GRE scores have finally improved on practice tests

[La Lioness Priyanka]

So i took the gre over 5 years ago and my scores were 710/750. I am doing practice tests now and my math was just not improving at all. Finally today it improved to 640, which is still less than when i took it in 02 but better that being stuck at 570.

[friedgreentomatoes]

1. For me..

...the stress/importance of the "real" thing was a real booster.
I never did well in the practice tests, but was mighty happy with the actual score. :)

[Redstone]

2. You probably don't want to hear that for several years, I had a lucrative business

of taking GREs for people at $200 a pop.

That was back in the 1970s, when $200 was nice money for a few hours of work, and there were no pictures on drivers' licenses.

I finally had to quit when the people at the University of Pennsylvania looked at the 98th-percentile score I got for one of my "clients," and got suspicious because he had never shown any other academic promise during the previous 4 years.

I was kind of annoyed at the time, because I thought that acing the GRE should have given me the right to skip college and go right into graduate school (after all, I passed the TEST, didn't I?), but no...they would have insisted that I go to an actual college first.

But it all worked out in the end. Now, the hard part is getting my sons to understand that THEY have to go to college, even though I've been successful without having done so.

You'll do well, I believe that. Keep at it.

Redstone

[friedgreentomatoes]

3. well...

..... the only acceptable ID where I took the test was passport.

[Redstone]

4. Ah, that's one of the few good things about being old...it was SO much easier to

cheat back then, whether to pretend to be someone else to make a few illicit bucks, or to alter your driver's license to pass the "carding" in a bar.

Redstone

[harmonicon]

9. there was a good window of card altering in the 90's

The Michigan driver's license had this really blocky old computer font where 7's looked an awful lot like 2's. I had loads of friends born in '77 who, with the quick stroke of a pen, were magically born in '72. As far as I remember, it worked every time, until they brought in a new license with a different font. Some people still tried that, but I don't think it ever worked.

[Zuiderelle]

12. I've had a license since 1976 and always had a picture on it.

I guess I must have gotten one of the first ones with a picture. I had no idea they didn't have pictures on licenses into the 70's.

But back to the subject... You don't think there's anything wrong with having done something like that?

[Redstone]

14. Well, of COURSE it was morally wrong for me to have done that. I "justified" it at the time by

telling myself that all I was doing was helping the people get into graduate school, and they'd have to buckle down and do the work if they were going to be able to stay there and graduate.

Nonetheless, I was helping people cheat, and getting paid for it. No question.

Redstone

[Lavender Brown]

5. They changed the test a lot the past few years

The practice tests are a little harder than the actual thing - at least that was my experience.

[friedgreentomatoes]

6. that...

....would actually make sense. I took many mock tests, from numerous textbooks as well, all were fairly. I found the actual exam relatively simpler.

[PVnRT]

7. At least you get practice tests

The PE exam has a sample question booklet. They don't let people publish practice tests.

[harmonicon]

10. They make you take exams in gym class now?!?!

:P

[Adsos Letter]

8. I received a 760 on the Verbal, and a 680 on the math...

and that really freaked me out because I guessed on the majority of the math/quantitative problems... :shrug:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

11. hope you are right. i am scoring 760 in verbal on practice tests

[Adsos Letter]

13. You'll do fine lioness...

you are where you are beacause you did well in academia; you will do well on the test also. My biggest fear was actually for the essays portion, but I scored a 5, and was happy with that.

Are you taking the General, or subject-specific GRE?

[EFerrari]

15. My department didn't care if I tanked the math portion.

:shrug:

[SidneyCarton]

16. Congrats!

:toast::toast::toast:

I don't remember my GRE math scores, but they weren't good, fortunately I was applying to enter a History program, and could get away with it.