2 ms·

Agreed. I always assumed the GRE must have been designed to accommodate/calibrated to humanities and social science grad students (or other majors without a sig

by dtparr 13y ago

Agreed. I always assumed the GRE must have been designed to accommodate/calibrated to humanities and social science grad students (or other majors without a significant math component) more than STEM students. Almost every CS friend I had either scored a perfect score or missed only one. It was a little frustrating, as there's no room to differentiate students who are average from those who are outstanding.

B-Con 13y ago
Same story here. I was actually a math major and took the general GRE (which I believe is what we are discussing) in my senior year. I only studied the night before, just to see if their prep guide included any funky vocab or other memorization questions. I looked at some vocab, spent 10 minutes reviewing geometry and trig identities, and called it a night. Turns out I didn't even need any of it. (I did get one question wrong, though, and looking back I definitely know which one. It was an easy one in the middle of the exam questions and I think I just messed up a concept like "less than" instead of "less than or equal to".) All my math/C.S. friends thought it was really easy and I think the worst score I heard from them was 720 / 800. Interestingly, though, back when I took it the average score for the math section was notably higher than for the other sections. Just by missing 1 question I think I was bumped down to about the ~90% percentile.
ajdecon 13y ago
> I always assumed the GRE must have been designed to accommodate/calibrated to humanities and social science grad students (or other majors without a significant math component) more than STEM students. This is probably true. I mean, this is why we have GRE subject tests...
ekm2 13y ago
You must be talking of the Old GRE.The current GRE Math section is computer adaptive and getting a perfect score is no longer as easy as before.
- dtparr 13y ago
  Admittedly I've not kept up with the GRE since I took it in 2004. It was computer adaptive at that point, but I found it fairly easy (and had a perfect score on the math section)

by dtparr 13y ago

B-Con 13y ago

Same story here. I was actually a math major and took the general GRE (which I believe is what we are discussing) in my senior year. I only studied the night before, just to see if their prep guide included any funky vocab or other memorization questions. I looked at some vocab, spent 10 minutes reviewing geometry and trig identities, and called it a night. Turns out I didn't even need any of it. (I did get one question wrong, though, and looking back I definitely know which one. It was an easy one in the middle of the exam questions and I think I just messed up a concept like "less than" instead of "less than or equal to".) All my math/C.S. friends thought it was really easy and I think the worst score I heard from them was 720 / 800. Interestingly, though, back when I took it the average score for the math section was notably higher than for the other sections. Just by missing 1 question I think I was bumped down to about the ~90% percentile.

ajdecon 13y ago

> I always assumed the GRE must have been designed to accommodate/calibrated to humanities and social science grad students (or other majors without a significant math component) more than STEM students. This is probably true. I mean, this is why we have GRE subject tests...

ekm2 13y ago

You must be talking of the Old GRE.The current GRE Math section is computer adaptive and getting a perfect score is no longer as easy as before.

dtparr 13y ago
Admittedly I've not kept up with the GRE since I took it in 2004. It was computer adaptive at that point, but I found it fairly easy (and had a perfect score on the math section)