Some GRE impressions

[UnAltroEgitto]

Dear Cafè, nice to meet you. It is strange that I get to come across this community only now, since my long acquaintance with Philosophy. I guess I am not that much of a forum dweller after all.

As the thread title suggests, I'd like to give you some impressions of my first - and probably last, but I'll earnestly ask your take on this - GRE test, that I took 10 days ago. I have to say, it felt exhausting and a little unfair. I should premise that I am not a native English speaker (in fact, I am Italian), and I never studied in an English-speaking environment, so the verbal section probably felt more taxing to me. Besides, after the four mandatory sections I was pretty smooth and confident, conscious that I was in control of the situation.

And then the extra section came, and it was a verbal one. I was so tired I could barely look at the screen; furthermore, I was submitted a particularly tedious and long five-paragraph wall of text with four or five garbled and involved questions to follow. I almost dozed off, and from that moment on the rest of the section went south. Not drastically, but significantly. All except the text completion and "words alike" sentences, which I usually find pretty easy to tame.

In the end, I am 100% positive that the last section has marred my score, and now I have to deal with a vapid evenhanded 160 - 160, which I glean on a general scale is not bad but for Ph.D. puropose in Philosophy is rather egregious. Well, I also should point out that my field of expertise is Mathematical Logic, Model Theory and Computational Logic, so maybe the departments I am interested in will agree to value this good balance even in spite of the very low verbal score? I don't know.

II could give it another shot the upcoming 24th (!!) December, but, unfortunately, all the application deadlines are coming up early January, so I doubt it would be of any use.

I almost feel I have been treaten unfairly by the test. I don't really see why pushing a third random extra section that could replace the one on which you score the best. It looks like an incentive to repeat the test as many times as you can until you find the perfect scenario for you. When I took the Toefl-ibt last year, I scored 112 and - not only because the score was pretty good! - no part of it seemed unfair: everything you do is valued.

All in all, I am pretty satisfied with my score because I know I cannot speak-write-think in English as I do in Italian and because I only had a month and a half to prepare (in the spare time, to say the least). Still, I am terribly dissatisfied - paradox! - because I know a better score would be easily at hand but simply there is not enough time anymore. The bird has flown. I can only hope my applications will not be too much hampered by this.

Tell me what you think guys, I just needed to share this bittersweet situation with some fellows.

[fencergirl]

Hey, I understand your feelings completely! I am weaker in Quantitative and of course ended up having an extra Quant section at the end that I didn't do well on. I can't be sure that it was the last one that counted but my Quant score was not great (156). I agree that it's not fair to include an extra section because it is only for the test makers benefit, and not ours, and we are already paying a ton of money to take the test! Why should they get free labor (at our expense) too? 

I decided not to retake it since Quant isn't that applicable to my field (History). I think 160/160 is a good score though. I wouldn't worry about it too much. I think 160 verbal for a non-native speaker is pretty remarkable actually. And since your field has both mathematical and verbal elements, I think a balanced score is a good thing! If the rest of your application is strong, I can't imagine it hurting you much if at all.

 

[ExponentialDecay]

ciao! It's good to meet a countryman :)

You should probably ask this in the philosophy forum, together with what programs you are targeting. The other caveat is that you're an international applicant, so your situation will have more nuance than somebody who got their degree in the States. Your best course of action is to ask people connected to your university: students who have gone on to graduate study in the US or professors who sent them there.

In general that score is fine. Judging by how you describe your experience, you could improve on it simply by being more familiar and therefore more comfortable with the situation, but if you don't feel like the time or expense is warranted, it's not something to freak out over. 

[UnAltroEgitto]

13 hours ago, fencergirl said:

Hey, I understand your feelings completely! I am weaker in Quantitative and of course ended up having an extra Quant section at the end that I didn't do well on. I can't be sure that it was the last one that counted but my Quant score was not great (156). I agree that it's not fair to include an extra section because it is only for the test makers benefit, and not ours, and we are already paying a ton of money to take the test! Why should they get free labor (at our expense) too? 

I decided not to retake it since Quant isn't that applicable to my field (History). I think 160/160 is a good score though. I wouldn't worry about it too much. I think 160 verbal for a non-native speaker is pretty remarkable actually. And since your field has both mathematical and verbal elements, I think a balanced score is a good thing! If the rest of your application is strong, I can't imagine it hurting you much if at all.

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!

I am really undecided whether should I take the test again or not, and I am glad to have heard your opinion. Certainly, the fact that the nearest test center is almost 400 kilometers (250 miles ca.) distant from where I live doesn't help at all. It exacerbates the stress and the tiring pressure of the test itself.

I see your field is East Asian Studies. That's neat. I am also about to get a second B.A. in Japanese Language and Literature from the University of Venice, and I've spent my Summer in Japan between Kyoto and Tokyo to dive into research and to visit some friends.

 

11 minutes ago, ExponentialDecay said:

ciao! It's good to meet a countryman :)

You should probably ask this in the philosophy forum, together with what programs you are targeting. The other caveat is that you're an international applicant, so your situation will have more nuance than somebody who got their degree in the States. Your best course of action is to ask people connected to your university: students who have gone on to graduate study in the US or professors who sent them there.

In general that score is fine. Judging by how you describe your experience, you could improve on it simply by being more familiar and therefore more comfortable with the situation, but if you don't feel like the time or expense is warranted, it's not something to freak out over. 

 

Ciao!

I have introduced myself in the Philosophy forum as well. While hinting at Philosophy, I deemed this section accurate to give away some general GRE impressions, though it became clear soon enough that I was mostly speaking to a 'Philosophy' audience. My complaints, however, still hold a broad and non-specific view on the test, to which I keep looking with discomfort.

I will follow your intimation and see if I can find relevant information from the professors at my University, even if they hardly compromise with the trivialities of evaluating the weight of something such a GRE score, since they don't even require to know what it is about.

By the way, taking the test again on December 24th and sending immediatly the scores will put me in a head-to-head last-lap run against the deadlines. Are the Departments usually flexible on this regard? I certainly know that, unless stated otherwise, I wouldn't risk to have my application discarded only because of the GRE scores.