New GRE scores vs Old GRE scores?

[George2248]

Hello everyone I have a question that i am sure many people have:

New GRE scores range form 130 - 170, as opposed to old GRE scores that range from 200 - 800

That gives you a range of 40 points (1 increments) vs 60 points (10 increments)

If the scores are proportional then 1 new GRE point = 1.5 old GRE points.

According to that 150 = 500 , 160 = 650 , 170 = 800

The problem is I am not sure you can extrapolate the results as if they where proportional.

I currently took 2 practices test and I scored 159 (635) and 160 (650) but when I take the official practice test which still scores in the old scale i got 750 (164).

I was planning on applying to Berkeley so I had a target score in math of about 750. The problem is that according to new scale I have not idea what score should I get and with the extrapolated score I am getting a much slower score than my target.

If any of you have the same experience and might help me.

Thanks a lot for your time.

[Lox26]

Daisy Fields has posted a helpful analysis:

[fullofpink]

Another thing to consider is that because this scoring is 1-point increments, an adcom will automatically know how many questions you missed just by looking at the score. So, if you score 150 on one, the adcom will know that you only got half the questions right. Whereas, if you scored 160, that's only 10 questions wrong (still a 1/4 of the test!). It's very, very stressful.

The other thing I see highly suggested is that the percentile is actually going to be worth more than the true score with the new GRE.

[warbrain]

The number of questions you get right is meaningless (maybe unless you're taking the paper-based GRE) since the GRE is section adaptive.

[crater21]

The new score range is definitely not proportional to the old score range (i.e, you can't assume that 1 new point = 1.5 old points).

Based on some info that ETS has put out, it seems that for the Quantitative section, the Top 25% will be spread out over a 15 point range - i.e, between 155 and 170.

In comparison, on the old test, the Top 25% for Quantitative was spread out between 720 and 800. I am not sure if we know enough to compare specific scores. But, I think you could say that if you get a range of 720 - 800, it will translate into a range of 155 - 170 on the new test (for Quantitative).

It's a whole different ball game for Verbal because Verbal scores tend to be much lower. For Verbal, getting 720 on the old test puts you in the 98th percentile (as compared to 75th percentile for Quantitative for the same score). I don't know what that would translate into on the new scale.

Disclaimer: All of the numbers that I'm citing come from these two sources. Take a look yourself because it's very possible that I'm mis-interpreting what they have said.

http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/GRE/pdf/14521_0ETSS036_supplement.pdf

http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide.pdf

[George2248]

I agree with you, thats basically what daisy concluded in a different post