The GRE
So while I was home for my grandmother's 80th birthday this weekend, I took some time to look into graduate school information (specifically application deadlines and GRE testing dates). I went ahead and shelled out the $130 needed to register for the GRE, and will be taking it on Tuesday, August 15th. That's not the point of interest of this post, rather I want to talk about the ridiculously high difficulty of the verbal section.
I took the GRE practice test available on the official website (http://www.ets.org/gre/). I missed two question on the mathematics section, giving me an 800 (like the SAT it's 800 verbal, 800 math, and two essay sections). The verbal, on the other hand, kicked my ass. The verbal side has 4 types of questions: pick the best word, reading comprehension, analogies, and antonymns. There were 8 antonymn questions on each of the two sections, accounting for 16 of the 76 question. Discounting that section, I missed 4 questions on the verbal. Counting the antonymns, I missed 16 total questions, giving me a 660 verbal score. I was pissed, as I expected to do a hell of a lot better than that. Then I chose to look at the percentiles based on test scores. A perfect math score of 800 is 94th percentile. Not too shabby. My 660 verbal? That was good enough for 91st percentile. What the fuck? 91st for a 660? You could make a 730 (which I would have made without the antonymn sections) and still be in the 99th percentile. Who the hell decided to make a test so hard that getting less than 90% of the test right is essentially a perfect score? 68 correct answers of the 76 possible, nets a 730, that's 89.47% of the test right.
Why the hell can you miss 3 questions of the 60 math problems and get an 800, but only miss 2 Verbal questions to get an 800? Why the hell is an 800 math only 94th percentile when a 730 Verbal is still high enough. I address this to the ETS. Skew your tests better, even them out a bit. Humanities and Liberal Arts majors scored highest on the verbal section compared to other majors (which is logical); however, their average verbal was still only a 541. Engineers average a 721 math score, shouldn't Literature/History students average about that on the verbal?
I took the GRE practice test available on the official website (http://www.ets.org/gre/). I missed two question on the mathematics section, giving me an 800 (like the SAT it's 800 verbal, 800 math, and two essay sections). The verbal, on the other hand, kicked my ass. The verbal side has 4 types of questions: pick the best word, reading comprehension, analogies, and antonymns. There were 8 antonymn questions on each of the two sections, accounting for 16 of the 76 question. Discounting that section, I missed 4 questions on the verbal. Counting the antonymns, I missed 16 total questions, giving me a 660 verbal score. I was pissed, as I expected to do a hell of a lot better than that. Then I chose to look at the percentiles based on test scores. A perfect math score of 800 is 94th percentile. Not too shabby. My 660 verbal? That was good enough for 91st percentile. What the fuck? 91st for a 660? You could make a 730 (which I would have made without the antonymn sections) and still be in the 99th percentile. Who the hell decided to make a test so hard that getting less than 90% of the test right is essentially a perfect score? 68 correct answers of the 76 possible, nets a 730, that's 89.47% of the test right.
Why the hell can you miss 3 questions of the 60 math problems and get an 800, but only miss 2 Verbal questions to get an 800? Why the hell is an 800 math only 94th percentile when a 730 Verbal is still high enough. I address this to the ETS. Skew your tests better, even them out a bit. Humanities and Liberal Arts majors scored highest on the verbal section compared to other majors (which is logical); however, their average verbal was still only a 541. Engineers average a 721 math score, shouldn't Literature/History students average about that on the verbal?