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Originally Posted by Goldust

Hi everyone! I just finished my GRE yesterday. These forums have been really useful to me and I thought that, irrespective of my score, I would post about my experience.

Firstly, a little bit of a background. I am in the final year of my Bachelor of Technology in Electronics Engineering. I am a non-native speaker of English, but I like to think that English is almost my first language. This was my first (and last, whew!) attempt at the GRE. I had been working at it on and off for over a year, but really put in some serious effort in the last month or so.

So, I had scheduled a 9 a.m. session and arrived nearly an hour earlier just to be safe. The staff at the test centre was very helpful and the whole thing ran like clockwork. Just one thing irked me. In my test centre, at least, we were not allowed to take anything with us; no pens, no watches, not even a handkerchief. I was just glad they did allow me to wear my spectacles.

I sat down in my carrel, and contrary to what I expected, it was pretty warm in there. Just a good thing that I did not wear any heavy clothing as advocated by most prep books. Moreover, if you remove any item of clothing, you have to exit the room and place it in your locker. In other words, you have to wear whatever you take inside. There was a pair of earmuffs on the table, for which I was glad as they COMPLETELY shut out sound, allowing me to think.

The tutorials started. Without the aid of a watch, I had no idea how much time I spent on them, but I estimate it to be around 15-20 minutes, 80% of which was spent in trying to compose myself (in vain). One thing which struck me was that contrary to what is said in Barron’s, you are not allowed to work on the scratch paper during any untimed section. Didn’t matter, because I hardly use the scratch paper anyways. Just a heads up though.

After the tutorials, there were quite a few background questions, like your major, your average scores, etc. Finally, at long last, the issue essay prompt came up. Both topics were prominent ones from the pool, having been repeated in various guises over and over again. I chose the one I felt I would be able to do more justice towards. Somehow, nerves wouldn’t let me think clearly. I feel that I didn’t do full justice to the topic and digressed quite a bit. Nevertheless, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I managed to finish with 5 minutes to spare.

The argument essay was next. Now, in practice, I always finished the argument essay on the dot. Here, I read through the argument quickly, listed my points and began writing, Bad idea! Turns out the argument compared an incumbent and a fresh candidate, whereas I assumed that it compared two fresh candidates. When I realized this, I had around 10 minutes to go. I spent the rest of the time massaging my essay in order to make it more convincing. Nonetheless, I feel that I managed to point out quite a number of flaws in the argument. On the whole, however, I was less than satisfied with my AWA.

Next came the ten-minute break, which I took. Had a drink and stretched for a bit. Went back to my seat and waited for the break timer to count down to zero. I don’t know why but I was expecting a Quantitative section next. As luck would have it, the next section was Quants indeed.

I started out cautiously, quadruple-checking my first few answers. Gradually, as my confidence levels rose, I started working faster. I think it was here that I made my first mistake. On the 11th question, which was a DI one, I ended up looking at the wrong column in a table. Worse still, I realized this on the 12th question. However, instead of beating myself up about it, I tried to do the section as well as I could. That was when things started getting interesting.

You see, all the questions beyond around number 14, were surprisingly easy. In fact, there was one question which needed ABSOLUTELY no knowledge of mathematics. Any attempt to apply a mathematical concept would have resulted in a guaranteed wrong answer. Continuing like this, I finished my section with 10 minutes to spare. I felt that I had torpedoed my score, since the questions never reached a very difficult level at all.

After the one-minute break, I came across the weirdest Verbal section I have ever seen. It started out OK, with two antonyms, 1 analogy and 1 SC. Then came the dreaded RC in questions 5-6. Now, I know what people say. An early RC signifies a lower score. However, I was confident that I had attempted the previous questions correctly. Moreover, the passage itself was relatively difficult. Anyways, I persevered. And that’s where dread changed into perplexity. You see, I got a 25-line RC in question 5-6, a 40-line RC in question 9-10 and a 110-line RC in questions 13-16. Just over half the section, and 3 RC’s already! I had never experienced anything liked it. I approached the last 14 questions with 12 minutes remaining on the clock. Most of the questions were easy enough, and I did not get any more RC’s. Finished the section with around 9 minutes to spare.

On the whole, Verbal was not very difficult. Two of the RC’s were of a relatively high level, whereas one was of average difficulty. All but one word were from Barron’s. Even the unknown word was a verb form of the opposite of an adjective which was in Barron’s. I think I messed up a few questions in the RC’s and may be one each in analogies and SCs. Again, the easy level of the Verbal section disconcerted me.

After the verbal section, I was having nightmares of having to retake the GRE. I did not get an experimental section, but was offered a choice of attempting to do a Research section. I chose to do it and it was an Argument. I approached it as I had done all my arguments. 20 minutes into it, I realized this was going better than what I had done in my actual Argument. Angry at that thought, I exited the section without even checking my work.

A couple of screens confirming that I wanted to see my scores and voila! I was gob smacked by what I saw. I was so excited, I almost immediately went to the next screen. Selected the schools to receive my scores, confirmed them and left the centre. As I was leaving, I was handed a feedback form regarding the testing centre. I think I let my good spirits come in the way of my objectivity and gave the test centre top scores in all aspects.

So, anyways, that was my experience with the GRE. Any queries or comments are always welcome. I have one question though. Does anyone know how long does it take for the scorecards to reach the test-takers in India? After all, ETS does put a disclaimer on the two weeks that they quote.

Hey congos for the gr8 score!!
I agree that a general belief is that a early n a dreaded RC signifies that something's amiss, i may sound heretical but i think thats just another tainted belief. Nobody can accurately predict GRE algo however it would be interesting 2 knw how GRE selects the no of RC that hv 2 appear. In all the practice test that i hv given i hv been getting 3 RC's.

Coming to maths, i hv heard this time n again frm ppl in this forum n even amongst my frnd circle that GRE quants on actual test is tougher than ne other test u would hv taken be4, im not sure if other tests r a bit condescending, dya contest that thght?

I hv a test in a weeks time, ne words of wisdom?

Cheers