Psych GRE

[yeti2213]

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Any one taking the psych gre on Nov 12. How are you preparing?

Not a psych major for particularly concerned. Ideas on what I should be doing?

 

[syzergy]

I bought the Kaplan psych book and memorized all the bolded terms using notecards and post-it notes stuck to my walls.

A lot of the psych gre is actually applying what you know instead of just rattling off definitions. For example, it'll give you a situation and ask what concept is best related to the situation. It really helped me to try and relate terms together instead of just memorizing them on their own.

I also took multiple practice tests and reviewed all the questions I got wrong. Even with all this studying there were still some concepts and names I had never seen. But all in all, I still got a pretty good score so I'm happy with my studying technique. This is what worked for me, it may be too much or even too little for the next person. I just happen to learn best from notecards and practice exams.

 

[JuniperTree]

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Studying from Kaplan, Princeton Review. Hung up charts in the bathroom so my family talks about it.

I have a 4.0 in my major (psych) but did really poorly on a practice test (I can't focus for that long - did very well on the GREs because of the changing sections, but find that after #50 I start making careless mistakes.)

Any tips to increase my endurance?

 

[yeti2213]

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Studying from Kaplan, Princeton Review. Hung up charts in the bathroom so my family talks about it.

i have just the princeton review. are they much different from each other?

as for the endurance. sorry i don't have ideas. i had that problem in the regular gre, which ever section I got second I tended to regularly score 20 below when i got it first. fortunately on the real exam I got the quant before the verbal

 

[Jegg]

Any one taking the psych gre on Nov 12. How are you preparing?

Not a psych major for particularly concerned. Ideas on what I should be doing?

I received a 97th percentile score by studying for around 6 hours a day for the week preceding the test. During that time I read the Kaplan book and underlined the salient points; studied the underlined points; took the ETS practice test; and studied the incorrect test items. I also read through the cognitive biases section on Wikipedia a few times.

I did not major in undergraduate psych nor did I have a graduate degree in psych either. I did take a few psych courses previously though...

 

[JuniperTree]

i have just the princeton review. are they much different from each other?

as for the endurance. sorry i don't have ideas. i had that problem in the regular gre, which ever section I got second I tended to regularly score 20 below when i got it first. fortunately on the real exam I got the quant before the verbal

Yes. I found the Princeton Review felt much shorter, but after reading the book, I couldn't remember anything. It was written in an interesting way which made it easy to go through, but hard to remember.
Kaplan is longer, bigger print, and more details. I found it more helpful but didn't enjoy reading through it. The charts they provide are great for memorizing, as are their questions at the end of every chapter.
For physiology, the easiest way for me to learn is to play memory on flashcards.com.

Oh well, at least I'm in good company. 🙂

 

[Jegg]

Any tips to increase my endurance?

Wear prophylactics on your writing fingers and thumb?

 

[The Everglow]

I bought both the pricenton and the kaplan book (about what, 30 bucks each or so I think). I memorized virtually every word pertinent to psychology in them.

I scored an 800 (99th percentile)

I wasn't a psych major, though I did many psych courses.

Alas, I'd highly recommend getting these books. There is lots of overlap, but I found it good to have both, because some topics were covered in one, and not the other.

All the best, and please me know if you want any specific advice. You can PM me if you'd like!

 

[JuniperTree]

I bought both the pricenton and the kaplan book (about what, 30 bucks each or so I think). I memorized virtually every word pertinent to psychology in them.

I scored an 800 (99th percentile)

I wasn't a psych major, though I did many psych courses.

Alas, I'd highly recommend getting these books. There is lots of overlap, but I found it good to have both, because some topics were covered in one, and not the other.

All the best, and please me know if you want any specific advice. You can PM me if you'd like!

Thanks!
Congrats on a great score!
I love your username btw. 🙂

 

[Idealist64]

I'm also taking the Nov 12 subject test. I haven't start prepping yet (I was a psych undergrad major so I'm hoping things come back to me!), but I have the Kaplan test prep book. I've found Kaplan to be pretty good in the past.

A related question-- I'm starting to get nervous that with some of the schools that have a Dec 1 the pscyh GRE scores won't get to them in time. Does anyone know how long it takes ETS to send the scores? If the subject test is required by the program and the application is complete except for the subject test scores, will they disregard the app if they don't have the scores exactly by Dec 1?

 

[The Everglow]

Thanks!
Congrats on a great score!
I love your username btw. 🙂

No problem Juniper, and thanks!

PS: did you know how you would move me did you know? did you know how you would move me, well, I don't even think so.

 

[Jegg]

A related question-- I'm starting to get nervous that with some of the schools that have a Dec 1 the pscyh GRE scores won't get to them in time. Does anyone know how long it takes ETS to send the scores? If the subject test is required by the program and the application is complete except for the subject test scores, will they disregard the app if they don't have the scores exactly by Dec 1?

The scores take around 6 weeks. 😱

http://www.ets.org/gre/subject/faq/?viewfaq=faq4

I would ask each school about their policy; it is different for different programs.

 

[PerhapsMaybeOk]

this test is pretty weak. I was 99th percentile and I just took it randomly to see how i'd do. I am by no means a strong student ha.

 

[yeti2213]

Ok. This is a helpful. I'm gonna get the Kaplan book to compliment the princeton review one I have. One thing that was super helpful with the regular GRE was iPod flashcards. I have yet to locate any for the psych gre.

I looked up the split of questions http://www.ets.org/gre/subject/about/content/psychology.

So my strategy is to begin studying Developmental and Measurements/Methods first. I am taking a Intro Psych class right now and we will have covered the Social, Personality, Abnormal, and Learning sections by the GRE. So I can start to work on those later. The history etc, I will just cram at the last min. Since that stuff is pretty easy to keep in your head for a couple of days only.

 

[JuniperTree]

So I just took one of the Kaplan practice tests (I'm saving the ETS one for last.)
They don't provide a conversion chart in the book, or tell you what the subscores would be.

If you have ever taken this practice exam, did your raw score correlate with your score on the actual GRE?
Thanks.

P.S. I have found Wikipedia very helpful - just looking up stuff like Social Psychology gives you an idea of the important people and issues in the field, and it is updated and sourced, unlike our books.

 

[Jegg]

So I just took one of the Kaplan practice tests (I'm saving the ETS one for last.)
They don't provide a conversion chart in the book, or tell you what the subscores would be.

If you have ever taken this practice exam, did your raw score correlate with your score on the actual GRE?
Thanks.

P.S. I have found Wikipedia very helpful - just looking up stuff like Social Psychology gives you an idea of the important people and issues in the field, and it is updated and sourced, unlike our books.

I didn't use the Kaplan tests. Sorry.

 

[cara susanna]

I didn't study at all and I did super well. Of course, I had also just taken History of Psych so that helped a lot.

 

[JuniperTree]

I didn't use the Kaplan tests. Sorry.

no apologies, thanks for answering.

Anyone else?

 

[Idealist64]

I am taking the exam Nov 12 (2 days-yikes!) and have read through both the Kaplan book and the Princeton Review. My advice to anyone taking the exam Saturday or anytime in the future is to use the Princeton Review! I found it to be much more helpful and to have a lot of the material that was on the practice test that ETS sends out (also found this practice test extremely helpful!)

Kaplan is okay if you need an entire review of psych, as it is much more detailed...but I feel it almost gets too bogged down in detail. If you have time to use the Kaplan you might as well go read an intro psych book. The Princeton does a much better job of isolating key terms and ideas and presenting it in a simple way that is easy to remember. Just my 2 cents but I hope this helps somebody out there in the future!

Good luck to everyone who is taking the test this weekend!

 

[deuce22]

Just took the ETS practice test and feel a lot better about my test on Saturday than I did 24 hours ago (got a 720 based on the conversion chart, etc.). I studied using the Kaplan book and didn't really make an attempt to convert my raw scores from the practice tests (I missed a lot of questions the first time around and knew it so I looked at what I needed to study and hammered down). Hopefully the test content will be similar to what I saw on the ETS practice test.

There were a few specific studies that I didn't recognize (on the ETS test) and so I had to guess what the answer might be based on the information in the questions (that's the one thing I like about MC questions in psychology, the terms are almost always based on concrete definitions of each word), but otherwise I feel that Kaplan did a pretty solid job summarizing everything. I wouldn't recommend using an intro text to study just because some of the content is more specialized than what I remember from my AP Psych and Intro courses. I think that the ETS test was easier than the Kaplan test too (even with having already read the specific material Kaplan would be testing), which I attribute to their more elaborate reasoning questions. Fingers crossed for Saturday. Good luck to everyone else that will be taking it with me.

 

[yeti2213]

I took the ETS practice yesterday and suffered a major freakout until I scored it. Looks like over a 700 can be pulled off with quite a number of questions skipped/wrong.

If anyone comes across this thread in the future and is preparing for the psych GRE without any psych classes in their back ground, I'd say two thing,

1. The princeton review book is not enough. Its a good way to get exposure to some basic concepts, but the GRE requires you to apply them and that only comes with actually understand these ideas semantically.

2. Guess aggressively. Especially in social psych. When I see questions about theories I have never heard off, I try to imagine what it could mean. And what factors could be at play, and then try to eliminate answer choices. On the balance this has been to my advantage.

Good luck tomorrow everyone!!!

 

[FadedC]

I strongly agree about the guessing part. If you've never learned the answer to the question, don't skip it. Take some time to look at it and think about it, and there's a good chance you can figure it out. In general the Psych GRE does not try to trick you. If they ask you what the name of something is, and one of the answers sounds really obvious, then that's probably the right answer.

Other then that the psych GRE is a wierd test because you can get above an 800 on it. Many say it's easy because it's easy to get a high numerical score, however that just means people tend to expect even higher scores from you. A score that would be high on the other GRE tests might be viewed as low on the psych GRE. With all that said, I think a lot of schools put less emphasis on it.

I took the ETS practice yesterday and suffered a major freakout until I scored it. Looks like over a 700 can be pulled off with quite a number of questions skipped/wrong.

If anyone comes across this thread in the future and is preparing for the psych GRE without any psych classes in their back ground, I'd say two thing,

1. The princeton review book is not enough. Its a good way to get exposure to some basic concepts, but the GRE requires you to apply them and that only comes with actually understand these ideas semantically.

2. Guess aggressively. Especially in social psych. When I see questions about theories I have never heard off, I try to imagine what it could mean. And what factors could be at play, and then try to eliminate answer choices. On the balance this has been to my advantage.

Good luck tomorrow everyone!!!

 

[yeti2213]

So I bit the bullet and decide 12 dollars was worth finding out how I did. Called ets and got my subject test scores, 760 which is 94th percentile. I'll take it.

How did it go for the rest of you? Are you just gonna wait till dec 23 to see your score for free?

 

[Idealist64]

So I bit the bullet and decide 12 dollars was worth finding out how I did. Called ets and got my subject test scores, 760 which is 94th percentile. I'll take it.

How did it go for the rest of you? Are you just gonna wait till dec 23 to see your score for free?

Wow, that's weird-- I called today and mine was 760/94th percentile as well! I'm very pleased with that score....for some reason I left the test room on the 12th feeling quite nervous about how it had gone.

The subject test is required for 5 of the 15 schools I'm applying to, recommended at about 5 and not mentioned at the other 5. Now I just have to figure out if I'm going to send it to the schools that just recommend it and those that don't mention it, or not. Does anyone have any insight into whether or not its worth it to send it to the schools that don't require it (an extra $230 or so)?

 

[Marissa4usa]

Wow, that's weird-- I called today and mine was 760/94th percentile as well! I'm very pleased with that score....for some reason I left the test room on the 12th feeling quite nervous about how it had gone.

The subject test is required for 5 of the 15 schools I'm applying to, recommended at about 5 and not mentioned at the other 5. Now I just have to figure out if I'm going to send it to the schools that just recommend it and those that don't mention it, or not. Does anyone have any insight into whether or not its worth it to send it to the schools that don't require it (an extra $230 or so)?

You can send the general and subject scores together - that way you don't have to fork out an extra $23 for each school. Of course, if you already sent your general scores, then I would just sent it to the schools that require it.

 

[syzergy]

You can send the general and subject scores together - that way you don't have to fork out an extra $23 for each school. Of course, if you already sent your general scores, then I would just sent it to the schools that require it.

I second this. 94% is a great percentile so definitely send it if you haven't send the regular score yet.

 

[Idealist64]

Thanks for the replies 🙂 Unfortunately I sent the regular GREs a while back because I took the subject test so late that I wanted to make sure all the schools had the regular GRE scores on time at least. So now I have to decide if the potential boost from the psych score is worth $23 at each school...

 

[yeti2213]

Thanks for the replies 🙂 Unfortunately I sent the regular GREs a while back because I took the subject test so late that I wanted to make sure all the schools had the regular GRE scores on time at least. So now I have to decide if the potential boost from the psych score is worth $23 at each school...

I'm sending mine in regardless of requirement cause I have no psych background, so it seems wise. If you have a ugrad degree in psych or even a bunch of psych courses I'm not sure its totally worth it. The impression I've gotten from asking around is that people don't really think too much of the psych gre,

 

[deuce22]

So I bit the bullet and decide 12 dollars was worth finding out how I did. Called ets and got my subject test scores, 760 which is 94th percentile. I'll take it.

How did it go for the rest of you? Are you just gonna wait till dec 23 to see your score for free?

I hit 770, 96th percentile. Very happy with it, especially since its way higher than my 2 run-throughs on the Kaplan practice tests. I'm sending the scores to 4 of my schools, 3 of which don't require it and had Dec. 1st deadlines (I'm only sending it to them because its free on the off-chance that they arrive before they start formally reviewing my files). I looked at my myGRE page and it was updated with Dec. 10th Report dates, but I don't know if that means that my scores were submitted then or if my Nov. 12th subject test scores are included on that. I sent my revised test scores last month.