GRE Experience - Be Mentally Prepared

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

A GRE test-taker's experience and his advice for test day...

We all know that the GRE is important in graduate school admissions, so I set aside a couple of months to prepare. I studied lots of words, took lots of practice tests, and as the GRE came near, I was scoring 800 on quantitative and at least 700 on verbal. I felt ready, especially since I was applying to a technical field, so the 700 on verbal (which is still above 90th percentile) didn't worry me too much.

Anyways, GRE day finally arrived and I was ready to go. I got to the test center early and waited a little while and they directed me to my seat. I sat down in front of a computer, took a deep breath, and began. As expected, I began with the essays. I took a stance on the topics, wrote an outline, thought of evidence I could use to support my arguments, and then wrote my essays. Not too difficult.

After analytical writing, it was verbal. I felt comfortable with the vocabulary and reading passages. Next came quantitative. When I completed the quantitative (which seemed to go well), I was quite pleased with myself. I stretched my arms, breathed in heavily, satisfied with my GRE effort, I relaxed.

This is when I made a major mistake. I clicked on next, thinking I was done, and another verbal section began! I couldn't believe my eyes, because in all of the PowerPrep tests I took, there were no experimental sections. I tried to get myself back into focus, but it didn't work out too well. I think I was too hung up on the unfortunate surprise of another section. I trudged along, and finally, I was done....with the test...for real this time. 

My score appeared on the screen: 800 on Quantitative....560 on Verbal. 560! I was very disappointed. I was expecting a Verbal score of at least 90th percentile, and instead I got something near 50th percentile.

The Lesson Learned

Anyways, hopefully others can learn from my mistake. Mentally prepare yourself for the test. Make sure you know what to expect on test day! Fortunately, things still turned out okay for me...I got into my top choice graduate program, but for those vying for a high GRE score, prepare, prepare, PREPARE!