October 10th test

[quintus]

Hi everyone,

Anyone here take the 10/10 test? How'd you think you did? I answered 66 of 70 and feel good about most of them. I've realized a mistake or two in retrospect though . It felt like a hardish test, but I think I managed to catch a lot of the tricks and avoid falling for the obvious answer.

Without being too specific, did you think it was a hard test?

When can we expect to have these graded? I called today and they aren't available. How long does it take to run these through a scan-tron machine and calculate percentiles?? (not to sound impatient!)

[CalmLogic]

When can we expect to have these graded?

My guess would be Saturday, November 8th since it takes about one month for them to have the scores by phone and they usually start that availability on a Saturday morning (Eastern Standard Time).

How long does it take to run these through a scan-tron machine and calculate percentiles??

They seem to take their precious time, but, to be fair, they need some time to collect all the scan-trons and check for any anomalies, such as by seeing if people who scored high missed questions that others got right. Most notably, in 2004, they found four errors in the exam, so those questions weren't calculated in the score result.

Without being too specific,

The only thing people can tell you without ETS getting suspicious is stuff people have been saying for years, and the difficulty of the exam seems rather constant. Someone may say they answered all of the questions and were confident about 40 of their answers but, in reality, they may have only got about 30 questions right.

not to sound impatient!

You aren't impatient. ETS is just slow And, to be fair, the reason they only offer paper-based testing for the exam is probably because there is not enough interest in the subject exams.

[quintus]

Originally Posted by CalmLogic

My guess would be Saturday, November 8th....

You aren't impatient. ETS is just slow And, to be fair, the reason they only offer paper-based testing for the exam is probably because there is not enough interest in the subject exams.

Thanks for the info. I had no idea that it would take that long! I guess I'll try to put it out of my mind until then. I was pretty anxious to find out my score last week, so this is a bummer to hear!

[crunchybumble]

Originally Posted by quintus

I guess I'll try to put it out of my mind until then.

Oh man, I wish I could do the same. I'm sittin' here kinda freaking. I'm *so* damn glad that I did the amount of prep that I did, but its amazing how I can learn so much and yet feel like I know so little...

Ya feel me?

[quintus]

Originally Posted by crunchybumble

Oh man, I wish I could do the same. I'm sittin' here kinda freaking.

Yeah. I spent a week after the test obsessing over the questions I could remember. I thought it was a hard test (maybe not quite as hard as the practice test though), but I think I came out on top of most of the tricky questions.

Did you take the Oct. 10th test? How'd you think it went for you?

[thelostexplorer]

october 10 result is available by phone. I have got 810(82 percentile). i could be happier if I would get 90 percentile. i have very average result so i wanted to use subject gre result as a supplement. dont know if this 82 percentile will work.

[crunchybumble]

Yeah crap. I called and got my score. 770. 68 percent. Crud.

I've got a 1540 on the regular GRE, and a 3.6 GPA coming out of a small unknown American private school.

Dunno if that's gonna do it for me, but it'll have to. Right.

Anyone know how much the percentile ranks change after the November exams?

[thelostexplorer]

Originally Posted by crunchybumble

Anyone know how much the percentile ranks change after the November exams?

some people in this forum claims that with the same performance one can achieve better percentile in november exam, mostly because in november there are more examinees. Not sure about the credibility of this claim.

[quintus]

Hey - sorry to hear about your disappointing scores. I too received a bit of a surprise this morning. I got a 780 (72%). I'm especially surprised because I thought I had done so much better than when I took it cold, but it's exactly the same score!

Anyone know how this will effect admissions? I'm sure it would look bad to top schools, but what about schools ranking around 20-40ish? Should I avoid sending this score out to anyone, or just top schools?

[thelostexplorer]

Originally Posted by quintus

Anyone know how this will effect admissions? I'm sure it would look bad to top schools, but what about schools ranking around 20-40ish? Should I avoid sending this score out to anyone, or just top schools?

From NCSU site
NC State Computer Science: Graduate Program - Application Procedure

A recent score for the GRE Subject Test in Computer Science is recommended but not required for PhD applicants. Guideline score is 720.

So i do not see any reason not to report this score for universities like NCSU. But i have seen some resumes in top schools and most of them who took agre test has percentiles like 95-99.

It is a little bit sad that most institutions dont value agre score less than 90 percentiles. From SFU ( I dont think it is that much desirable to applicants) site.
Graduate Students - Frequently Asked Questions

For Ph.D. applicants who have taken Subject GRE the score is expected to be above 90%.