Practice GRE scores vs. real GRE scores

[greMS15]

Yep, those are the tests to which I was referring

Thank you Rohanps:)

[greMS15]

I don't know the about the online version. But when you buy the official GRE Guide, you get 2 mocks on the CD and 2 paper mocks written in the book. He is talking about the paper tests.

Thank you:)

[tallulah]

Finally I can post in this thread! I prepped for about 2 months primarily with Magoosh. I watched all the video lessons, did all practice questions and used their vocabulary app. For me, it was a good preparation especially for the quant section, although it remained my weak section. Here are the practice tests I did and my results from the real GRE:

12.10. (ETS I): V155 (67%), Q154 (56%) = 309
21.10. (Free Manhattan Test): V158 (78%), Q152 (48%) = 310
24.10. (Free Kaplan Test with 3Q): V149 (41%), Q158 (71%) = 307
27.10. (ETS II): V161 (87%), Q157 (68%) = 318
30.10. (GRE VQVQV): V163 (92%), Q155 (60%) = 318

I'm super happy with my verbal score, I just wished I had scored something like 2 points more in the quant section. I should say that I slept very bad the night before the GRE, so no optimal conditions, but I hope the results won't keep me out of a program. As others said, the ETS tests seem to be most predictive. I found the Kaplan verbal part really hard but not the quant section, which was really surprising to me as I had heard the opposite before. All in all, all the scores I got corresponded with my feeling of how well I did (except for the real GRE verbal part, I felt that I had to guess a lot during the last, hard verbal part).

[greMS15]

On 10/30/2015, 12:54:37, getoutofmyhouse said:

I used Magoosh. 

 

Score Predictor: 

Q: 154-159

V: 160-165

Magoosh Practice Test 1: 163V/156Q

Magoosh Practice Test 2: 161V/155Q

Magoosh Practice Test 3: 161V/158Q

 

actual test: 163V/159Q

 

 

Hi,

So Magoosh has 3 practice tests?

[greMS15]

5 hours ago, tallulah said:

Finally I can post in this thread! I prepped for about 2 months primarily with Magoosh. I watched all the video lessons, did all practice questions and used their vocabulary app. For me, it was a good preparation especially for the quant section, although it remained my weak section. Here are the practice tests I did and my results from the real GRE:

12.10. (ETS I): V155 (67%), Q154 (56%) = 309
21.10. (Free Manhattan Test): V158 (78%), Q152 (48%) = 310
24.10. (Free Kaplan Test with 3Q): V149 (41%), Q158 (71%) = 307
27.10. (ETS II): V161 (87%), Q157 (68%) = 318
30.10. (GRE VQVQV): V163 (92%), Q155 (60%) = 318

I'm super happy with my verbal score, I just wished I had scored something like 2 points more in the quant section. I should say that I slept very bad the night before the GRE, so no optimal conditions, but I hope the results won't keep me out of a program. As others said, the ETS tests seem to be most predictive. I found the Kaplan verbal part really hard but not the quant section, which was really surprising to me as I had heard the opposite before. All in all, all the scores I got corresponded with my feeling of how well I did (except for the real GRE verbal part, I felt that I had to guess a lot during the last, hard verbal part).

Congratulations:)

[St0chastic]

Hello all.  I studied for about 5 weeks and definitely noticed an improvement as I answered more practice questions and got a sense of the logic ETS uses.  I took three of the practice tests the day before the actual exam and one of them the morning of the exam.

Powerprep I: 168 V/ 170 Q

Powerprep II: 166 V/167 Q (I was interrupted halfway through the test and was pretty distracted, so I made a few careless mistakes).

Official Guide Paper Test 1: 170 V (I actually missed two questions though)/170 Q (I missed two questions due to sloppy math but the score conversion table still counts this as a 170) 

Official Guide Paper Test 2: 168 V/170 Q

Actual Test: 170 V/168 Q (I'm 99% sure I know one of the questions I missed.  It was a super easy combinatorics problem that I made a careless mistake on, but I didn't realize it until a few seconds after time was up for the section)

When I first started studying I was missing 5-10% of the verbal questions.  After doing all of the official practice problems and practice tests, I started to identify how my own reasoning was different from ETS'.  What helped me most was learning to think of all of the questions from the perspective of the test maker.  It's useful to ask things like "If I were writing this question, which answer choice would I designate to be correct and what trap answers would I write?" and "What aspect of understanding is this question testing?"  This helped me make fewer mistakes on the test.  

For the quant, I just did a load of practice problems.  Magoosh + Khan Academy + Official Guide + Official Practice Questions Books + Manhattan 5 lb. Book + ETS Math Review is the combo I used.  If I had another couple of weeks to study, I would have focused on learning strategies to minimize careless errors, which is my biggest weakness when it comes to math.  Also, even though I spent a lot of time becoming proficient at speedy mental math, on the test I ended up double checking most of my answers with the calculator because under stress my brain does stupid things (like thinking 15 x 6 is 75 or that 23 x 2 is 56).

Edited November 5, 2015 by St0chastic

[DrZoidberg]

55 minutes ago, greMS15 said:

So Magoosh has 3 practice tests?

I think, in principle, you get something like 600 questions in each of verbal and quant, and then you can create as many practice tests from those as you want. That is, for each practice test you will use 40 of your quant questions and 40 of your verbal questions. In principle you can create ~15 practice tests. 

[tx2]

Someone should make a Google Spreadsheet and add all the scores from the thread here. Anyhow, here are my scores:

Magoosh Practice #1: 311 (155V, 156Q) - Aug 30, 2015

Magoosh Practice #2: 309 (152V, 157Q) - Sept 20, 2015

Magoosh Score Predictor: 152-157Q, 146-151V 

Manhattan Prep Free Test: 313 (158V, 155Q) - October 11, 2015

PowerPrep #2 - 309 (147V, 162Q) - November 1, 2015 - freaked out about the verbal score here...

Actual GRE: 313 (155V, 158Q) - November 8, 2015

 

 

[Rohanps]

On ‎30‎/‎10‎/‎2015‎ ‎12‎:‎06‎:‎07, Rohanps said:

My progress thus far (along with rough dates) has been:

26/9: ETS Paper 1 - 161Q / 164 V

3/10: ETS Power Prep Test 1 - 170 Q / 161 V

10/10: Manhattan Diagnostic - 167-170Q

17/10: ETS Paper 2 - 163 Q / 165 V

24/10: Manhattan Test 1 - 163Q / 160 V

29/10: Manhattan test 2 - 163 Q / N/A V (just took the quant sections)

 

As everything seems to be hovering around the low 160s, the 170Q Powerprep result still seems a bit of an oddity. However, I'm clinging onto that with some hope that I can get the 165+ that I need as I have the actual GRE scheduled for a couple of weeks from now. Will update with additional practice tests and actual results in due course.

An update on this:

31/10: ETS Power Prep Test 2 - 169Q - 167 V

7/11: Manhattan test 3 - 161 Q / N/A V (just took the quant sections)

Today: GRE Proper - 165 Q / 167 V (order of test was VQVQV)

 

I am really disappointed at my quantitative score in the real GRE. The first quant section was at the same level of the Power Prep test, but the second Quant section was much harder (some questions as hard as those in the Manhattan quant practice). However, I'm not sure if I should re-take the test as the quant 90th percentile is exactly where the cut-off for most of the programs to which I want to apply. Any advice/thoughts are welcome :)

[phillyhed]

I've been enthralled by this thread so I'm happy to contribute my experience. 

A little context: I'm 37, was an English major in college, and am applying to PhD program in Higher Ed. I have only taken 1 math class in the past 20 years and that was 17 years ago! 

I studied for five weeks, mostly using Magoosh, along with the Manhattan 5 lb book. I focused almost exclusively on math, spending hours every day. I studied vocab using the Magoosh flashcards.

Magoosh test- 2 weeks before test: V 161/ Q 149

ETS PP1- 1 week before test: V 158/ Q 151

ETS PP2- 2 days before test: V 165/ Q 150 (this is when I started to have a breakdown!)

Magoosh test- 1 day before test: V 156/ Q 154

Magoosh score estimate: V 160-165 / Q 155-160 

Actual test (today): V 166/ Q 156

I don't know why the verbal scores on my practice tests varied so wildly. I do think the adrenaline of the actual test helped. 

[tallulah]

I don't see where I can edit my post above, I feel a little but stupid, haha. Anyway, I just got my official scores and AWA is 5.0, meaning 93rd percentile. I did not practice much for this, I looked at Cracking the GRE for tipps, compared my essays with sample scored essays from ETS, and posted two essays here to get feedback. I feel that my talent for languages and writing shows well in my GRE results and although I'm comfortable with statistics due to my field and had very good grades in math at school, I don't seem to possess the same talent for numbers. Interesting to see.

[aggie_nuke]

I looked at this thread a few weeks ago before I started studying for the GRE. I had very limited time to prepare since I decided to put my grad school application (M.S. Nuclear Engineering) in at the last minute.

Background: I bought the 5 lb. Manhatten Prep Study Problems book and worked through the majority of it in 3 weeks. I only hit on areas that I thought would be particularly troublesome (particularly the verbal).

Practice Exams:

Manhatten Free Exam : 159 Q / 161 V

PowerPrep 1 : 165 V / 164 Q

I took both of these test the week before I took my GRE.

Actual GRE: 165 Q / 160 V

From my experience, the PowerPrep practice exam felt much more like the actual GRE. During my GRE, I felt like I did much better on the verbal than I actually did, and I felt much worse about the quantitative. For me, I think it came down to the fact that I did not have tons of time to go back over my quantitative sections which made me feel uncertain of my performance, but at the end of the day I was fairly confident in most of my answers in the quantitative section. Overall, I cannot complain about my performance when I had limited hours to study. Given that I wanted at least 160 V and 165 Q, I guess I can honestly say I reached my absolute minimum goal which feels pretty good considering I didn't have the optimal study time/approach.

If I had to recommend an optimal method of studying, I would say that it is important to take as many practice exams as you need in order to feel comfortable with the time constraints. I think I could have benefited from a couple more practice exams in order to get my timing right (especially in the quantitative). At the end of the day, there wasn't a single question on the actual GRE quantitative that I didn't think I could solve, but there were a couple of questions that I just didn't have the right amount of time to devote to.

With the verbal, I think it is possible to do very well on sentence completion problems if you take the time to go over vocabulary. This is where the Manhatten book really helped since I its sentence completion practice problems were much more difficult than the actual exam. If I could do this all over again, I would take the time to go over more of the other verbal practice sections. I think it is very easy to get overconfident with the passage reading comprehension questions, and this is where I think I lost the most on my verbal score.

Overall: If you have very limited time to study (Study Time << 100 hours), then it is still very possible toreach a reasonable goal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SLPgradstudent]

Manhattan Practice 1: V 157, Q 154

Manhattan Practice 2: V 161, Q 155

Manhattan Practice 3: V 157, Q 155

Manhattan Practice 4: Verbal only 161

Real GRE: V 164 (94th %ile), Q 159 (75th %ile), W 5.0 (93rd %ile)

I used Manhattan Prep for about 2 months.  I studied almost exclusively for the verbal section, since that's what the programs will be looking at most.  I studied a little for the quant section, and read about what was expected for writing.  I did two practice writing tests with Manhattan, which were ungraded.  For the 2 months I studied, I wasn't working or taking classes, but I was recovering from a debilitating illness, so take from that what you will.

[gendertrouble]

I took a preparation class, 12 meetings, 3 hours each. 

1st practice mid November: 158/153/5

2nd practice end of November: 160/147/4.5

Real test 31st December: 148/146/2.5

 

I didn't study for the first 2 weeks after the 2nd practice and started cramming for the last 2 weeks, didn't expect my verbal would be THAT low, kinda expecting around 160 so it was a sorrowful way to end 2015

[wisco123]

I used the ETS official Books and Magoosh (all the practice questions, at least 1 exam, all the vocab notecards).

Study time: 2 hours a day, 6 days a week, 2 months

This was my 2nd time taking the exam, first time I got a 298 (141V, 157Q, 3.0 AW)

My practice test scores:

ETS Power Prep 2 Test 1:   Q= 163 V=154 Total=317 (34 Days Before)

ETS Book Test 1:                 Q=163 V=149 Total= 312 (27 Days Before)

Magoosh Practices Test 1:   Q=162 V=157 Total= 319 (30 Days Before)

ETS Book Test 2:                  Q=160 V=149 Total= 309 (13 Days Before)

ETS Power Prep 2 Test 2:     Q=164 V=153 Total=317 (6 Days Before)

Test day (Today):                  Q=162 V=152 Total=314 (Awaiting AW)

 

Looks like I scored about average of the exam. I didn't like the book exam because it wasn't how I was going to take the exam. PowerPrep was definitely easier than the actual exam. Magoosh was alright, except for the fact that I took the practice exam after doing all the questions. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO KNOW YOUR VOCAB WORDS!!!! THOSE FLASHCARDS GOT ME AT LEAST 10 POINTS!!! 

It's not a super high score, but I'm happy about my improvement! 

[scientific]

Kaplan Practice: 158/158

Magoosh predictor: 153-159Q/159-162V

Powerprep 2nd test: 157Q/160V

ETS Paper test 1: 161Q/160V

ETS Paper test1: 157Q/157V

 

Actual: 162V/162Q/AW???

 

Edited February 19, 2016 by scientific

[btmbtm]

Hopefully this doesn't get buried, but....

I created an anonymous GRE vs PowerPrep Score survey to track whether PowerPrep scores are a good indicator of real GRE scores. If you've taken at least one PowerPrep test and the official GRE please fill it out for future GRE sitters. If you are curious about the results, here is the spreadsheet of all the responses. If there are any issues or questions, please don't hesitate to comment or PM me.

Sidenote: Does anyone think asking for SAT scores would be useful?  

My data

PowerPrep 1: 167V 169Q

PowerPrep 2: 169V 170Q

GRE: 170V 168Q

Edited February 24, 2016 by btmbtm

[Vince Kotchian GRE Prep]

I'm all for hard data, but I can tell you anecdotally (based on lots of individual students) that there is an extremely high correlation between PowerPrep scores and real scores (if the real test is taken a little bit after a PowerPrep test). Also note that Powerprep should be done with the essays to best simulate what you'd experience on the real GRE. It will be interesting anyway to see the numbers on your sheet, so thanks.

For those new to this stuff, PowerPrep2 is the free software you can download from ets.org/gre. It's a lot closer to the real GRE than anything else, which figures, since it's written by ETS (the company that writes the GRE test).

There is also a pretty good correlation (I've observed) between SAT scores and GRE scores (both tests are written by ETS), but it depends a lot more on a lot more variables since the time gap is usually 4 years+.

BTW, wow - nice scores, btmbtm!

[Azsy16]

Thought I'll post mine since this forum helped me out a LOT in what to expect. 

Powerprep I: 158 V / 166 Q

Powerprep II: 159 V / 160 Q  (Did these two right at the start, which in hindsight is quite stupid. Also, think I did them with iTunes playing. )

Manhattan practice test: 161 V / 160 Q

Kaplan practice test: 162 V / 164 Q

At this point, I decided to sign up for Magoosh, seeing how everyone was touting it as the best thing ever.

Magoosh practice test 1: 164 V / 164 Q (I felt pretty confident, since their material was supposed to be harder than the actual ones. Little did I know it'd be my best performance on the site )

Magoosh practice test 2: 159 V / 158 Q

Magoosh practice test 3: 161 V / 158 Q

Magoosh practice test 4: 159 V / 162 Q (I was hesitant about creating one last practice test, but decided to, since it was a week before the actual test and I wanted to see how much I've improved. Needless to say, I was completely floored by the performance.)

Magoosh score predictor: 160-165 V/ 158-163 Q

 

Actual GRE (3.3.2016): 166 V / 164 Q / 5.0 AWA 

I was both stunned and ecstatic when the results appeared on the screen. For one, I've never gotten that verbal score in any of the practice tests. Also, the first verbal section felt incredibly difficult somehow, and I was mentally prepared for a retake. Just goes to show, you can never tell! The quantitative score was a bonus, since I almost completely did not practise for it, as it's less important for the program I'm applying to. I'd say I studied lightly for 2 months (maybe 7 hours a week?), consisting of doing practice tests and reviewing questions thoroughly (for verbal at least). I also watched all of Magoosh's verbal videos, albeit knowing most of the 'tricks' already. I knew my problems with verbal was grounded in the fact that I hated reading with a passion (there are exceptions though). My last book was a celebrity autobiography, and the one before that was the sixth Harry Potter book from many years ago (yes, I was so lazy that I couldn't be bothered to read the final one and decided to be informed by the movie instead). I also paid for Scoreitnow to know where I was with my writing, got a 5, and never thought about it again.

In reviewing your answers, it's definitely beneficial to not just 'get' the right one, but also to know what makes the wrong ones wrong. Also, I think it's quite crucial to have personal strategies that complement you. For example, I've this discard/speed-reading technique that lets me automatically skip words like 'the' 'an' 'was' etc, which obviously ties in nicely with my aversion towards reading.

I'm now thinking if I should retake and see if I can get a better score by chance though...

 

[OrthoGirl]

ETS Book 1:  166V/159Q

ETS Book 2:  165V/160Q

Powerprep 1:  170V/169Q

Powerprep 2:  163V/164Q

Magoosh 1: 164V/164Q

Magoosh 2: 164V/160Q

Magoosh Estimator: 161-166V / 156-161Q

GRE: 167V / 167Q

 

[warriordawg23]

I took the first PowerPrep II test after having distractedly studied for about half an hour. 

My scores were:

Verbal: 161

Quantitative: 161

I then studied a for about 3-5 hours and took the second PowerPrep II test. I received the same scores.

 

Two days later, without having studied any more than before my two practice tests, I received the following scores on the real GRE:

Verbal: 165

Quantitative: 163

Because I had studied so little, I didn't even know there was a third part to the quantitative section. I had mentally decided to be done at the end of the second verbal section. Needless to say, I was a little shocked and dismayed to see a third quantitative part. I feel like I would have done better if I would have been mentally prepared for the third quantitative section, but oh well. I'm still waiting to receive my analytical writing score. 

Edited April 30, 2016 by warriordawg23

[Neuro PolarBear]

15 hours ago, warriordawg23 said:

I took the first PowerPrep II test after having distractedly studied for about half an hour. 

My scores were:

Verbal: 161

Quantitative: 161

I then studied a for about 3-5 hours and took the second PowerPrep II test. I received the same scores.

 

Two days later, without having studied any more than before my two practice tests, I received the following scores on the real GRE:

Verbal: 165

Quantitative: 163

Because I had studied so little, I didn't even know there was a third part to the quantitative section. I had mentally decided to be done at the end of the second verbal section. Needless to say, I was a little shocked and dismayed to see a third quantitative part. I feel like I would have done better if I would have been mentally prepared for the third quantitative section, but oh well. I'm still waiting to receive my analytical writing score. 

One of the three quantitative section was the experimental one, just like on the SAT. The scores you get on it don't actually count

[psychguy845]

Hi everyone,

I've been monitoring this thread hoping and praying that today (my test date) I would be one of those who reported that Powerprep underestimated my score.  

I decided to post my results for others to evaluate.

On day one of my studying, I took the Manhattan free practice exam. I received 155V 155Q. I've since studied by myself, used all of the Manhattan books, Barrons, among others. I hired a tutor and we did 20 hours of Quant lessons. I took power prep last week 4.5 months since commencing studying and my results were as follows:

160V, 159Q (Saturday, April 23, 2016)

I studied, studied, reviewed my formulas and took PP2

154V, 163Q (Wednesday, April 27, 2016)

Then today:

A dismal 159 V, 152Q--- Worse than what I got before I started studying. 

 

I got a lot of concepts I wasn't familiar with. It wasn't anything like the PowerPrep versions. 

Good luck everyone! Make sure you don't take your PP scores for granted. The sum of my best in the two sections was 323. I got 311 on the real thing. 

[nanthini]

Went with Princeton Review Practice tests and Manhattan free test

Test           Verbal           Quant           AWA                      Total

(unprepared, 6 months before test)

PR1            148             163                2.5                          311  [feeling super awesome at this score]

PR2            148             156                3.0                          304  [brought back to earth ]

(little preparation, only in Quant, 3 months before)

PR3            146              159               3.5                          305  [may be I shouldn't give GRE]

(prepared a little bit more, 2 months before)

PR4           150               161               2.5                         311   [I'm back!!]

PR5           153               165              3.5                          318 []

PR6           150               166              3.5                          316[]

(moment of truth, 1 month before)

ETS1        151                164                 -                           315 [nice!!]

PR7          153                 164                3.5                       317[well, that's good]

(Paper Based, 2 weeks before)

ETS3         154                 162                -                      316

ETS4         156                 164               -                       320 [I'm awesommeeee!! :D]

 

Manhattan 155                159                -                       314 [may be not]

FINAL PRACTICE TEST (3 days before actual GRE)

ETS2        154                 166                 -                      320 [CONFIDENT!]

 

ACTUAL TEST, APRIL 17, 2016

GRE          156                 165                  4.0               321[The highest I got in any type of GRE test]

 

Days I 'actually' worked hard : 30

You need one month of actual prep to ace this test, keep practicing as many as you can and learn as many words and you'll be fine. Good luck!

Edited May 14, 2016 by nanthini

[ctg7w6]

I basically did better than my practice scores.

Manhattan under predicted... I only did the quantitative portions of Manhattan because I didn't think their verbal was very realistic.

Average was 159.6667 over the six tests, with a range of 158-160

Average of 162.5 for the Quantitative PowerPrep tests with a range of 160-164.

Average of 168.25 for verbal for PowerPrep, range of 165-170.

 

Actual Score: 169 Verbal, 165 Quant.

Very pleased. Really wanted the 170 on Verbal (applying to history programs), but it doesn't really matter.

Just waiting on AWA score. I have good feelings about it, though.