Practice GRE scores vs. real GRE scores

[gwualum4mpp]

My scores don't compare to the 160s I typically see here, but I have them and might as well post them: 

 

Barron's               - 153V / 155Q

ETS power prep I - 156V / 146Q

Manhattan            - 151V / 152Q

ETS power prep II - 155V / 150Q

----

 

Actual test (1st try) - 155V (66%)/ 151Q (45%)/ 4.5AWA (78%)

Actual test (2nd try) - 155V (66%)/ 154Q(57%)/ 4.0AWA (54%)

 

I work full time and studied about 2-3 months. I feel the quality of my studying was impacted by my moving cross-country to start a new job. I wish I had started earlier...I could have studied more. Oh well everyone says that right? 

 

I forgot to mention, I studied the official ETS book and Magoosh. Watched the modules, but I missed a lot of the math ones. Example of room for growth/improvement...

 

Anyhow, good luck all!! 

Edited December 16, 2013 by gwualum4mpp

[browncow]

No writing score yet.

 

PowerPrep 1: 168 V / 170 Q

Actual: 170 V / 165 Q

 

In my assessment, the V score reflects a recent "break" during which I read a lot of horribly dense political analysis and philosophy (personal interest). The Q score reflects maybe some bad test day circumstances but more the fact that I no longer use Q skills and have little confidence in them. I spent a lot of time quadruple-checking arithmetic and really scrambled to finish, whereas I saw three verbal sections and finished each in 20 minutes.

 

I seem to be in the minority of those who believe that standardized tests reflect something real, even if that is a combination of your real aptitude, your recent exercise of that aptitude, and your ability to function under pressure.

 

With that disclaimer, my recommendation for anyone who still has 150 hours to study is to use the skills in question. Read challenging nonfiction texts, solve geometric puzzles, write about topics that interest you. Don't just practice artificial test questions. No one operates at 100% all the time, and especially not on test day. If you have only the knowledge you need to get 170/170 on the GRE, chances are you are won't see that most days. If you build your skills to a higher level, then even operating suboptimally you can feel at ease with the test.

 

For reference:

Archaic GRE score: 700 V / 800 Q / 800 A

Archaic SAT score: 800 V / 760 Q

[Arcanelady27]

I took a Princeton Practice Test last Tuesday V. 149 Quant 138

I just took Manhattan Prep  V. 151 Quant 141  

 

Which ones of these test are a better representation of the real exam? 

[Muhammad Noman]

What I judge is that for "41" possible scores and "40" questions-together in both sections- GRE scores are usually correspond to number to RIGHT ANSWERS - though percentiles and difficultly levels always may come into play as we all know. In Power Prep found this relation pretty close to scores. I found myself incorrigible at verbal   and very confused which scores should I believe...I'm sharing my results on different simulators.

 

PP: V 144 (14/40) : Q 161 (32 / 40)

Manhattan: V 156 : Q 163, V 155 : Q 162, V 147: 163

Princeton Review: V 149 : Q 162

Kaplan: V 142 : Q 164

 

Verbal behaves so capricious with me   .... don't know what gonna happen on monday (Feb 03, 2014 Real GRE).

Edited January 30, 2014 by Muhammad Noman

[chetanxavier]

Manhattan Prep: 160 V, 161 Q

Powerprep : 163 V, 164 Q

Real test: 155 V, 162 Q

 

I did a lot worse on the verbal portion of the examination than expected from the practice

[jdnels81]

Well, my scores are all over the road. At first I looked good, but then my Kaplan tests showed a negative trend. So I did some review on some math tricks, but my last test did not show much traction.

 

Kaplan MST1: 166 Q, 158 V

Kaplan MST2: 156 Q, 160 V

Kaplan MST3: 161 Q, 162 V

 

By contrast, we have 

Barron's CD1: 165 Q, 160 V

 

Manhattan Prep 1: 166Q, 158 V

 

I'm not too concerned with the V score, but my Q score needs to be, I believe, 163 or better. I am riding that line very dangerously close to that, and I'm a bit below that. I consider the Kaplan MST2 score a bit of a fluke, but the 3rd one I actually tried. I feel that Kaplan is definitely harder than Barron's and Manhattan Prep, for one they throw in that fake test, and for two the math questions just "feel" harder to me. I feel like I'm blowing the test out of the water with Manhattan and Barron's, but Kaplan is just killing me, I don't know why. I'll try a Powerprep one next.

[az91]

Hey all, i just did my GRE exam on my practices tests:

 

Kaplan MST 2: 164Q, 149V

Kaplan MST 4: 167Q, 150V

 

Princeton Review  Test 6: 164Q, 152V  4 AWA

Princeton Review  Test 7: 166Q, 153V  4.5 AWA

 

Powerprep Test 1:  170 Q, 155V

Powerprep Test 2:  166 Q, 156V

 

Real GRE: 164Q 155V, AWA not available yet.
I did better on the real exam in the verbal section but i did a bit lower on the quantitative section.

Good luck everyone

[gingin6789]

Kaplan won't let me view my practice test scores anymore since my online access expired, but I can tell you this:

 

Lowest Verbal Practice Test Score: 155

Highest Verbal Practice Test Score: 159

ACTUAL Verbal GRE Score: 164

[Goal I set for myself for test day: 160]

 

Lowest Quantitative Practice Test Score: 146

Highest Quantitative Practice Test Score: 155

ACTUAL Quantitative GRE Score: 152

[Goal I set for myself for test day: 150]

 

Sources used: Kaplan test prep with prep books, Quiz Bank, and online class, Quizlet app for GRE vocab.

Edited March 9, 2014 by gingin6789

[lemma]

Pending writing scores:

 

Kaplan free test: 170Q/166V

Two tests in ETS book: 169Q/168V, 169Q/169V

Powerprep software timed test: 169Q/163V

 

Actual: 170Q/170V (unless the unofficial scores differ from the official ones. Does that happen nowadays?)

Edited March 17, 2014 by magmacore

[Vene]

Pending writing scores:

 

Kaplan free test: 170Q/166V

Two tests in ETS book: 169Q/168V, 169Q/169V

Powerprep software timed test: 169Q/163V

 

Actual: 170Q/170V (unless the unofficial scores differ from the official ones. Does that happen nowadays?)

The unoffical scores they gave me were the same as the official ones. It just took time for them to process everything.

[amglol]

These are converted pre-new scoring numbers:

 

Kaplan: 150Q/154V (taken immediately before my real test)

 

Actual 152Q/158V/5.5AW

 

No study time. The practice test was the extent of it, just to prime my testing muscles. For my program and geographic constraints, I knew I'd get an acceptable score cold.

[Kleene]

I took two practice tests to familiarize myself with the questions. Both were poor: 149V and 151Q, 150V and 163Q.

 

Consequently I started doing tests for real. I learnt some vocabulary (frequent words, similar word, prefixes, suffixes, roots, etc.). I only used the tests to prep. Unfortunately I have not written down which result belongs to which practice test.

 

In chronological order:

V 156, 159, 152, 157, 160

Q 168, 169, 168, 169, 169

 

For the real test I set myself reasonable target scores: 160V and 170Q. It turned out I got 162V and 170Q, which is slightly higher than the practice tests indicated.

[MangoSmoothie]

I took the GRE yesterday and took four practice tests before taking the real thing.

 

Powerprep I: 156V, 159Q (taken two weeks before the test)

Mahattan I: 158V, 158Q (taken one day after that)

Powerprep II: 159V, 162Q  (taken 4 days before the test)

Manhattan II: 160V, 161Q (taken 2 days before the test) 

 

Real Test:  162V, 155Q, AW not received yet.

 

I'm so bummed about  my quant score. I flinch every time I see it. I like math, and I had fun studying for the quant portion of this test. (Yes, I said fun.)  I was doing so well in quant in practice, and I had done so much quant practice that I was sure I could break 160, and I know I am totally capable of it. But on test day, in more than one quant section (which my extra section was also quant, blegh), I just had horrible time management, and froze on a few questions.

 

I am pleased with my verbal. Overall, those scores aren't  horrible. And for my field, which has a really low average GRE score for applicants (around 152 each section, maybe), my quant is still above average for almost every school I'll apply to. But I was hoping to help make up for my lower gpa (below 3.3), and the higher I scored on the GRE, the better.  But it sucks knowing that you can do better than what you did.  I want to take it again to bring up my quant score, because I know I can, but it's not worth the $185 and extra time, I feel.

 

And for what it's worth, I used mostly Manhattan material for prepping. The 5lb book of problems was amazing.

[Crucial BBQ]

I used Kaplan for test prep....kept getting around 164 for quant and 160 for verbal.

 

When I took the actual GRE...let us just say that I scored well below my average practice scores for both quant and verbal. 

[Kniht]

PP1: 167V/157Q

PP2: 165V/156Q

 

I appreciate you guys creating this topic, and I'm glad to hear that these scores may be at least somewhat indicative of what I will make on the test. I take the GRE next thursday and I'm definitely sweating it. I am planning on hitting the high frequency vocab words and going over the math review before then but, from my understanding, the anthropology programs I'm interested in won't mind these scores.

 

However, I am most worried about the AWA (especially the Analyze an Issue task). As soon as it starts, I can just feel the clock ticking and its like instant writer's block. Besides that, the prompts are often so problematic or asumptive that I have a hard time figuring out where to start. By the time I get going, it's time to wrap up.

 

Anyone else have trouble with this?

Edited April 23, 2014 by Lames

[thedreamykind]

PP1: 165V/170Q

PP2: 167V/169Q

GRE: 170V/168Q

 

I gave some tests from The Princeton Review as well - I don't remember my exact scores, but they were in the 165-170 range for Q, and 155-162 range for V.

I think the PowerPrep tests are pretty accurate indicators of actual test performance, and it would be best to save them for the last few days before the test.

[olumiday2000]

Where do I get PowerPrep1? The file I got from ets website is called powerprep2

[MangoSmoothie]

Where do I get PowerPrep1? The file I got from ets website is called powerprep2

 

That's all there is. People posting PowerPrep 1 mean the first power prep practice test. You get two practice tests in Powerprep2, but I'm pretty sure people just mean the first practice test in PowerPrep2 and the second practice test in Powerprep2. Maybe that's confusing. lol

[sonamata]

PP1: V160, Q153

PP2: V162, Q154

GRE: V159, Q154

 

PP1 score was taken really early on in studying. PP2 was taken after 3 weeks of studying about 10 hours a week. Pretty bummed about my verbal score - never expected it to be less than the first practice. Oh well. Sufficient scores for the non-top 10 programs I'm applying to.

[drodrige]

PP1: V152 Q166

 

PP2: V157 Q164

 

GRE: V161 Q161

 

 

I think I got a bit lucky on verbal, but I am so dissapointed of my quantitave score. I was expecting something around 163-167. Seriously thinking of retaking it.

[Vene]

PP1: V152 Q166

 

PP2: V157 Q164

 

GRE: V161 Q161

 

 

I think I got a bit lucky on verbal, but I am so dissapointed of my quantitave score. I was expecting something around 163-167. Seriously thinking of retaking it.

What sort of program are you going for? Unless it's something like engineering or mathematics I can't say I see the point or if you are looking strictly at top 10 programs maybe. Increasing your GRE score hits diminishing returns really fast as generally a high score isn't going to get you considered by a low score will disqualify you. What you have here is not a low score.

[drodrige]

What sort of program are you going for? Unless it's something like engineering or mathematics I can't say I see the point or if you are looking strictly at top 10 programs maybe. Increasing your GRE score hits diminishing returns really fast as generally a high score isn't going to get you considered by a low score will disqualify you. What you have here is not a low score.

 

Hi. I want to apply to MAPSS at Chicago, MA in Sociology at Columbia or MS in Applied Urban Studies at NYU. Do you think these scores are enough for me to be considered?

[Vene]

Hi. I want to apply to MAPSS at Chicago, MA in Sociology at Columbia or MS in Applied Urban Studies at NYU. Do you think these scores are enough for me to be considered?

Those are all top universities, so they do expect them to be quite high. I'm not in any of those fields so I'm not sure what they typically require, but I'd imagine they aren't terribly concerned about quantitative and may well want a higher verbal score instead. Another thing to consider is that a GRE is what aspect of an application package so you'd also need a high GPA, you'd need good LORs, a strong SOP, and some form of scholarly experience (in my field they expect us to have spent time in a lab).

What I'd do if I was you would be to look at their websites to see if they have information on the GRE scores of previous admitted students as well as to check out the results search here to see what the stats are of people who got in and people who were rejected.

[bbdd2]

How come you're all getting exact scores from power prep?

I got a range of scores. In the old format for that matter.

Am I missing something?

[Persis]

How come you're all getting exact scores from power prep?

I got a range of scores. In the old format for that matter.

Am I missing something?

Perphaps you are using Power Prep I which is the old one.  You need to use Power Prep II which is for the new GRE.