Advice on Practice GRE

[Casper14]

Hi everybody

I just did a GRE practice test, the one located here: http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/practice_book_GRE_pb_revised_general_test.pdf

I completed the Verbal and Quantitative sections of this practice test, but I must admit that I am at a loss to understand how the scoring works. Each section consists of 25 questions, and my respective scores were:

Verbal: 16/25 and 19/25

Quantitative: 21/25 and 18/25

I read that the scoring system scales your scores to a value between 130 and 170, based on small variations in the difficulty of the test. How can I adjust my scores to find (roughly) some idea of where I will lie on the 130-170 scale?

Also, if anyone knows of any other preparation materials that I should look at, please mention them! I understand that the test has recently changed, so I am not sure which tests I should do. I am writing the real test a week from today, so the more practice I can get in the better!

Thanks for any help!

Casper

[Instigate]

For a rough estimate of your score calculate 170- 4*(Number of wrong answers)/5. Test prep materials can be found for free on the websites of kaplan, princeton, and manhattan. They also sell materials, should you need any

[Casper14]

Thanks! So that means I got 158 for Verbal and 161 for Quantitative, right? I will probably have to pick those scores up though.

I will look at some of those sites, ideally I just want to do a bunch of old tests to get into the swing of things. I am comfortable with the level of work, I just get thrown off by misinterpreting some questions though...

[pemdas]

For a rough estimate of your score calculate 170- 4*(Number of wrong answers)/5. Test prep materials can be found for free on the websites of kaplan, princeton, and manhattan. They also sell materials, should you need any

this is just meaningless information and any reference to this formula for scoring would be misleading

each section on gre is scored differently and adjusted on the percentile ranking table

then results of each section are compared and the total score is produced

any count of correct vs. incorrect would be misleading as each test is adjusted for its difficulty level

[Instigate]

this is just meaningless information and any reference to this formula for scoring would be misleading

each section on gre is scored differently and adjusted on the percentile ranking table

then results of each section are compared and the total score is produced

any count of correct vs. incorrect would be misleading as each test is adjusted for its difficulty level

How do you propose to get a rough estimate of your practice tests then? Saying roughly 160 is much more informative than saying between 130 and 170 which you propose.Also, it was my understanding the OP did the paper based version available on the ETS site, which is designed to give you a rough estimate of your score based on correct vs. incorrect answers - the ETS book actually has a rough estimate based on the above formula.

[pemdas]

Instigate, there is score calculation table at the end of paper-based test edition which is available for free download at www.ets.org/gre

please don't restate what I did not say, 130-170 score

I only said adjusting incorrect/correct the way you propose is not valid. Where did you get that formula?

[Casper14]

Thanks everyone, I only needed a rough estimate of my score. So as I understand, to get a decent score for a section I can't really afford to get more than 3 or 4 questions from roughly 40 wrong? (165+) My problem is that I also need to do well enough to secure funding, being an international student.

I read somewhere that the order of questions isn't fixed and that your next section is determined from your performance on the previous section. Does this mean anything useful? I mean, does it mean that if your maths section is followed by a verbal section that you messed up the maths or anything like that?

[psychdork]

I read somewhere that the order of questions isn't fixed and that your next section is determined from your performance on the previous section. Does this mean anything useful? I mean, does it mean that if your maths section is followed by a verbal section that you messed up the maths or anything like that?

Basically, what it means is that if you do really well on the first verbal section, then your second verbal section will have questions of higher difficulty than if you had done poorly on the first verbal section. Same for the quant (math) section. So your performance on the first section determines your second set of questions. The actual order of the sections is randomized by ETS and is not determined by your performance on an earlier section. Basically, just do your best on the test and don't worry if the questions on the second section seem really easy/difficult, you won't be able to tell what difficulty level you got anyway.

[pemdas]

I am not a big fan of determining difficulty level of any section, especially the math

on any exam one experimental section may show up and this will have mixed contribution towards the exam takers' intention to find what if the section is harder/easier/not scored. ------------ the biggest lesson I have learned from from taking taking GRE is - 'Be cool and don't think what is easy or hard, do your best throughout the exam!"

[Casper14]

Yeah, pemdas I agree with you that it's best to treat all sections as equal. I just have a few more questions.

If someone with some experience in graduate admissions for computer engineering (or general) could please enlighten me. What would be a good GRE score to 1) get admission and 2) get some form of funding or assistantship? Please also mention the university that you are using as reference. (By that I mean a competitive university will surely require higher scores than a less-competitive one)

Lastly, will being a student from outside the USA affect my applications in any way? I scored well on the TOEFL, so no worries there, but would they be eager to have a foreign student or would they rather be apprehensive at my academic abilities?

Thanks for all the help I have received here everyone, I really appreciate it. It's not easy finding these things out living outside the USA.