How do you feel the exam today?

sandraizbasa · Post by **sandraizbasa** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:46 am

I felt very difficult and most important is time was very limited. When the time was over I left at least 15 questions unanswered. Morever, I am not very sure what I have answered. Very very sad...

diogenes · Post by **diogenes** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:44 am

Located in Asia?

Anyway, don't worry about it now. It is out of your hands.

sandraizbasa · Post by **sandraizbasa** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:02 am

diogenes wrote:Located in Asia?

Anyway, don't worry about it now. It is out of your hands.

Yes, I am located in China. I major in finance and I think this exam is getting increasingly difficult for those who are not major in mathematics.

diogenes · Post by **diogenes** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:06 am

Makes sense.
For what it is worth it is hard for those with majors in Math.

feroz_apple · Post by **feroz_apple** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:22 am

Damn i hate this exam. I am a math graduate.... and this exam is not for me
It was all calculation.No brain required....Oh yeah...and No time.
Even if you prepare for 10 months a year, you will probably mess it up.
Stupid exam. Cant they test us on Algebraic Topology!!!!

sandraizbasa · Post by **sandraizbasa** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:33 am

feroz_apple wrote:Damn i hate this exam. I am a math graduate.... and this exam is not for me
It was all calculation.No brain required....Oh yeah...and No time.
Even if you prepare for 10 months a year, you will probably mess it up.
Stupid exam. Cant they test us on Algebraic Topology!!!!

Yes I think all the calculations are too tough although the method is not difficult. I wasted too much time on some complex calculations but I did not get correct answers.

mtey · Post by **mtey** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 10:27 am

damn i f**ked it up !!! i think the test was harder than the test prep materials... let's hope that ets thinks that the test is tough too. good luck

ana3a · Post by **ana3a** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:49 pm

So much calculation, no time.

EHart · Post by **EHart** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:00 pm

I was kind of surprised how much computation there was on this. On the practice exams, only maybe 20 questions (at most) required computation. This had 25-40, give or take, that required computation. Many of them didn't even require anything particularly clever, they were just ugly integrals and whatnot.

jayre · Post by **jayre** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:29 pm

I definitely thought it was much harder than the practice exams. Perhaps the scaled scores will be higher relative to the raw scores this time around. This is my first time to take it for real though, so I can't be sure it doesn't always feel that hard when you're under the real pressure of the test. It was definitely much more time consuming than the practice tests though.

joey · Post by **joey** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:47 pm

I've been practicing around the 80th-90th percentile range, and today I had to leave 16 questions unanswered. I don't know what's going on with this particular test, but I'm _devastated_ by these results. All I've done for three months is work and study for this exam and the GRE general. There's too much pressure on this one test. I never have test anxiety; today I was sweating bullets.

diogenes · Post by **diogenes** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:56 pm

From what I understand ETS does not scale for individual tests, but groups of tests (keep a salt shaker handy

).
If so, then your scaling will be based on however many past exams they pick.

ana3a · Post by **ana3a** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 3:07 pm

Thanks for pointing that out, Dio. Probably they will drop one test from their pool and add the scores for today's test.

Don't totally despair. In the April test it seems that a raw score of 45 was still 88%ile.
So leaving out 15 questions is probably not a death sentence unless you need >97% etc.

diogenes · Post by **diogenes** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 3:09 pm

ana3a wrote:Thanks for pointing that out, Dio. Probably they will drop one test from their pool and add the scores for today's test.

Don't totally despair. In the April test it seems that a raw score of 44 was still 90%ile.
So leaving out 15 questions is not a death sentence unless you need >97% etc.

Not bad idea to hedge against your current score.

ana3a · Post by **ana3a** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 3:21 pm

diogenes wrote:
Not bad idea to hedge against your current score.

I hate this test. Blah -)

joey · Post by **joey** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 3:22 pm

ana3a wrote:Thanks for pointing that out, Dio. Probably they will drop one test from their pool and add the scores for today's test.

Don't totally despair. In the April test it seems that a raw score of 44 was still 90%ile.
So leaving out 15 questions is not a death sentence unless you need >97% etc.

Wow. I feel -way- better hearing that. Maybe I'll do okay after all! Thanks for the relevant info!

origin415 · Post by **origin415** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:47 pm

While I was sceptical of everyone saying the october one was so much harder, I definitely believe it now. I've got on the practice tests 76%, 78%, 92% and 96%, and on all of them always had time to go through the entire thing + around 20 minutes, but I barely had time to get to the last question on this one, and left 9 blank. Hearing that 44 on the april one is a 90% is a big relief.

Feels great to have this over with though, I'll surely be back to post my application results in that thread when I get them.

Now onto writing a statement of purpose!

insomniac392 · Post by **insomniac392** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:13 pm

Finding this forum today is proof that misery does indeed love company ^_^

Today was my first GRE experience and I still feel devastated... I was only able to answer about 40/66; a handful of those I wasn't confident in answering. On the last few practice exams (both ETS and REA) I always scored in the 70th at least, but this exam seemed much more difficult to me; I was especially disappointed with the lack/absence of topics that seemed to be on every practice test (e.g. residue theorem, min/max of f(x, y), anything on groups...)

Oh well, all I can do now is pray for accuracy, a generous rescaling and get cracking on my SOP.

ana3a · Post by **ana3a** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:24 pm

i'm sorry for the inaccuracy, now i double checked the score card:
in april, raw score 45 = 88%.

there were hardly any differential equations either.

lizp · Post by **lizp** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 8:26 pm

ana3a: would you mind posting what the rescaled score for a 44 was for the april test?

sandraizbasa · Post by **sandraizbasa** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:14 pm

ana3a wrote:i'm sorry for the inaccuracy, now i double checked the score card:
in april, raw score 45 = 88%.

there were hardly any differential equations either.

Thanks a lot for posting this information, ana3a. I am sure I can not acquire a raw score of 45 because I have found at least 6 mistakes in the questions what I have answered by asking someone else. Maybe I can only get a 42 or 43 raw score. Can you find what are their percentages for me?

sp3grl · Post by **sp3grl** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:45 pm

Hi everyone. I took the subject test for the first time today and I don't know much about all these scoring systems people are mentioning here. What's a raw score and what's the maximum score you can get on the test? I heard 990 from some and 900 from others.

Approximately how many incorrect answers give a raw score of 44 in the April test people mentioned? 44 seems like a really low number to me, but the 88 percentile is so high. Does that mean you can miss a lot of questions and still get a good score? How many questions can you generally miss and still expect at least a 90 percentile?

Does anyone have any tips or strategies on how to manage your time and maneuver around the test to pick the most solvable questions first? Or just any tips in general? THanks.

feroz_apple · Post by **feroz_apple** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 12:05 am

I hated the sums........each one had to be double checked for errors lest i made any silly mistake becaude of its calculations......this isn't supposed to be a standardised test

cauchy · Post by **cauchy** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:32 am

I don't think that I blew the test out of the water, but I think it was easier than I expected it to be. Lots of calculus and Linear algebra.

goodtrain · Post by **goodtrain** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:35 am

sandraizbasa wrote:I felt very difficult and most important is time was very limited. When the time was over I left at least 15 questions unanswered. Morever, I am not very sure what I have answered. Very very sad...

that's not bad man

cauchy · Post by **cauchy** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:36 am

goodtrain wrote:
sandraizbasa wrote:I felt very difficult and most important is time was very limited. When the time was over I left at least 15 questions unanswered. Morever, I am not very sure what I have answered. Very very sad...

that's not bad man

yeah..it's actually in your interest to leave questions unanswered if you don't have a clue how to do them.

ana3a · Post by **ana3a** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 7:09 am

Sp3, the raw score is the number of correct answers minus 1/4 * number wrong answers. So there are many ways to get a certain raw score. Yes, 88% surprised me as being very high too. This is much kinder than the scale in the practice book that I have. (There it says 45 = 720 = 74%.)

diogenes · Post by **diogenes** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 6:10 pm

mtey wrote:damn i f**ked it up !!! i think the test was harder than the test prep materials... let's hope that ets thinks that the test is tough too. good luck

At my test center it seemed like everyone had their PR book (non-math, too) with them, but that is clearly no longer enough (torus anyone

)

Sadly, being up for 24 hours started to hit me, so it was good chance to nod off.

insomniac392 · Post by **insomniac392** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 6:47 pm

diogenes wrote:
mtey wrote:damn i f**ked it up !!! i think the test was harder than the test prep materials... let's hope that ets thinks that the test is tough too. good luck
At my test center it seemed like everyone had their PR book (non-math, too) with them, but that is clearly no longer enough (torus anyone )

Ditto... virtually everyone at my testing center had their practice books, too. From the sound of it, though, it doesn't seem that they were much help >_<

zuluyankee · Post by **zuluyankee** » Mon Nov 09, 2009 11:37 am

Lots of computations indeed, computations that take forever to work on it seemed!

It's good that there are computational questions, but not when calculations would take 5 minutes each!

I took the test last year, which I was devastated because I left over 25 unanswered and was not sure of many answers I answered. This time round, I left 16, most answers I have confident of getting right. (What percentile should I expect?) I should not feel devastated, for otherwise last year's test would mean I was totally a fool... At least this time round is better...

I'm thinking of taking it again next April.

I definitely must read more and practise more...

Purelogik · Post by **Purelogik** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 12:52 am

I agree...definitely seemed like there was much more computation on this exam than there was in April and October. And the worst part is that I haven't been able to stop thinking about problems on the exam. What types of computations gave you the most trouble? There was one nasty integral in particular that I spent WAY too much time on...computation can be so annoying.

bobn · Post by **bobn** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 3:11 am

I dont think the exam is difficult or needs much computations. The exam is tricky. Which shouldn't be the case. It only tested your problem solving or how quickly you adopt to smaller techniques. Which is not some CAT exam.

I don't know what they wanted to test, but its not Subject GRE in Maths.

As far the problems are concerned, they require lot computations if we go in standard manner, but actually after exam I am thinking about problems in peace, I am finding some tricks to solve problems with out doing much calculations. But doing this in time constraints is hard, even we take this exam for time pass, at home after doing PhD in maths, we can't solve all in 2.5hrs.

I am surprised Abstract algebra, Topo, real analysis are not tested at all, expect very few basics, which we can get as examples in every intros text books.

With out any basic knowledge of above 3, one can answer 35-40 questions.

The exam is all about " How to solve stupid calculus problems as fast as you can".
It is okay, if the exam is hard and really tested concepts, but the thing is what is tangent at a point in some weird terms, will it tests your knowledge??

The exam is just like, what is the solution to the quadratic equation x^2+ 2abcdefghtik x+ 34xe^243+1 + edfgh logw.

feroz_apple · Post by **feroz_apple** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:55 pm

bobn wrote:I dont think the exam is difficult or needs much computations. The exam is tricky. Which shouldn't be the case. It only tested your problem solving or how quickly you adopt to smaller techniques. Which is not some CAT exam.

I don't know what they wanted to test, but its not Subject GRE in Maths.

As far the problems are concerned, they require lot computations if we go in standard manner, but actually after exam I am thinking about problems in peace, I am finding some tricks to solve problems with out doing much calculations. But doing this in time constraints is hard, even we take this exam for time pass, at home after doing PhD in maths, we can't solve all in 2.5hrs.

I am surprised Abstract algebra, Topo, real analysis are not tested at all, expect very few basics, which we can get as examples in every intros text books.

With out any basic knowledge of above 3, one can answer 35-40 questions.

The exam is all about " How to solve stupid calculus problems as fast as you can".
It is okay, if the exam is hard and really tested concepts, but the thing is what is tangent at a point in some weird terms, will it tests your knowledge??

The exam is just like, what is the solution to the quadratic equation x^2+ 2abcdefghtik x+ 34xe^243+1 + edfgh logw.

I agree...i mean i studied so much for it from analysis....from darboux functions to henstock integral

ana3a · Post by **ana3a** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 7:38 am

bobn wrote:I dont think the exam is difficult or needs much computations. The exam is tricky. Which shouldn't be the case. It only tested your problem solving or how quickly you adopt to smaller techniques. Which is not some CAT exam.

I don't know what they wanted to test, but its not Subject GRE in Maths.

As far the problems are concerned, they require lot computations if we go in standard manner, but actually after exam I am thinking about problems in peace, I am finding some tricks to solve problems with out doing much calculations. But doing this in time constraints is hard, even we take this exam for time pass, at home after doing PhD in maths, we can't solve all in 2.5hrs.

I am surprised Abstract algebra, Topo, real analysis are not tested at all, expect very few basics, which we can get as examples in every intros text books.

With out any basic knowledge of above 3, one can answer 35-40 questions.

The exam is all about " How to solve stupid calculus problems as fast as you can".
It is okay, if the exam is hard and really tested concepts, but the thing is what is tangent at a point in some weird terms, will it tests your knowledge??

The exam is just like, what is the solution to the quadratic equation x^2+ 2abcdefghtik x+ 34xe^243+1 + edfgh logw.

I think both opinions are right (too much calculation vs. calculation was simple [in hindsight]).

This is the type of computation that messed me up. f(x,y) = h(x,y) + i*g(x,y) is an analytic function given in component form by two real functions h and g. Given explicit h, find g(x1,y1)-g(x2,y2). I read the problem too fast and kept on calculating f(x1,y1)-f(x2,y2), which was not one of the given answer choices. So I calculated again, again, again ...
Right after I left the exam room I realized I misread the problem. For me, this behavior comes from taking too many practice tests, where the time constraint causes me to read problems (and do calculations) way too quickly. Being able to do things quickly becomes a handicap because I lose accuracy. But if you don't work quickly, how will you finish the exam?

diogenes · Post by **diogenes** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 11:20 am

ana3a wrote: But if you don't work quickly, how will you finish the exam?

You won't and likely do not need to finish the entire thing. This is an exercise in risk management.

That said the test is joke, as you your question points out.
ETS must fall

Quakerbrat · Post by **Quakerbrat** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 1:06 am

I have to agree with most of these posts. I took the test in October and November, and the subject matter could not have been more different. I believe I may the butt of a very cruel joke.

Well played ETS

Well played.

bobn · Post by **bobn** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 1:41 am

If you go to exam aiming 45-50 questions you will do well ( in 90%) than aiming 60+.
So, a person with very very good pace of calculus and with little knowledge of Abstract, Linear Algebra, mastered examples in any Intro RA text, in touch to fundamental stats and prob. will do very well in test.

Cacl- 33, LA, AA - 4. Geo - 3, RA - 4, Stats & Prob. - 5 = 49.

This will be wise play than expecting more time on Abstract algebra, ( 2).
So, if you dont know what is a group, you can score 90% in test.

Master Calc., [ Topics are from age old books, which were in 1940-1960 will be good], Stats and Prob. RA. Thats it.
Precalculus especialy geometry will be teasing so go back and spare few days with 2D, 3D, triangles, spheres, circles, polygons, etc..

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