be competitive, getting a ranged score is torture. If I get a 750, I will need to retake it. Being able to logically think that I will likely get 780 makes me feel much more comfortable.

I looked at your profile and you are applying for MFA programs...many of those do not even require a GRE. Those of us wishing to get into top science programs have very little wiggle room with quant scores. A similar analogy would be applying to top MFA programs with a 2 photograph portfolio. Your genius might shine through, but it'd be hard for the admissions committee to justify even giving the app a second look.

wow, first I have to say, to me, it seems bizarre to have thought about the scores this much!

I understand where you are coming from but wouldn't we all be better off devoting our time to revising further rather than hypothesising on possible score calculations? I bet the guys at GRE would have a good laugh at this. Although, obviously, you are going to be getting a much higher score than me!

I agree though, how else to pass the time... when I took the test I had no idea the scoring wasn't finalised and it completely baffled me after 3 hours to be given an estimated score. I like to imagine the GRE examiners all in lab coats in some high tech facility where everything is chrome ad polished with some giant computer spitting out printed results like confetti...

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I've been doing some speculating and thinking on what the revised GRE score ranges actually mean. I am going to propose a simple hypothesis I've been rolling around in my head, and I'm curious to see what flaws/improvements others can see. After all, we need something to occupy our minds until November.

Given what we know, the revised GRE has been spitting out 100 point ranges for those not bounded by 800 (i.e. 580-680) and smaller ranges for those bounded by 800 (i.e. 720-800). We also know that the highest possible score at this point is 750-800. Based on the information provided by ETS concerning the score ranges, the scoring practices on PowerPrep II, and the scoring table in ETS' book, I am going to make the assumption that these scores are raw scores based on the scoring rubric of the old GRE prior to weighting for difficulty of questions. This implies that the score is computed rather simplistically (i.e. # wrong on the quantitative section equals some single-valued score for that section). Then, ETS runs their algorithms to weight each question for the exam by the percentages of people who get certain questions right/wrong. This obviously cannot be performed consistently until enough people have taken the exam -- hence, making us wait until November for scores and dropping the price to encourage more people to take the exam. This leads me to believe that they haven't weighted the unofficial score ranges yet, whatsoever.

Further, I am going to suggest that the score ranges are centered on the single-value of the raw, unweighted score. The ranges, then, should be interpreted at the midpoint with 50 points on either side to account for the difficulty of the exam. Thus, a 650-750 on a difficult test might reflect a true score greater than 700. Conversely, a 500-600 on an easy test might reflect a true score less than 550. Additionally, the 750-800 range is more realistically 750-850, thus the lower half of the 100 point range reflects the possibility that an 800 was achieved on a relatively easier test and would be subject to deflation. I think this theory accounts for the improved precision as the range moves towards 800.

I guess the real benefit of this, if it holds any water, is that we can assign some subjective belief about how difficult our individual exam was (relative to PowerPrep as a baseline), to determine where our actual score will fall within the range we were given.

A note of caution: I am hesitant to speculate on how this will map to percentiles. The entire argument above is based on the assumption that the score ranges (out of 800) can be estimated by the raw score (number of questions right/wrong) obtained. Thus, the percentiles are determined largely independent of the raw score -- which has historically been the case. And then, depending on how ETS wants to shape the distribution of new scaled scores (out of 170), they'll assign these scores according to the percentiles they want to represent.

Thoughts? Comments?

Here is how I am seeing this happen: Since the score will be on the new scale, it is virtually meaningless where on the range you are. What matters is the percentiles. The range they are giving you is simply the percentile range. So, for instance, if you got 720-800 on the math section, that simply means that you scored in the top 25%.

Now, at some point, ETS will figure out where the top 25% will fall on the new scale. Maybe it will be 160-170. Maybe it will be 155-170, or whatever. Then, depending on the distribution of other scores, they will place you somewhere on the new range.

Well, I know that when they send out the new scores, the report will tell them what that number would have been on the old scale so they understand. They said, for example, that it will list the number you had, say a 135, and then it will have somewhere, like in parentheses or at the bottom, telling them what that number would have been on the old scare, like 550 or whatever it would have been. So, they will actually assign your score to a score on the old scale so that adcoms will know what that means.