Should I take the GRE a sixth time?

[Seeking]

GRE doesn't test research potential - and that determines how likely one is able to succeed in Grad school, not the GRE scores.

 

The tests administered in undergrad levels are very different from the GRE and in any case, Grad level classes rarely have tests. So, there is no point in having the GRE on the presumption that it tests a candidate's potential to do Graduate work. The truth is that it doesn't in any way, because it doesn't test research potential or skills.

 

When you write long papers or dissertations in undergrad level, you are developing research skills to some extent. It's not as if Undergrad courses don't train people in research skills at all. besides, every candidate to Grad school has to submit a writing sample, which demonstrates research skills - this is precisely why writing sample is one of the most important parts of the graduate application.

 

But regarding GRE - it doesn't test either research skills or research potential and hence, is not relevant to Graduate research at all. It's just a filter that has been developed to keep the flood of candidates out, nothing more. And candidates have to spend a lot of money and undergo unnecessary trouble to test themselves on this filtering mechanism, which is unfair.

 

Personally, I feel General GRE would make much better sense if it was divided into 3 types of tests for STEM, Social Sciences and Humanities - STEM GRE should have highly advanced quantitative section and a verbal section that tests general English writing and analytical skills, Social Sciences GRE should test more evolved English writing and analytical skills with Quant section dealing with only statistical analysis, not the high level maths required in STEM disciplines and the Humanities GRE without the Quant section, but testing highly advanced English writing and analytical skills.

 

Within this, candidates for Biological Sciences who don't have to deal with advanced Maths should test on the Social Science GRE. Further, analytical passages should draw from within the STEM, Social Sciences/Biological Sciences and Humanities disciplines for the 3 GREs. They should test innovative and critical thinking rather than the way they are designed now.

 

Current "One size fits all" model doesn't make any sense at all and it wastes a lot of time, energy and money of the candidates. If the GRE has to make any sense, it should follow at least the above 3-GREs model.  

Edited November 23, 2013 by Seeking

[BunnyWantsaPhD]

. And I don't really see the relevance of the anxiety argument. If you have a 3.9+ GPA, even if you've only taken a handful of tests in your college career, you still had times when you were put on the spot. You've had in-class writing assignments, midterms/final exams, and other projects/assignments that were major parts of your grade. Did you never get nervous? I know people who do get nervous when they take tests. It is a real thing. I used to tutor this one girl and she would ace every practice test, but when it got time to take the real thing she would freeze up and get everything wrong. Her GPA was in the low 2.0's. She was a smart girl but her nerves got the better of her. But if you have a 3.9+ I doubt test anxiety has been a major issue for you. I think it's more of a lack of preparation. You have to prepare for the GRE. Lots of people see it as pointless and refuse to put effort into it. That's what I did. But when I actually tried I got the hang of it. 

 

I've studied a lot of for the GRE and got really high practice test scores and on the actual thing I bombed it. Then I thought I would take it one more time and focus on not being nervous (I made sure I did fun/relaxing activities the night before and then the day of I acted like the test was no big deal) and I did really well just like I did on the practice tests. To say that taking a test for a class that you might be a little nervous about is the same as taking the GRE which can determine whether you get into graduate school or not, is the same thing or the same level of nerves is a bit silly. When I took the GRE in the past, I was so nervous because I thought that it determined my future--so nervous that it was like words didn't even make sense anymore and I couldn't read the questions. This last time, focusing on thinking that it didn't define me, that I could beat it, that I could get the same scores on the practice tests, really helped. 

 

So to say that anxiety shouldn't be an issue if you prepare for the test just demonstrates that you've never had test anxiety. I would just stay away from talking about things that you've never personally experienced. 

[BunnyWantsaPhD]

The idea that someone with a high GPA should get a high GRE score, to me, implies that they shouldn't have to study for the test. They should just take the knowledge and test-taking skills they learned in undergrad and apply them to the test. But, we know that many people--and people who do well on the GRE in particular---study for months. So clearly, they put a lot of working into learning how to beat the test. Many people who don't do well on the test haven't studied enough (as well as other factors, sure). 

[BunnyWantsaPhD]

Is your high GPA at a big 10 enough to offset a poor showing on the GRE though..?

 

If your goal was graduate study - or something beyond which requires graduate study - then your program and school failed you by not preparing you properly for what is a standard test expected of most students.

 

Well, luckily, I wound up doing really well on the GRE once I got past my nerves. Also, I'm not sure what I think about your second statement on the school failing. I don't know how else they could have prepared me--I don't think that taking tests for a class prepares you to take the GRE. The GRE isn't similar to the tests that you take for a class, in my opinion. Maybe they should have GRE prep class or something, but beyond that I don't know how else they could have helped one prepare for it. GRE prep books seem to be the most helpful thing. I haven't heard many people on grad cafe tell others when they ask how to prepare for the test that they should have taken more tests in their undergraduate career or that they should review the tests that they did take--they tell them to look at the GRE prep books. 

 

I also didn't take one single test during my MA degree. So, does that mean that that school didn't prepare me either? No. Tests are not a large part of my (past or future) graduate program--yes, I'll have to an oral exam, but again, that's not similar to the GRE. 

[Loric]

You are presented with a task.

 

There are many ways to complete the task, but your final score of how "well" you did the task is going to determine your future options. You know how the result will be measured and you know the factors that play into the final grade.

 

If your undergraduate program did not prepare you well to deal with these sorts of situations and how to succeed at them, then it failed you.

 

If you cannot "pass" the GRE then I do worry about how you're going to handle graduate school. If has nothing to do with the content of the test. It has everything to do with an apparent inability to pass this particular test despite knowing it was coming for literally years.

[BunnyWantsaPhD]

You are presented with a task.

 

There are many ways to complete the task, but your final score of how "well" you did the task is going to determine your future options. You know how the result will be measured and you know the factors that play into the final grade.

 

If your undergraduate program did not prepare you well to deal with these sorts of situations and how to succeed at them, then it failed you.

 

If you cannot "pass" the GRE then I do worry about how you're going to handle graduate school. If has nothing to do with the content of the test. It has everything to do with an apparent inability to pass this particular test despite knowing it was coming for literally years.

 

Yes, you are presented with tasks in both situations. But, when I'm presented with tasks in school, especially graduate school, I deal with them on my own at home--such as the stress of writing a final paper, or in the classroom when doing a presentation. The GRE requires you to be in a silent room, where you have to go through security to even get in and then you're being timed to complete something that will determine whether you get into a graduate school. How are the two things similar? I think you're making a bit of a stretch and not taking into consideration the major differences between the tasks. 

 

 

Not doing well on the GRE has no bearing on how well I will do in graduate school. I already have an MA and did really well during my program and I don't think it was similar at all to the skills it takes to do the GRE. My MA program consisted of writing research papers, reading books, etc--what does that have to do with the GRE? 

 

Handling the amount of stress and pressure that comes with graduate school is not the same as being able to handle your nerves when it comes to taking a test that can determine your entrance into graduate school. 

 

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. 

Edited November 23, 2013 by BunnyWantsaPhD

[Loric]

I fail to see how a degree that let you make all your decisions at home at your own pace while hiding under a security blanket, sipping herbal tea, and sniffing sachets of lavender benefitted you at all in becoming a professional of anything.

 

Maybe a professional cat hoarder.

 

In the other thread people are saying the idea of being medicated to get past the stress/anxiety isn't right. Well then what is? Either it's clinical and needs treatments or someone is just whining an awful lot over something they need to cowboy up and get over.

 

The inability to get over it says, to me, that you don't have what it takes to make it in grad school.

[TakeMyCoffeeBlack]

The inability to get over it says, to me, that you don't have what it takes to make it in grad school.

 

Well Loric, it's a good thing you're not on the ad coms. Why are you getting so personal?

[Loric]

Bunny got over it and Bunny knows this - it's the big picture "you."

[HansK2012]

 

Even all of the preparation books that I've seen for the GRE state something like "The GRE is a reflection of how well you can do on the GRE. It is not a reflection of how smart you are, no matter what ETS would like you to think"

 

Yes, but those prep book have a strong financial incentive to convince you that study will pay massive dividends. It is not in their best interest to admit the obvious: that while careful study obviously can raise your score, everyone has a ceiling and all the studying in the world will not change that. If everyone could score a 170 simply by studying more then many people would do just that and the percentile rankings would change accordingly. This does not happen because ETS has devised a test that only 1% of test takers are capable of acing.

[BunnyWantsaPhD]

Bunny got over it and Bunny knows this - it's the big picture "you."

 

Please don't paraphrase what I've said--I'd prefer to do that myself. 

 

I fail to see how a degree that let you make all your decisions at home at your own pace while hiding under a security blanket, sipping herbal tea, and sniffing sachets of lavender benefitted you at all in becoming a professional of anything.

 

Maybe a professional cat hoarder.

 

In the other thread people are saying the idea of being medicated to get past the stress/anxiety isn't right. Well then what is? Either it's clinical and needs treatments or someone is just whining an awful lot over something they need to cowboy up and get over.

 

The inability to get over it says, to me, that you don't have what it takes to make it in grad school.

 

I really should just not give you more things to respond to, but I guess I can't help myself. I don't know what chip you have on your shoulder, or why you're so bothered by the fact that some people really do find the test to be anxiety producing, but you're really starting to be a jerk. I thought that this was a place to get and give good advice, and all you seem to be doing is tearing people down. To each their own, I guess. 

 

I'm not sure what graduate program you are in or what you hope to be in in the future, but I was not implying that I was at home working on my degree by myself at my own pace--nor do I have cats or a security blanket, but thanks for that. Of course you have to complete your coursework and thesis on time, of course there's pressures (TONS of it) in grad school. What I was trying to say earlier is that pressure is usually dealt with in the comfort of my own home--meaning, when I'm writing a paper, I'm not sitting in some testing room with a clock staring at me. If writing a paper at a location of your choosing is not something that is possible where you got your degree, then I'm not sure where the hell you went to school. Now, is that paper due at a certain time period, sure. Is there pressure to get it done, sure. Does the pressure of completing a paper equate to the timed circumstances of a b.s. test that determines whether you get into graduate school? Hell no. 

 

Though I do not wish to further converse with you at all, this whole thread really makes me wonder what you are studying and what you consider professional. I mean, you're saying that I didn't become a professional in anything because I wrote papers at my own home? What kind of judgement is that? All the graduate students I know wrote their papers wherever they wanted and became professionals...I guess I won't ever be a professional till I sit around with jerks taking scantron tests all the live long day. 

 

Off to my non-existent cats, tea, lavender sachets, and security blanket. 

[Loric]

You really want to avoid the concept that taking a scantron test - one you knew was coming and was important - is a skill you should know by now, or rather, something you should have the skills to cope with.

 

If you got through 4 years of college and don't have basic problem solving skills then I maintain that you are not well suited for graduate study.

[VioletAyame]

GRE doesn't test research potential - and that determines how likely one is able to succeed in Grad school, not the GRE scores.

 

The tests administered in undergrad levels are very different from the GRE and in any case, Grad level classes rarely have tests. So, there is no point in having the GRE on the presumption that it tests a candidate's potential to do Graduate work. The truth is that it doesn't in any way, because it doesn't test research potential or skills.

 

When you write long papers or dissertations in undergrad level, you are developing research skills to some extent. It's not as if Undergrad courses don't train people in research skills at all. besides, every candidate to Grad school has to submit a writing sample, which demonstrates research skills - this is precisely why writing sample is one of the most important parts of the graduate application.

 

But regarding GRE - it doesn't test either research skills or research potential and hence, is not relevant to Graduate research at all. It's just a filter that has been developed to keep the flood of candidates out, nothing more. And candidates have to spend a lot of money and undergo unnecessary trouble to test themselves on this filtering mechanism, which is unfair.

 

Personally, I feel General GRE would make much better sense if it was divided into 3 types of tests for STEM, Social Sciences and Humanities - STEM GRE should have highly advanced quantitative section and a verbal section that tests general English writing and analytical skills, Social Sciences GRE should test more evolved English writing and analytical skills with Quant section dealing with only statistical analysis, not the high level maths required in STEM disciplines and the Humanities GRE without the Quant section, but testing highly advanced English writing and analytical skills.

 

Within this, candidates for Biological Sciences who don't have to deal with advanced Maths should test on the Social Science GRE. Further, analytical passages should draw from within the STEM, Social Sciences/Biological Sciences and Humanities disciplines for the 3 GREs. They should test innovative and critical thinking rather than the way they are designed now.

 

Current "One size fits all" model doesn't make any sense at all and it wastes a lot of time, energy and money of the candidates. If the GRE has to make any sense, it should follow at least the above 3-GREs model.  

 

I think it'll be easier to list my points, so here goes.

 

-How do you suggest testing "research skill" or "research potential'? Can you propose some concrete mechanism that can be administered in a standardized test? And what do you mean by "innovative and critical thinking rather than the way they are designed now"? I feel that it's easy to say the GRE is insufficient, but it would be much harder to come up with a better alternative method. Like I said, the GRE tests critical thinking skill, basic writing, math and analytical skill, which I think is an appropriate foundation for most grad programs, and most of all, is "testable". Testing researching skill, while sounding much more appealing, is much less practical and almost impossible to do in a standardized test. So the GRE tests relevant skills in a manner that is more congruent with a 4-hour exam. I'm actually a bit confused about whether you think that any standardized test is bad or just that the current GRE is ineffective and thus can be improved. If it's the latter, I think it's doing a fairly decent job at what it sets out to do, and research skill can't really be measured this way. If it's the former, please read on.

 

-So why then, you may ask, don't we do away with standardized test altogether? Writing sample is a much better indication of research potential. That might be true, but the thing is, there's no guarantee that the sample was written by the applicant. LOR would be a more valid indication, but again, the level of students between programs can vary widely. That's why a standardized test is still necessary: it standardizes the pool of applicants; it prevents fraud and plagiarism; and it provides a more even platform to measure people from different educational backgrounds. It should be considered together with the writing sample, SOP, LOR and GPA as part of a whole application, since each item/element would provide a different angle into the applicant's potential. If some programs use it alone as a filtering mechanism, they're misusing it and it's not the test's fault.

 

-About separating test takers into different disciplines, they already have the subject test don't they? Schools who want that score can require it, otherwise why bother? Also most ad comms do attribute different weights to the V or Q or AWA score depending on their disciplines, so most humanities programs would not care much for the Q score and vice versa for STEM fields. It's not that I think having 3 separate tests is a bad idea; it just seems a tad unnecessary, and God forbids ETS has an excuse to increase the fee even more.

[VioletAyame]

The idea that someone with a high GPA should get a high GRE score, to me, implies that they shouldn't have to study for the test. They should just take the knowledge and test-taking skills they learned in undergrad and apply them to the test. But, we know that many people--and people who do well on the GRE in particular---study for months. So clearly, they put a lot of working into learning how to beat the test. Many people who don't do well on the test haven't studied enough (as well as other factors, sure). 

 

No, the idea that someone with a high GPA should get a high GRE score implies that they have the ability to study for the test and if they do so appropriately and diligently enough, they will do well. Of course everyone has to study for the test, but there's a difference between studying like crazy and studying like crazy, doing everything you can and still unable to pass it, which is what it sounds like a lot of time on the forum. I'm not defending the correlation between GPA and GRE, which is probably untrue, but it seems that the underlying assumption is that if you got a high GPA, you should know already how to study not only to ace what you're good at (writing paper, oral exam) but also to do well enough on what you're not so good at (taking test). If this was indeed the assumption, I would agree with it. For example, I absolutely hate group projects and teamwork, and thus have developed ways to cope with them, which brings me to my next point.

 

Yes, you are presented with tasks in both situations. But, when I'm presented with tasks in school, especially graduate school, I deal with them on my own at home--such as the stress of writing a final paper, or in the classroom when doing a presentation. The GRE requires you to be in a silent room, where you have to go through security to even get in and then you're being timed to complete something that will determine whether you get into a graduate school. How are the two things similar? I think you're making a bit of a stretch and not taking into consideration the major differences between the tasks. 

 

 

Not doing well on the GRE has no bearing on how well I will do in graduate school. I already have an MA and did really well during my program and I don't think it was similar at all to the skills it takes to do the GRE. My MA program consisted of writing research papers, reading books, etc--what does that have to do with the GRE? 

 

Handling the amount of stress and pressure that comes with graduate school is not the same as being able to handle your nerves when it comes to taking a test that can determine your entrance into graduate school. 

 

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. 

 

In life, as in grad school application, we all have to do things we don't want to and/or think they're stupid to get to a goal. Of course the stress of taking the GRE is different than writing a paper or presenting a project. It's also different than dealing with teammates like in my example above, or for a more application-relevant example, than nagging professors and managing LOR deadlines. I happen to find it to be the most stressful part of the application, simply because I'm not very sociable to begin with, and I hate dealing with people. My point is, we all have our shortcomings and we all have to get over them to get things done at some point. At the end of the day, we may disagree about how useful the GRE is, but we all still have to take it, so isn't the better option is to buckle down and find a way to get it done than to complain? I think that's probably part of Loric's point, but he/she can certainly be much nicer about it.

[Loric]

I have nothing but contempt for weakness. I suggest for your sake you adopt the same outlook.

[123hardasABC]

Jesus. How did this thread get to be so negative? The answers to Bullet Cat's question is short and simple. Should you take the GRE a sixth time? No.

 

Honestly, with your academic record, I don't understand why you took it more than twice. You'll be FINE. I wish I could emphasis that more.....

 

You'll be FINE.

 

Save your money for the application fees, travel expenses for interviews, etc. Send the scores you're most comfortable with and apply. I really hope you're ignoring the rest of this thread. It's getting all too negative up in here. Good luck, Bullet Cat

[Seeking]

S/he has already signed up for the 6th time and has posted another thread about it.

[VioletAyame]

Jesus. How did this thread get to be so negative? The answers to Bullet Cat's question is short and simple. Should you take the GRE a sixth time? No.

 

Honestly, with your academic record, I don't understand why you took it more than twice. You'll be FINE. I wish I could emphasis that more.....

 

You'll be FINE.

 

Save your money for the application fees, travel expenses for interviews, etc. Send the scores you're most comfortable with and apply. I really hope you're ignoring the rest of this thread. It's getting all too negative up in here. Good luck, Bullet Cat

 

Nah I don't think it's negative per se. We just disagreed and went on our way debating civilly about it. Only Loric was kind of snarky - I was gonna reply to him/her, but then I checked out a few other threads and saw that he/she has a distinctive dramatic flair. So instead of replying, I just imagined him/her in a secret lair somewhere plotting to weed out the weakness in humanity

 

Also Bullet Cat, I want to wish you good luck too, but from the other thread I take that you cancelled the test already?

Edited November 27, 2013 by VioletAyame