Is there a breakdown of how scores translate to X/170?

[crouthers]

I may be missing something, but I don't fully grasp the translation from an X/20 + X/20 --> X/170.

Like, would a quant. of 19/20 + 19/20 always translate to a certain X/170 score, or is it variable?

I'm not sure I'm communicating what I want to say in the best way, but hopefully someone understands.

[ImmunoXX]

You get 130 for just showing up, then every correct question is one point. There is some minor adjusting between sections, but for an idea of where your score is that is the way to calculate it. Then you can look up estimated percentiles online.

[psychdork]

When I took one of the PowerPrep practice tests I figured out that the way my score was determined was basically 1 point per correct answer + 130 + 2 additional points. The additional points were probably due to the difficulty level of my second section (at least that is my best guess). Therefore, say I got a 17/30 on both sections, I would be scoring roughly a 166 (17+17+130+2). Obviously, your experience might be slightly different (in one practice test it looked like I was granted 3 additional points instead of 2).

[alf10087]

I seems to be variable depending on how you do on the first section. But on mock tests, for me it has been just as the previous posters have mentioned.

The number of questions you got right +130 should at least be your minimum.

[iowaguy]

Well, there must be some sort of factor applied to the "tougher" questions on the 2nd section. For example, if 2 different students take a hypothetical GRE test:

Student #1 gets 18/20 right on first Q section, so gets "hard" questions on second section.

Student #2 gets 12/20 right on first Q section, so gets "easy" questions on second section.

Student #1 gets 12/20 right on second (hard) section for a total Q of 30/40

Student #2 gets 18/20 right on second (easy) section for total Q of 30/40

There has to be a way that ETS factors in the fact that Student #1 had 20 questions that were harder than Student #2, even though they both got the same number of questions correct...

Edited August 30, 2012 by iowaguy

[psychdork]

Well, there must be some sort of factor applied to the "tougher" questions on the 2nd section. For example, if 2 different students take a hypothetical GRE test:

Student #1 gets 18/20 right on first Q section, so gets "hard" questions on second section.

Student #2 gets 12/20 right on first Q section, so gets "easy" questions on second section.

Student #1 gets 12/20 right on second (hard) section for a total Q of 30/40

Student #2 gets 18/20 right on second (easy) section for total Q of 30/40

There has to be a way that ETS factors in the fact that Student #1 had 20 questions that were harder than Student #2, even though they both got the same number of questions correct...

I agree and I think that this is where they add some number of additional points to your score. I've taken two full length practice tests and what I calculated for the verbal section was on Test #1 I was given 2 additional points, and on Test #2 I got 3 points. I had scored much better on the first section of Test #2 so I'm guessing I got a harder second section which is why I was given 3 points instead of 2. I'm not sure what the formula is to determine the number of additional points but this is what I've found from my practice tests.