November 13 - How'd you do?

Forum for the GRE subject test in mathematics.
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Mathemagician
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:29 pm

November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by Mathemagician » Sat Nov 13, 2010 1:59 pm

Hey all, hope it went well. How hard did you think it was compared to the practice test?

When I took the practice test for the first time, I answered 52 and got 45 correct. Today, on the other hand, I only answered 43.

Did I just have a bad day, or did other people find today's test to be more difficult than the practice one?

alex
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2010 12:54 am

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by alex » Sat Nov 13, 2010 2:20 pm

yeah, i thought it was pretty difficult. i didn't feel caught off-guard or anything, but i definitely didn't feel as good about it as the practice exams. i answered about 53, i think, but many of those were less than a sure thing. oh well.

mdornbos
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2010 11:11 am

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by mdornbos » Sat Nov 13, 2010 2:57 pm

I thought it was difficult as well. I took the October test and again today as a standby. They seem to be much harder than the practice tests.

However, I thought the October test was harder as I only answered about 36 in October (not even going to mention my score :oops: ), and answered 50 today. I'm a poor test taker but the second time around I'm much better and relaxed, so maybe that's why I did way better today.

Did anyone else struggle with the differential equation questions?

MasterChief
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2010 11:39 am

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by MasterChief » Sat Nov 13, 2010 3:02 pm

Ya I thought it was much more difficult than the practice exams hopefully that means the scale is more lenient. I had problems with the differential equations problems too one of them was like nothing I've ever seen I think it was the one involving change of variable

jplusip
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2010 12:40 pm

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by jplusip » Sat Nov 13, 2010 3:55 pm

I answered 33. :oops: I wasn't 100% on all of them either. I know I got the complex analysis and topology questions right though... so there's 5. :P


So yeah, at this point I might not even apply to my dream school. I was doing really well for the first few pages, then I hit a rough patch and my mind went completely blank as I panicked. Never really recovered from that...

mknap
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 4:12 pm

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by mknap » Sat Nov 13, 2010 4:17 pm

Yeah, I thought the test was harder than the practice tests I did. The DE questions were not as straight-forward as the practice tests. Also, like jplusip, I hit that rough patch right around the teens, and never really recovered. Oh well. I guess I am going to take it again in April. I am really hoping the scale is different than the ETS-published practice test scale!

So what is the general consensus about retakes ? Do schools frown upon retaken tests ?

mdornbos
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2010 11:11 am

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by mdornbos » Sat Nov 13, 2010 4:27 pm

jplusip wrote:I know I got the complex analysis and topology questions right though... so there's 5. :P
What answer did you get for the topology question that the choices were Hausdorff, Connected, or Compact?

smartiful
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2010 12:11 pm

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by smartiful » Sat Nov 13, 2010 5:08 pm

jplusip wrote:I answered 33. :oops: I wasn't 100% on all of them either. I know I got the complex analysis and topology questions right though... so there's 5. :P
So yeah, at this point I might not even apply to my dream school. I was doing really well for the first few pages, then I hit a rough patch and my mind went completely blank as I panicked. Never really recovered from that...
Uh. We all know and dread that feeling - sorry to hear this. I hope you'll get in to a good school nonetheless!

I did OK, answered ~56 - 58 questions, and feel confident about most of them. Have to say though that I went back to bed after the test and woke up from a nervous sleep, realising that I messed up an (easy) question on cardinality. Sweating like a pig. Oh dear.

seb
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 2:13 am

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by seb » Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:00 pm

That test went from pretty easy to what the fffffff... The last 20 questions were brutal. I was not prepared for what went down this morning.

raulastur
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2010 12:16 pm

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by raulastur » Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:20 pm

I could only answered 46 questions! and two of them i know for sure are wrong..
when i saw the clock i was in the 28th question and 1h and 20 were left, i got little nervous about time so i dont know if that affected that i could not answer as fast as i should

alex
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2010 12:54 am

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by alex » Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:29 pm

mdornbos wrote:What answer did you get for the topology question that the choices were Hausdorff, Connected, or Compact?
hey, that thing wasn't hausdorff, was it? i sure hope not. i'm bad at topology having only learned it from the "cracking" book, but i felt like i knew that one even though i was kinda confused as to how it was written.

i have a couple of other questions from the test that have been nagging me all day, but i guess i'll refrain from talking about them specifically.

alex
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2010 12:54 am

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by alex » Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:31 pm

also, i'm both sorry and glad to hear that other people got tripped up in the teens and then freaked out. in the practice exams i would usually always cruise through the first 30, sometimes skipping one that was taking too long to crunch and coming back to it, but here it was very different.

dasgut
Posts: 250
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:20 am

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by dasgut » Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:34 pm

Alex,
Don't worry bro, that bad boy sure what doesn't hausdorff. The only open set zero belonged to was R, so it sure couldn't be placed in a separate set from 1.

nayrb
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:24 pm

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by nayrb » Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:47 pm

I answered 60, but did a fair amount of guessing (having eliminated possibilities in some cases). Here's hoping for a raw score of 40+, accuracy isn't my thing though. It wasn't a surprise, but it was harder than the practice test.

smartiful
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2010 12:11 pm

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by smartiful » Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:56 pm

There was no question on Hausdorff spaces on my exam this morning (I think...). weird.

isabel83
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2010 3:38 pm

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by isabel83 » Sat Nov 13, 2010 10:48 pm

Was my first time, but it´s probably that doesn´t the only. I studied with Cracking the GRE- MATH Subject Test, I think weren´t enough.

When will the results?

Thanks

ded8381
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Oct 10, 2010 11:34 pm

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by ded8381 » Sun Nov 14, 2010 12:13 am

The question regarding coming up with ax+b so the function was everywhere continuous... I came up with a, b -- but they weren't answer choices. Did I miss something?

MisterElk
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2010 3:27 am

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by MisterElk » Sun Nov 14, 2010 3:32 am

The ax + b problem definitely had an answer - you should have found the points where the left and right functions "ended", and then form the line between them


Results are out in ~6 weeks. SO LONG!

cuhbl89
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:48 pm

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by cuhbl89 » Sun Nov 14, 2010 3:51 am

MisterElk wrote:The ax + b problem definitely had an answer - you should have found the points where the left and right functions "ended", and then form the line between them


Results are out in ~6 weeks. SO LONG!
What's this ax+b problem??

Are there different forms??

It's my first time... sorry!

Chapel
Posts: 59
Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2010 11:25 pm

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by Chapel » Sun Nov 14, 2010 2:38 pm

I took the October test and answered 40 because I ran out of time. I did poorly and decided to take it again at the last minute. Yesterday I answered 55 and finished with 10 minutes left. The November test was much more inline with my experience taking practice tests, so hopefully my score is also more inline with practice test scores. I definitely think you can over prepare for this test and really wrap yourself around the axle when taking it.

I think the mail date for these results is December 24. That is also the date we can go online and look up our results for free. Probably somewhere around the 15th we will be able to call in to see how we did and pay $12.

kooolant
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 12:30 pm

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by kooolant » Tue Nov 16, 2010 1:54 pm

I did 28 in the first hour, so I was pretty relaxed, but then the questions got progressively tough. In the last 40 minutes of the exam, I still had to do about 20 questions. I managed to do 61 questions in the end, with a lot of guessing work. I am confident about 48 of them. So my scaled score would be around 42-46. What %ile would that amount to? I have my fingers crossed :?

bobn
Posts: 61
Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2009 2:59 am

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by bobn » Thu Nov 18, 2010 2:52 am

I don't say its hard, but its stupid, questions from Algebra, Analysis, Topo, ... are very basic ones, and questions from Complex analysis are stupid ones, they tested very very basics in these areas, and from Calculus, this time they tried to be smart, so the problems are lengthier and with some weird numbers, more over you must do work precisely rounding off won't work, like, if the answer is 280, options would be 200,250,280,285 and 300, so you are supposed to invest time no other choice.

A few questions are tricky, you can eliminate answers by finding loop holes in the question, this part needs alot of practice.

So, you need to be good at atleast 2-3 calculus books like, Finney, Apostle and another good one.

If you are non math major, you need to invest more time on calculus, then concentrate on other areas.

Strictly this is not a suitable test for PhD, this tests your speed not knowledge.

bobn
Posts: 61
Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2009 2:59 am

Re: November 13 - How'd you do?

Post by bobn » Thu Nov 18, 2010 2:56 am

Another suggestion from my side,

Download all Calculus courses problem sets from UPenn, do the graphs of f, f', f'' and so, you can get 2-5 of such kind



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