Retaking the GRE's

[GradStudent87]

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So I've taken the GRE twice already, both times i scored 640 on math. Verbal I did bad the first time scoring 450 and mediocre the second time scoring 530. Would you recommend retaking the GRE's a third time even if i feel realistically my math score won't change or may even go down a little but i feel I could pull my verbal score up more, however in the event I didn't pull my score up more would that hurt me that i took it three times? Would it also hurt if my math score went down a little or would they just focus on the highest score? Thanks.

 

[aspiretobephd]

I'd retake it if you are planning on applying to competitive PhD programs. I had issues with the verbal section too. After studying the Sparknotes vocabulary cards and the Kaplan GRE vocab cards, I performed much better(200+pts). I suggest increasing your vocabulary over the next few months using these resources and taking again.

Although, from my experience, I think they use the GRE as a cutoff so they can cut down on the amount of applications that get reviewed. So check with the schools you are applying, if your scores are consistent with their reported scores then you should be fine. If their average scores are much higher, you need to take again.

Also keep in mind that the reported scores can be distorted. Most undergraduate institutions report only the freshmen classes highest scores even if they consider an average score when making admissions decisions. So I'd contact the program and ask what they consider and also, what goes into the numbers they report, because it is common practice to report the high scores only.

Finally, I think it depends on the program policy whether they average your scores or just take the highest. I'd also ask that question when you contact them. At the end of the day, if you commit to putting a lot of time into it, your verbal score will be much better. It is seriously just a matter of learning as much vocabulary as possible, it's not rocket science. I was amazed at how much easier the verbal section was after I dedicated a lot of time increasing my vocabulary. Even the reading comprehension was much easier. My best advice, take the summer, commit to studying those lists I suggested for 20-40 minutes a day (I did it in front of the television most of the time) and take it again in September. You'll be glad you did! Those scores stay with you!

 

[cara susanna]

I just wanted to say that I don't think studying vocab is always the way to go. I increased my score 90 points and didn't study any vocab because vocab wasn't my problem--analogies were.

Of course, if you feel that is your weakness, then by all means. I just advise finding your weakness and working on it, no matter what it is.

Also, you can find programs with low to no GRE cutoffs. They do exist 😀 I had the same problem as you, only my difficulty was with the quant, not verbal.

 

[GradStudent87]

I just wanted to say that I don't think studying vocab is always the way to go. I increased my score 90 points and didn't study any vocab because vocab wasn't my problem--analogies were.

Of course, if you feel that is your weakness, then by all means. I just advise finding your weakness and working on it, no matter what it is.

Also, you can find programs with low to no GRE cutoffs. They do exist 😀 I had the same problem as you, only my difficulty was with the quant, not verbal.

It's weird because on most practice tests I scored higher on the verbal then on the quant and in general I'm better at reading then math but on both tests I did better on the math. That's kind of one reason I'm scared to retake it because while i'm pretty confident I can pull my verbal up, I don't trust my math not to go down. I kind of agree with you about studying about vocab because i stuided about 5000 words before taking the test and it didn't seem to help that much on test day, it helped somewhat but still yea you need to understand how to work the analogies even if you understand the words in them.

 

[cara susanna]

Yeah, I was scoring above 600 on Power Prep/Kaplan/etc for verbal and then I took the real thing and got in the 500s. Very frustrating.

Of course, like I said, my second time went much better with the verbal section.

 

[GradStudent87]

Yeah, I was scoring above 600 on Power Prep/Kaplan/etc for verbal and then I took the real thing and got in the 500s. Very frustrating.

Of course, like I said, my second time went much better with the verbal section.

Any suggestions on how to pull up the verbal score, I've been trying to study words but I feel like it's a waste of time because I can study 1000 words and only 2 of them show up on test day, are there any really good hints/tips for pulling your score up besides studying vocab words?

 

[cara susanna]

I had to learn approaches for certain types of questions. Like, for analogies, come up with a defining sentence for the analogy and then just use that. Also, use the process of elimination. Antonyms, if you don't know the word, just try to figure out if it's positive or negative and then which answer is the opposite of whichever it was. Sometimes you can use root words as well to figure out what is opposite. For reading comp, be able to point to your answer in the excerpt; don't make inferences or overanalyze.

Sentence completion I have no suggestions because I was always really good at it and it was the one area I didn't need to work on, haha.

 

[apumic]

Just a thought... the verbal score almost never changes. It's the most stable section on the GRE, so if you doubt your quant will change, I wouldn't bet on a better verbal. To be honest, at this point, it's probably not worthwhile to retake as another mediocre score will only further solidify in your evaluators' minds that your previous scores were a valid assessment of your ability (as measured by the GRE) and even if you were to score well on the 3rd time, it might be seen as more of a "fluke" in light of the other 2 scores. Perhaps if you can strengthen other aspects of our application and get faculty at your prospective schools to want you enough to request a "pass" for you on the GRE scores, you might get an interview. I know of at least one now-PhD who went to one of the top schools in the nation for social psych with a low GRE. As she knew a faculty member there and the faculty member really wanted her as a student, this faculty member handpicked her application out of the stack and basically pushed her file through despite the weak GREs, so it certainly does happen, even at the stronger programs.

 

[cara susanna]

That's a good point. I honestly think there's only so much that you can raise your score, unfortunately.

 

[GradStudent87]

Just a thought... the verbal score almost never changes. It's the most stable section on the GRE, so if you doubt your quant will change, I wouldn't bet on a better verbal. To be honest, at this point, it's probably not worthwhile to retake as another mediocre score will only further solidify in your evaluators' minds that your previous scores were a valid assessment of your ability (as measured by the GRE) and even if you were to score well on the 3rd time, it might be seen as more of a "fluke" in light of the other 2 scores. Perhaps if you can strengthen other aspects of our application and get faculty at your prospective schools to want you enough to request a "pass" for you on the GRE scores, you might get an interview. I know of at least one now-PhD who went to one of the top schools in the nation for social psych with a low GRE. As she knew a faculty member there and the faculty member really wanted her as a student, this faculty member handpicked her application out of the stack and basically pushed her file through despite the weak GREs, so it certainly does happen, even at the stronger programs.

Yea you may be right, although I think it depends on the school as some only focus on your highest scores and some would focus on all three. As far as pushing the score up anyway I think it would be difficult, I guess the reason I feel I could do it is because I did go up 80 points between test 1 and 2 and because I generally score higher on practice verbal tests then i scored on either test. I'm not expecting a miracle, maybe a 30-50 point raise, i don't know if that would affect anything. My plan is to take some practice tests and see how high i'm scoring, if i'm not scoring that high then forget it I won't bother retaking it, if I score a lot higher then i did on the test then i blame my low score on test anxiety and i need to figure out a way to manage that.

 

[Wildcat06]

Hey GradStudent,

I used the Kaplan book to study (the one with the CD) as well as a Kaplan flashcard vocab book. But one thing I found particularly helpful in the Kaplan book was that it gave lists of words grouped together, e.g. words relating to abundance or negative words. You don't need to know the exact definition of words to do well, you just have to have a sense of their meaning, and I thought that way of studying was particularly effective. 🙂

 

[GradStudent87]

Hey GradStudent,

I used the Kaplan book to study (the one with the CD) as well as a Kaplan flashcard vocab book. But one thing I found particularly helpful in the Kaplan book was that it gave lists of words grouped together, e.g. words relating to abundance or negative words. You don't need to know the exact definition of words to do well, you just have to have a sense of their meaning, and I thought that way of studying was particularly effective. 🙂

Thanks, I've used that technique actually, in fact I use it for pretty much all multiple choice tests(don't really need to know exact answer just need to have a general idea of stuff) it does help somewhat although hasn't worked that great for me with the gre because even then I feel like there are so many different categories of words and so many words within each category but i guess maybe the best way to study is to study the words most common to each category?

btw to justify my point before not that I'm arguing as I'm asking for advice but I saw this on a website which justifys my idea that some schools focus on just the highest score so it may be worth taking 3 times.

"If, on the other hand, you feel that there is not much you can do differently the second time around, you should retake the test only if you must earn a higher score or if you are willing to take the chance of scoring lower the second time. (Keep in mind that for the GRE General Test, many graduate programs take into consideration only the highest score earned in each section. What this means is that if you scored a 550 verbal / 660 quantitative on your first trial and a 600 verbal / 580 quantitative on your second trial, the admissions committee will consider your score to be a 600 verbal / 660 quantitative. Each graduate program evaluates your score differently. Contact your target programs to learn how they handle the GRE score.)"

 

[numbereight]

im a big time advocate for the kaplan course. i took it and went from a 1250 to a 1400. i generally followed their advice but i took the test the same week the course ended. they advise you to keep studying at least an additional two weeks. if you don't want to take the course i would advise you to not retake the GRE. it is hard to increase your verbal and i am not confident that you can unless you have a serious structured intervention. no offense of course. it's what i did.

 

[psychanxiety]

I was told by graduate students not to retake the gres unless you can score about 100 points higher.

And, like many other people, my practice scores were about 50-100 points higher than my actual score. I think this is pretty common. I decided not to retake them, since I wasn't certain I would score 100 points higher.

 

[GradStudent87]

im a big time advocate for the kaplan course. i took it and went from a 1250 to a 1400. i generally followed their advice but i took the test the same week the course ended. they advise you to keep studying at least an additional two weeks. if you don't want to take the course i would advise you to not retake the GRE. it is hard to increase your verbal and i am not confident that you can unless you have a serious structured intervention. no offense of course. it's what i did.

hmm by structured course does it have to be kaplan or something instructed by another person or can it be a website that guides you on how to study/prepare for the test?

 

[Wildcat06]

I was told by graduate students not to retake the gres unless you can score about 100 points higher.

And, like many other people, my practice scores were about 50-100 points higher than my actual score. I think this is pretty common. I decided not to retake them, since I wasn't certain I would score 100 points higher.

this was not the case for me, but then again i think i'm one of the few people on earth who was bolstered by the cat design. that's another thing to keep in mind is how well you feel you were prepared for the cat and if studying more and/or taking courses could help improve that.

 

[numbereight]

hmm by structured course does it have to be kaplan or something instructed by another person or can it be a website that guides you on how to study/prepare for the test?

hmm i dunno. i only have experience with kaplan, but i would imagine that others (e.g. princeton review) are similar. i took the classroom + online course. i am inclined to say that classroom+online is better because you get the verbal+visual learning. even if the website talks to you, i don't think it's the same. i think that i got the most benefit from the structure the course provided. i studied what they told me, when they told me. after you complete the basic lessons you can get additional lessons and practice in whatever types of questions you need help with. the actual classroom lessons were often boring, but they did help me get in the GRE frame of mind and make taking the test more automatic.

 

[GradStudent87]

this was not the case for me, but then again i think i'm one of the few people on earth who was bolstered by the cat design. that's another thing to keep in mind is how well you feel you were prepared for the cat and if studying more and/or taking courses could help improve that.

Yea I think a big part of doing well is mastering how that works, from thew way I see it you can get a decent score without getting too many really hard questions right but you really really can't get anything easy wrong.

 

[cara susanna]

I took online Princeton Review tutoring, and my score went up 130 points. However, like I said, my improvement was mostly in the area at which I was already good--verbal. 😉

 

[GradStudent87]

I took online Princeton Review tutoring, and my score went up 130 points. However, like I said, my improvement was mostly in the area at which I was already good--verbal. 😉

Yea that probably is also a good strategy to improve on what you're already good at it rather then focusing on stuff that gives you a lot of trouble, only in my case I don't really feel I'm better at math then verbal. I know reading comp and data analysis are the easiest sections for me and probably for anyone(at least anyone majoring in psych) so my goal is to get 100% of those questions right at least.

 

[GradStudent87]

Wow I just took a practice test and scored 720 on the verbal and 510 on the math(although the math I didn't finish the last 3 questions because my computer was having problems) I just don't understand this test anymore and really do think it's kind of randomn to at least some extent how someone scores. I also notice it really does all come down to the first 5-10 questions, if you hit level 5 questions you're basically in good shape even if you only get half or so of them right.

 

[socialcog]

hmm i dunno. i only have experience with kaplan, but i would imagine that others (e.g. princeton review) are similar. i took the classroom + online course. i am inclined to say that classroom+online is better because you get the verbal+visual learning. even if the website talks to you, i don't think it's the same. i think that i got the most benefit from the structure the course provided. i studied what they told me, when they told me. after you complete the basic lessons you can get additional lessons and practice in whatever types of questions you need help with. the actual classroom lessons were often boring, but they did help me get in the GRE frame of mind and make taking the test more automatic.

Like numbereight, I took the Kaplan classroom and online study package. In the end, my score went up 160 points--most of it in math even though I spent slightly more time on verbal. In my opinion, there is an element of luck when taking the verbal section. There are simply too many words that we are accountable for and the liklihood of knowing all of them is remote.

 

[krisrox]

Can anyone compare their SAT score to their GRE score? I know there isn't an "official" correlation between the two scores, but did anyone notice any trends between the two? I'm wondering because I aced the math section, did fairly well on writing and bombed verbal... anyone else notice they scored the same on each section?

 

[cara susanna]

Generally the same, but I did much better on the GRE than the ACT.

However, the trends were similar: bad math, great verbal. When I took the ACT there was no writing section so I can't compare there.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Judging from practice tests (I take the real thing on the 7th! 😱), my Q is actually higher than my V, which is the total opposite of every other test I've taken. 😕

 

[GradStudent87]

Like numbereight, I took the Kaplan classroom and online study package. In the end, my score went up 160 points--most of it in math even though I spent slightly more time on verbal. In my opinion, there is an element of luck when taking the verbal section. There are simply too many words that we are accountable for and the liklihood of knowing all of them is remote.

Yea I realize this, I think a lot of it is luck/randomn do you hit mostly words on the test day that you happened to be able to study or not, there's no real magic formula althoiugh like i said i guess the best bet is to completely ace the reading comprehension and try to focus on getting the first 5 right, however you possibly can and then hope for the best.

 

[Wildcat06]

Can anyone compare their SAT score to their GRE score? I know there isn't an "official" correlation between the two scores, but did anyone notice any trends between the two?

I was strong on both and on both did slightly better on the math (though my percentile score was higher on the verbal section do to the fact everyone seems to do decently well on the math).

But despite my BS in journalism, I did terrible on the writing section. I was super stressed about that before applying and if I'd realized it sooner, I would have had it rescored (FYI: YOU HAVE 6 MONTHS TO DO THIS, in case someone, like me, didn't read the fine print).

But I spent that much more time making my personal statement perfect and got many compliments on that and not one question about my lame score in 8 interviews (!) Did anyone else notice that they don't seem too concerned with the writing scores?

 

[psychanxiety]

I was strong on both and on both did slightly better on the math (though my percentile score was higher on the verbal section do to the fact everyone seems to do decently well on the math).

But despite my BS in journalism, I did terrible on the writing section. I was super stressed about that before applying and if I'd realized it sooner, I would have had it rescored (FYI: YOU HAVE 6 MONTHS TO DO THIS, in case someone, like me, didn't read the fine print).

But I spent that much more time making my personal statement perfect and got many compliments on that and not one question about my lame score in 8 interviews (!) Did anyone else notice that they don't seem too concerned with the writing scores?

Yeah, I also bombed the writing section. It was just test anxiety- it was my first section and I sat there for 15 minutes staring at the computer with my heart pounding before I could even start brain storming. I was thinking about retaking the GREs, but everyone convinced me not to because they said writing scores don't matter much. I sent in writing samples from my senior thesis hoping that could even things out a little and no one asked me about it at interviews.

As far as SAT correlations, it was the same trend when you look at percentile scores, not the number score. On the SAT, I did better on verbal than quat. On the GRE, my scores on the two sections were the same, but the verbal percentile score was waaaaaaaay higher than the quantitative one. As far as overall score, I scored exactly 100 points lower on the GRE than SAT. It makes sense to me that you'd score lower on the GREs, just because your score is also based on how well the other test takers that day do, and I'd assume there's a higher proportion of smart people applying to graduate school than college.

 

[thewesternsky]

Judging from practice tests (I take the real thing on the 7th! 😱), my Q is actually higher than my V, which is the total opposite of every other test I've taken. 😕

This is likely because the GRE math is scaled to be "easier" than the GRE verbal.

For example, a score of 660 on the verbal section is 94th percentile. To get in the 94th percentile on the math section, you need to score 800. So someone with very strong verbal skills and much weaker quant skills might score 660V and 680Q. 🙂

 

[cara susanna]

Oh God, that just depresses me further. Good thing I already got admitted, haha.

Re: Writing, I only got a 4.5 and I've been told that I'm a very good writer. I think the problem is that the prompts they give you are basically, either you know about it or you don't. Plus they tend to be so boring that it's hard to write a paragraph about them, let alone five.

 

[Wildcat06]

I also heard from another applicant that part of the score is based on the length of your response. Not so good for someone like me who's very succinct. But the general word I heard from faculty members is that the analytical writing section is too new to be reliable.

(E.g. I got 99 percentile verbal, 37 percentile writing 😕.)

 

[GradStudent87]

Oh God, that just depresses me further. Good thing I already got admitted, haha.

Re: Writing, I only got a 4.5 and I've been told that I'm a very good writer. I think the problem is that the prompts they give you are basically, either you know about it or you don't. Plus they tend to be so boring that it's hard to write a paragraph about them, let alone five.

I got 4.5 both times on the writing and I usually do very well on essays, I don't think the writing part is that important as long as you don't totally mess it up.