My GRE experience (2 times)

[Anik]

Hi, everyone,

I just took my second GRE today (I took the first one on August, 30).
My scores now look very strange and my experience shows that GRE is probably not a very standardized test.

My first score: V 590, Q 780, A 670.

I was very disapointed in my alalytical score (I aimed at least at 750+ on both Q and A) and that is why I decided to retake the test.

My second score: V 600, Q 710 , A 800

The math section today (comparing to the previous one where I scored quite well and to Powerprep) was muuuch harder!!! I ran out of time and had to guess on at least 6 last questions :-( I never had any timing problems on math section in any prep tests and I scored 790 and 800 on Powerprep tests.

I got Q section first and it was full of strange problems right from the start. I do not say that the problems were unsolvable, but they were somewhat untraditional and required more time in average, than usual. Besides, I had a feeling that the section was very unbalanced: I did not even get any traditional percent/rate/ration or other word problems, no traditional equations, only one or two geometry problems (which I usually like), many problems with digits, divisors/multiples/remainders, couple of arithmetic sequence problems. I got around 6 or even more statistics/ probability problems (not all difficult but some are not simple). I even had one QC problem containing the words like "x, y are normally distributed with mean... and standard deviation..." I did not know that they could ask something related to "normal distribution", it was not mentioned in any prep books or powerprep math review!

Powerprep is much easier comparing to actual exam (at least at higher level score). Q section on my first test was also more difficult than in Powerprep but not as bizarre as today's.

Frankly speaking, till the last minute of the test I hoped (even was 90% sure and that kept me going :-)) that my first Q section was an experimental one and that I will soon get a normal one. But when I received an identified research section (writing) my last hopes vanished :-(

I still decided to send my second score to the program I apply, because I liked my improved Analitical score and total is also improved. So, they will see both scores (I am applying to M.Sc. in MIS program). I am not sure how the addmission committee will interpret my scores. Anyone has an idea about that? Will my second score on Q hurt my admission chances?

Anyway, I am done with GRE and I will not retake it anymore (at least in the near future ). Hope I will not be rejected just because of my GRE scores (I have a GPA equivalent to 4.0 but not from an American or Canadian university)

Good luck to everyone,
Anna