Practice GRE scores vs. real GRE scores

[YashRR]

I have given the GRE Twice,

 

The first Time around , I had given the following tests

Kaplan MST(Free Test)- Q:166 V:150(316) 

ETS PowerPrep  Test-1 : Q: 159  V:150(309) 

ETS PowerPrep  Test-2 : Q: 160  V:153(313)

 

Actual GRE Exam (First Try) 25th November 2014 - Q:161 V:152(313)  [Did not send the scores and decided to give it again]

 

This was followed by 6 months of extensive prep while trying to keep up with my FULL TIME JOB. 

 

Tests: 

Magoosh-Test 1: Q:163 V:159 (322)

Magoosh-Test 2: Q:163 V:157 (320)

ETS Paper Test-1 from the official Guide: Q:167 V:160 

ETS Paper Test-2 from the official Guide: Q:164 V:159

 

PowerPreps were Given after 6 months, so did not remember the questions, and the scores were as follows:  

ETS PowerPrep  Test-1 : Q: 164  V:156(320) 

 

ETS PowerPrep  Test-2 : Q: 166  V:155(321)

 

Actual Exam: June 19th 2015 Q:163 V:158(321)

 

I have highlighted my powerprep scores and my actual exam scores because, in both the attempts the combined score was the same. This does not, however, indicate that one will get the same score as the power prep attempts, rather it goes to show how accurate a predictor, the powerprep can be.

 

I must say that Magoosh material was slightly harder than the real thing.    

Edited July 2, 2015 by YashRR

[Arm457]

I'm getting really frustrated by this exam after studying for a little over 2 months. I'm studying about 3 hours a day, so I've probably studied above 150 hours. I finished the Manhattan GRE 8 book series my first month, and I've done all of the Magoosh questions, and I'm going through all of my incorrect answers at this moment. My exam is early August, so I have a little under a month to improve to 160+ on each section which is my goal. 

 

In order taken:

 

ETS Powerprep 2 #1: 157Q, 154V 

 

Manhattan GRE #1 : 156Q, 156V

 

Magoosh Practice Exam #1: 158Q, 154V

 

Manhattan GRE #2 (Taken today): 159Q, 152V (WTFFFFFF)

 

I'm applying to humanities grad programs (comp lit/middle eastern studies), and it seems my quantitative is going up, but my verbal is somehow getting worse? I find that I'm consistently doing terrible on reading comprehension. My last exam I got 8 correct out of 20 OMG. I was a literature major in college too, 3.7 GPA from top 25 school. Extremely frustrated at this point, don't know what to do. Hopefully someone can chime in. Thanks!

Edited July 8, 2015 by Arm457

[mockturtle]

I just took the GRE this afternoon (after having followed this thread for a while), so here's my contribution!

I spent a little over a month studying.

 

 

In order taken, ranging from a month prior to ~2 weeks prior:

 

PowerPrep #1: 165V / 169Q <---- I kind of cheated on this practice, verifying answers with a graphing calculator. 

Manhattan: 164V / 164Q

PowerPrep #2: 170V / 163Q

 

Actual exam: 168V / 167Q <---- AAAHHHHHH!!!

 

 

"Unofficial scores" had better not mean "these will change", because I needed this.

 

None of the practice tests were super close to my scores, but I guess the PowerPrep #1 was closest (if perhaps a little dishonest, on my part. Oops). I was a little disturbed by the fact that my quant score seemed to be decreasing with every practice test, and I think Magoosh's math formula ebook saved my skin. I didn't look at it until a few days ago. Double oops.

 

I also used the Magoosh vocabulary flashcard app to pretty decent effect. However, I did find that my memory of most unfamiliar words I learned didn't last very long: a week at most, and then they dropped right out the back of my head. So I'd recommend reviewing them heavily in the days right before you take the exam, to keep it fresh. 

 

Now to wait on those essay scores... \(꒪ȏ꒪;)/

Edited July 15, 2015 by mockturtle

[hulihuo]

I studied 2hrs/day 3-4 days/week 3 months.  My practice test scores never went up.  They were always about 159V and 156Q on both Manhattan and ETS powerprep.

 

Actual score:  168V/162Q

[Fahad.Baloch]

Does the GRE scale up your raw score because of the difficulty level? I've done about 6 mock tests so far and my Quant range is between 155-161 and Verbal is 150-155. So I'm hoping to do better on the actual test as I need at least 310 or above to make a cogent application for my Masters in Petroleum Engineering.

[Shaheer Khan]

Took the GRE today. Scores were as follows:

 

Verbal: 167

Math: 163

AWA: N/A

 

Verbal score was slightly higher than expected. Had got 163 on the Magoosh Practice Test.

 

Math score was slightly lower than expected. Had got 162 on the Magoosh Practice Test, but since everyone had said that their practice tests are harder than the real exam, I was expecting to score a bit higher than that. But I didn't find much a difference between the two. I was a bit sleep-deprived though and kept doubting my arithmetic and wasted a lot of time going back to double-check my working. And of course, I am not that well-versed in combinatorics and probability anymore - I don't remember much from when I last studied it nearly 10 years ago - so pretty sure I got some questions wrong because of that.

Edited July 30, 2015 by Shaheer Khan

[v.lam827]

Reading through most of these posts, it seems as if everyone's MPREP and PP scores are pretty consistent. My PP verbal has been significantly higher than most of my MPREP scores. Can anyone give me some insights on why they think that is? I mean, I am hoping that I get something close to PP, but is that too optimistic of me?

 

PP: Q-163, V-164

MPREP: Q-161, V-156

[Tahlain]

I did much better on real test. Probably partly becaue of mindset.

Magoosh 1 - 158V, 158Q

Power Prep 1 - 166V, 160Q

Magoosh 2 - 162V, 158Q

GRE - 168V, 166Q

[bioquant]

The following were taken over a two week period prior to the exam, in the order specified:

 

Barron's 1 - 164 V  |  164 Q

Barron's 2 - 157 V  |  170 Q

Barron's 3 - 158 V  |  169 Q

 

Practiced problems from ETS's "Official GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions - Volume I" (sorry, no scores) ~ 6 hours

 

Power Prep II Test I (timed) - 168 V  |  170 Q

 

Actual Exam - 167 V  |  170 Q  |  ?.? AW

 

---------------------

 

Thoughts

 

I used the Barron's tests mainly for establishing a sense of pace, and for that purpose I think they were effective.  At the same time, the Barron's book had rather poor explanations to the answers provided.  Specifically, Barron's only offers a reason for why an answer is correct, but provides no explanation as to why the other answers are incorrect.  Language is subtle and nuanced, and I found it frustrating to try to understand why the answers I marked were not equally - or at least partially - correct.  The ETS practice book seemed to analyze all possible choices for most questions, which is why I picked it up.  Subjectively, I felt that book gave me better insight into how I was thinking incorrectly when my answers deviated from the accepted ones.

[GSimon]

265 hours of studying

 

Manhattan 1: 164 V | 158 Q

Manhattan 2: 164 V | 164 Q

Manhattan 3: 160 V | 166 Q

Manhattan 4: 163 V | 164 Q

Manhattan 5: 160 V | 164 Q (2 days before real test)

 

Actual GRE: 168 V | 170 Q

Pretty big difference...

Edited August 9, 2015 by GSimon

[hippyscientist]

Finally took the GRE today.

 

My practice scores ranged quite a bit from 155 - 166 Verbal and 155 - 163 Quant. Today I got 159 and a 157. I'm frustrated that they're towards the lower end of what I know I can do but they should be enough to get into the programmes I want. Hope the AWA comes back alright!

[lethalallele]

PowerPrep 2 - 157V : 155Q (312)

Manhattan Prep - 152V : 152Q (304)

Princeton Review - 157V : 153Q (310)

Actual GRE - Taking 08/26 and will update afterwards, my goal is 156V : 160Q (316) so I'm going to focus on some of the quantitative concepts and the magoosh flash cards they seem to be helping

[lethalallele]

Took the actual GRE today. My scores were pretty consistent with my practice exams. I will be retaking it again in a month or so when I've had more time to study:

158V : 155 Q (313)

Need to up my quantitative score by 5+ points

[Zero Darko Thirty]

Just took the GRE today! I alternated between Magoosh and Manhattan practice tests before doing the ETS Official Guide paper tests and PowerPrep tests.

Magoosh 1: 155V / 158Q
Magoosh 2: 159V / 161Q
Magoosh 3: 163V / 161Q

Manhattan 1: 160V / 163Q
Manhattan 2: 162V / 160Q

ETS Paper Test 1 from the official Guide: 166V / 165Q
ETS Paper Test 2 from the official Guide: 165V / 165Q

PowerPrep II 1: 169V / 166Q
PowerPrep II 2: 167V / 163Q

Real Test: 166V / 168Q

 

The questions on the real test seemed slightly harder than the PowerPrep tests, but those practice test scores were the most accurate! Magoosh and Manhattan practice tests are definitely more challenging.

 

[Mystic_Fog]

I'll be taking the GRE tomorrow so I'll update then, but here's my practice scores (in order taken) 

PP1: 146Q 154V

Kaplan: 144Q  158V

Magoosh1: 152Q 158V

Magoosh2: 153Q 162V

Magoosh3: 151Q  163V

Magoosh4: 154Q 152V  (Did not do writing here, was also done later at night and under great stress)

PP2: 149Q 158V   (It should be noted this one was taken without the writing, starting at 11pm after two days of very bad sleep and after an incredibly long day, but that I felt the math was the easiest I'd seen yet, so I'm not sure how that balances out).

 

Hopefully my actual GRE scores are more in line with my Magoosh practice scores, because those have been pretty consistent so far and I think the last two practice tests were a little skewed because of the first week back to school and not really doing them at the same time of day as I would other practice tests, which were all done in early afternoon or early evening. 

[uncreativeaccountname]

Manhattan: 160Q 154V

Official Paper 1: 164Q 155V

Official Paper 2: 164Q 157V

Princeton Review: 163Q 152V 3.5AWA

PowerPrep 1: 166Q 150V

PowerPrep 2: 166Q 157V

Actual Exam: 162Q 156V

The math on the actual exam was a little more tricky in the 2nd section than I practiced, the first instance I ran out of time on a math section (I don't know nerves or just actually harder). It felt the closer to the manhattan free practice. I used barrons verbal to practice and vocab flash cards starting in July. Maybe I am not good at studying, but I'm glad to not bomb the verbal portion.

[Mystic_Fog]

I'll be taking the GRE tomorrow so I'll update then, but here's my practice scores (in order taken) 

PP1: 146Q 154V

Kaplan: 144Q  158V

Magoosh1: 152Q 158V

Magoosh2: 153Q 162V

Magoosh3: 151Q  163V

Magoosh4: 154Q 152V  (Did not do writing here, was also done later at night and under great stress)

PP2: 149Q 158V   (It should be noted this one was taken without the writing, starting at 11pm after two days of very bad sleep and after an incredibly long day, but that I felt the math was the easiest I'd seen yet, so I'm not sure how that balances out).

 

Hopefully my actual GRE scores are more in line with my Magoosh practice scores, because those have been pretty consistent so far and I think the last two practice tests were a little skewed because of the first week back to school and not really doing them at the same time of day as I would other practice tests, which were all done in early afternoon or early evening. 

My actual GRE scores were quite similar to the PP2 scores. 150Q and 162V, AWA TBD but I feel fairly confident of getting at least a 4 if not higher. I think the math on the real thing was much easier than Magoosh, and I'm not sure if that was a good thing or not. It felt almost too easy, and I think I didn't pay as close attention because of that. I also rushed the last few questions on the first section because I had extra time and got too relaxed in the middle. Magoosh consistently predicted my Q to be 152-157, so I was a little let down, but my adviser doesn't seem too worried about it, so these are the scores I'll be doing.

Edited September 6, 2015 by Mystic_Fog

[Aux22]

I did better on the real test, possibly because I was more focused?

Powerprep: V156/Q158

Kaplan: V158/Q156

Actual GRE V159/Q160/AW4

hours studied `~30

[MauBicara]

I took the actual GRE yesterday, and according to the scores that appeared on the screen following the exam, things went much better than my practice sessions. 

 

ETS I: 170V / 163Q

ETS II: 166V / 163Q

ETS III: 166V / 163Q

Powerprep I: 167V / 162Q

Powerprep II: 168V / 161Q

Manhattan: 163V / 160Q

 

Actual GRE: 170V / 170Q

 

Hours studied: ~30

[Edotdl]

PowerPrep 1: 162V/169Q

PowerPrep 2:160V/167Q

Took them back to back.

Actual: 162V/170Q

[Gvh]

Fall 2014:

ETS Powerprep #1: 08/31/2014 147Q 156V

Manhattan Prep #1 (Free): 09/06 152Q 157V

Manhattan Prep #2: 09/15 151Q 159V

Manhattan Prep #3 09/20 153Q 156V

Manhattan Prep #4 09/27 150Q 156V

ETS Powerprep #2: 10/04 148Q 158V

Manhattan Prep #5 10/14  158Q N/S

 

First Actual Test (10/18/2014): 161V 152Q 4.5 AWA

Summer 2015:

PR 1: V 155 Q 151
PR 2 06/14: V 162 Q 153
PR 3 06/23 V 157 Q 151
PR 4 07/12: V 156 Q 153
PR 5 07/19: V 161 Q 159
PR 6 08/02: V 160 Q 155

ETS PP 1: Q 157
ETS PP 2: Q 155

Manhattan 1: Q 156
Manhattan 2: Q 154
Manhattan 3: Q 155

Final Actual Test (09/01/2015): 160V 160Q 4.5 AWA

Hours studied: hundreds. 

Edited September 30, 2015 by Gvh

[SDtoMPP]

I've taken the GRE twice. The first time was with no studying :/

Actual GRE March 2014: 163 V, 155 Q, 4.5 W

Finally decided to retake recently and actually buckle down and study. My goal was to break 160 in each section. 

Magoosh practice test 1: 154 Q (didn't take verbal) 

Magoosh practice test 2: 158 V, 157 Q. Definitely frustrated with this.

Powerprep II practice test 1: 161 V, 158 Q

Powerprep II practice test 2: 161 V, 161 Q (finally breaking 160 in Q)

Magoosh practice test 3: 158 Q (didn't take verbal again) 

 

Actual GRE September 2015: 163 V, 162 Q

 

I found Magoosh a lot harder than the actual test but it was great in preparing me. I definitely scored higher on the actual test than any practice test.

[TheBumChikiBum]

My first post and I would like to contribute back to this thread. You guys have given me hope when I had thought that I am done for. This thread saved me from depression.

Took GRE exam on : 01 October 2015

 

Important Realization : Quant has certainly become very very tough as the rumours say. I found Manhattan Quant on mocks easier !! Yes sir, I did.

 

Exams in the order I gave them :

MGRE 1 8/15/2015  158Q 154V

MGRE 2 8/23/2015  157Q 157V

MGRE 3 9/2/2015     159Q 155V

MGRE 4 9/5/2015     164Q 154V

ETS GRE POWERPREP I : 157Q 152V

MGRE 5 9/11/2015   159Q 156 V

ETS GRE POWERPREP II : 161Q 148V

MGRE 6 9/17/2015  154Q 155V

MGRE 1 (REPEAT) 9/24/2015 159Q 157V

MGRE 2 (REPEAT) 9/26/2015 163Q 157V

MGRE 3 (REPEAT) 9/27/2015 160Q 153V

MGRE 4 (REPEAT) 9/28/2015 166Q 156V

ETS GRE POWERPREP II (29 SEPT 2015) : 158Q 154V  (YES. MISERABLE SCORE) (I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED)

ACTUAL GRE ON 01 OCT 2015 : 166Q 155V AWA(?)

[TheBumChikiBum]

Hours Studied : A LOT. MONTHS. 5 months total out of which 3 months was conc. Unlike other I did not push myself a lot at the end. Just watched movies and all. Also revised my Magoosh Flashcards. A lot of words were there from it. Manhattan's Verbal has unreasonably difficult words which you'll never get. But, it scares you enough to make sure that you study hard. Overall, found Verbal Easy and Quant extremely tough on Actual GRE. Still don't know how I got that score on quant. 

My sections : VQVQV 

[pax6pax6]

I studied using the EmpowerGRE program, though I didn't find it very useful. I would recommend the program to someone who has very little to no familiarity with math, but if you have even a decent understanding of math, I couldn't see it helping all that much. I found that the time spent using the program would've been at least equally well spent just studying the official GRE guide. I did stop using the program after a month though, so my take on it isn't comprehensive.

ETS Powerprep I: 162V 156Q
Manhattan 1: 162V 155Q
Manhattan 2: 161V 152Q
Manhattan 3: 159V 155Q
Manhattan 4: 161V 158Q
Manhattan 5: 162V 159Q
ETS Powerprep II: 161V 163Q

The first practice test was taken in late August, and the most recent Powerprep was taken a few days before my real test.

I took my official test yesterday:

Official GRE Results: 166V 160Q

My sections were: VQVQV

My verbal score was much higher than any practice test. I also found the quant sections on the Manhattan tests to be significantly more difficult than the Powerprep software and the actual test.

 

Edited October 3, 2015 by pax6pax6