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Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 5:54 am
by ermiaazarkhalili
Dear All,
I would be happy to know what you think about the hardship of the exam taken on October 19th 2013.
I have 4 unanswered questions and 4 wrongs as I know- there should not be more though and max is about 6 wrongs. I have no idea what my grade and percentile would be?

1. Is there any scale to modify the scores and percentiles?
2. Do have I any chance to get +90 percentile in the exam?

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 12:38 pm
by goatman2743
There is no official scale for the exam. There are conversion charts for the released exams, but the most recent one is from 2005 and the consensus on here is that those charts are obsolete because the exams have become much more difficult in recent years. The best thing to do it probably to go through the score threads on here where people give their percentile along with the number of questions they attempted which will give you a rough starting point. For example, a guy who took the test in October 2012 (http://www.mathematicsgre.com/viewtopic ... ober#p5425) got 91% attempting only 51 questions, so if you actually only get 6 wrong and attempted 62 for a raw score of 55, you should be above 90, and possibly in the high 90s. That said, I don't know how safely you can say you have a max of 6 wrong. A lot of the questions have subtle points where its easy to get tripped up when you're on a time limit, and if you go through past threads you'll notice its also full of people who attempted tons of questions with confidence and were very disappointed with their scores.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 2:40 pm
by cti112
goatman2743 wrote:There is no official scale for the exam. There are conversion charts for the released exams, but the most recent one is from 2005 and the consensus on here is that those charts are obsolete because the exams have become much more difficult in recent years. The best thing to do it probably to go through the score threads on here where people give their percentile along with the number of questions they attempted which will give you a rough starting point. For example, a guy who took the test in October 2012 (http://www.mathematicsgre.com/viewtopic ... ober#p5425) got 91% attempting only 51 questions, so if you actually only get 6 wrong and attempted 62 for a raw score of 55, you should be above 90, and possibly in the high 90s. That said, I don't know how safely you can say you have a max of 6 wrong. A lot of the questions have subtle points where its easy to get tripped up when you're on a time limit, and if you go through past threads you'll notice its also full of people who attempted tons of questions with confidence and were very disappointed with their scores.
I guess another factor that greatly disappointed many people is that 1/4 point is taken off for each wrong answer.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:06 am
by ermiaazarkhalili
All dears,
Hope all of you are fine.
let me explain how we cracked this damn exam.

We are 13 national math medalist guys; 2 of them chosen to take the exam taken three weeks ago to let others how difficult the exam was compared to former ones-we knew the exam become much more difficult but we don't know how much?!

Afterwards, each one of 11 others decide to remind 6 questions and their answers!!! to discuss and make a good sample of real exams!!! ETS is a really piece of a shit because they are money hungry-their sample exams is not comparable at all with the real exams-.We decide to snub them!!!

Know we have almost all 66 questions and have discussed about their answers. The reason why I told max 6 wrongs thing is because I have four wrongs now and we are doubtful about two others. However, based on your words, if I have 8 wrongs I will probably above 90% since my overall trues would be 52- I am ware of negative effect of wrong answers to remove 1/4 of one true answers-, and it would be enough for me to get admission from everywhere I would like.

Thank you for your explanation.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:21 am
by ermiaazarkhalili
goatman2743 wrote:There is no official scale for the exam. There are conversion charts for the released exams, but the most recent one is from 2005 and the consensus on here is that those charts are obsolete because the exams have become much more difficult in recent years. The best thing to do it probably to go through the score threads on here where people give their percentile along with the number of questions they attempted which will give you a rough starting point. For example, a guy who took the test in October 2012 (http://www.mathematicsgre.com/viewtopic ... ober#p5425) got 91% attempting only 51 questions, so if you actually only get 6 wrong and attempted 62 for a raw score of 55, you should be above 90, and possibly in the high 90s. That said, I don't know how safely you can say you have a max of 6 wrong. A lot of the questions have subtle points where its easy to get tripped up when you're on a time limit, and if you go through past threads you'll notice its also full of people who attempted tons of questions with confidence and were very disappointed with their scores.
Do you have any plan to open the admission profile for fall 2014?
Thank you. :?:

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 9:41 am
by klob
First of all, what you are doing is not allowed. You must not tell other people anything about the content of this test. And it is unfair!

Moreover, there are different versions of the test, also in the same testing room. It is unlikely that everybody in your group had the same test. So it doesn't make sense to say each one of the 11 people in your group remembers only 6 questions, so you have all 66 questions of your test.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 10:19 am
by ppham27
ermiaazarkhalili wrote:All dears,
Hope all of you are fine.
let me explain how we cracked this damn exam.
That's technically cheating. I hope that ermiaazarkhalili isn't your real name. While I don't care, there are people that would try to report you to the ETS.

As for the difficulty of the test, I only attempted 53. I'm pretty sure about all of them at least. I'm beating myself over the head about 3 easy questions that I should have marked, though, so I suppose that I could have gotten a 56 in theory.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 11:22 am
by boo78
I took the Oct 19 test, and felt it was a little more difficult than the one I took a year ago. I did answer 55 this time, as opposed to only 48 last year, but last year I wasn't taking the test under optimum conditions. I had only been reviewing for 4 months after more than ten years since getting my BS, and I had just given birth to my second daughter 2 months before the test and she was colicky so I was very stressed and sleep-deprived. Even considering all those factors, I still got a 750, 72nd percentile. For only answering 48 questions, I think that indicates a pretty high accuracy, so assuming I had a similar accuracy this year having answered 55 I should score significantly higher, at least higher enough to have justified dropping another $150. Out of 55, I know of one I definitely got wrong and another that I'm pretty sure I got wrong, but I felt I was being pretty conservative about not guessing and only answering when I felt confident in one specific solution.

I do have a nagging question. On the practice test the GRE sends out, which was used only five years ago, a scaled score of 750 is 77th percentile, so I was a little disappointed that my 750 last year was only a 72nd percentile. I can understand making adjustments to conversions from raw scores to account for varying difficulties of different tests, but what can possibly be meaningful about the scaled scores if their correspondence to percentiles is not consistent? Does the correspondence between scaled score and percentile change every year, but remain constant for all tests taken that year? Everyone seems to suggest that the tests are becoming more difficult, but then why has the same scaled score DROPPED 5 percentile points in 5 years? This would indicate the test becoming easier. And many places refer to the scaled score going up to 990, including the Princeton Review, but on recent conversion charts it only goes up to 900. This is all very confusing. Anyone know more about what is going on? And I REALLY wish your score report would show your raw score. That way you would really know how accurate you were.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 11:47 am
by ermiaazarkhalili
Hello all,

1. why it is not allowed? we only remind the questions and it is not prohibited at all. we never wrote any questions, never took the exam outside, never write any cheating on the exam, etc. Nobody can justify that it was cheating, the definition of cheating is very clear based on what I write and endorse on the exam.We only discuss together about questions, and we all took the exam!!!

2. Do not worry at all since it is not my real name! 8)

3. You may be probably wrong as in my country and my city, all of us have the same exam since we are only 100 person taking this exam. I am pretty sure it is true for all the same country and cities- you can send an email to ETS to make yourselves sure.

4. I studied 3 month for this exam and think it is unjust! ETS is the most money hungry business I have sen ever. they force students to take one exam more than once by making hard the exams such as TOEFL, GRe revised, etc. much more and more!!!

Best,

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 11:51 am
by ermiaazarkhalili
klob wrote:First of all, what you are doing is not allowed. You must not tell other people anything about the content of this test. And it is unfair!

Moreover, there are different versions of the test, also in the same testing room. It is unlikely that everybody in your group had the same test. So it doesn't make sense to say each one of the 11 people in your group remembers only 6 questions, so you have all 66 questions of your test.
Unfair is the ETS business. They are the most money hungry guys I have ever seen!!! We only discuss together about questions.

moreover, you should be probably wrong, at the very least, this once! since I send them an email to make sure that question is the same in one city- or even one small country!

Be success. :)

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 12:15 pm
by boo78
It IS wrong. The statement you sign on the test clearly says you cannot communicate in any way any question that is on the test with anyone. You wrote and signed this on the test:

"I also agree not to disclose the contents of the test I am taking today to anyone."

You have clearly violated this by discussing the questions and answers with each other. I will be reporting this post to ETS. There may be nothing they can do to track you guys down, but many believe that these kinds of practices are common, especially outside the US, while others think those are just rumors. ETS and institutions need to know that this does go on and take that into account when reviewing applicants' scores.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 12:25 pm
by ermiaazarkhalili
boo78 wrote:It IS wrong. The statement you sign on the test clearly says you cannot communicate in any way any question that is on the test with anyone.
Dear sir/madam,

I think you ma be probably wrong about the words we wrote and sign.

I cannot understand why we discuss about it? I think I am fairly strong to probably get admission from whatever I aim. I know what exactly I wrote and endorse on my answer sheet. what we did is fair. we only discuss the questions together to know our situation. however; I have no plan to go to the US otherwise I can not get admission from somewhere else.

If you don't like it, I respect your opinion. If you think it is wrong, I have no plan to discuss you and everyone else here. I think almost everyone discuss with someone else abut the exam after finishing it, at least in my region.

Be success my friend.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 12:30 pm
by ermiaazarkhalili
boo78 wrote:It IS wrong. The statement you sign on the test clearly says you cannot communicate in any way any question that is on the test with anyone. You wrote and signed this on the test:

"I also agree not to disclose the contents of the test I am taking today to anyone."

You have clearly violated this by discussing the questions and answers with each other. I will be reporting this post to ETS. There may be nothing they can do to track you guys down, but many believe that these kinds of practices are common, especially outside the US, while others think those are just rumors. ETS and institutions need to know that this does go on and take that into account when reviewing applicants' scores.
You can do what you think and aim to. I wish you can do your best as it is not my real name.
I have no problem at all.
Be success.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:39 pm
by boo78
I will not attempt to debate your personal ethics, your opinion on the consequences of your actions with regard to fairness for other test-takers, or personal feelings about ETS. The matter at hand is that you wrote and signed your name to those exact words and then violated them. I just copied that quote directly from the ETS answer sheet. If you are so sure you have done nothing wrong, then you should be willing to reveal your true name and test location. If you do not feel comfortable revealing this information on this message board, then write to ETS directly with this information, as well as the information of all the members of your group, and explain to them exactly what you have done. I challenge you to do this, since if you truly believe you have done nothing wrong you should not fear any penalty.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:44 pm
by Gasquet
Of course it is wrong. It's quite stupid to claim otherwise.
Anyway, this user may very likely be a troll. A quick Google search tells me that there is PhD student in UC Boulder(joined 2011) with the same name, the exact same background as he mentions in his other thread and even working in the same area of math that he wants to work in.

Moving on,
boo78 wrote:I do have a nagging question. On the practice test the GRE sends out, which was used only five years ago, a scaled score of 750 is 77th percentile, so I was a little disappointed that my 750 last year was only a 72nd percentile. I can understand making adjustments to conversions from raw scores to account for varying difficulties of different tests, but what can possibly be meaningful about the scaled scores if their correspondence to percentiles is not consistent? Does the correspondence between scaled score and percentile change every year, but remain constant for all tests taken that year? Everyone seems to suggest that the tests are becoming more difficult, but then why has the same scaled score DROPPED 5 percentile points in 5 years? This would indicate the test becoming easier. And many places refer to the scaled score going up to 990, including the Princeton Review, but on recent conversion charts it only goes up to 900. This is all very confusing. Anyone know more about what is going on? And I REALLY wish your score report would show your raw score. That way you would really know how accurate you were.
I can't really answer your question, but I give a small rant on a similar topic :wink:
Having given the Math GRE last year(and again in September), the only thing I can say is that the scoring works in mysterious, even funny ways. The conversion from the raw score to the scaled score covers a lot more than just factoring in the difficulty of the test. It is claimed(unofficially, of course) that two people getting the same raw score on the exact same test in two different locations can get different scaled scores(and thus, different percentiles). Since absolutely nothing about the conversion is told to us, most likely nobody knows anything about how it works.

It does go beyond 900 though, as I remember someone posting last year that they got higher.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 2:51 pm
by ermiaazarkhalili
Gasquet wrote:Of course it is wrong. It's quite stupid to claim otherwise.
Anyway, this user may very likely be a troll. A quick Google search tells me that there is PhD student in UC Boulder(joined 2011) with the same name, the exact same background as he mentions in his other thread and even working in the same area of math that he wants to work in.

You may be a bit smart, but not much as we are; hence, if you really think you find me, I have no problem at all. :lol: go a head.
good luck.

Moving on,
boo78 wrote:I do have a nagging question. On the practice test the GRE sends out, which was used only five years ago, a scaled score of 750 is 77th percentile, so I was a little disappointed that my 750 last year was only a 72nd percentile. I can understand making adjustments to conversions from raw scores to account for varying difficulties of different tests, but what can possibly be meaningful about the scaled scores if their correspondence to percentiles is not consistent? Does the correspondence between scaled score and percentile change every year, but remain constant for all tests taken that year? Everyone seems to suggest that the tests are becoming more difficult, but then why has the same scaled score DROPPED 5 percentile points in 5 years? This would indicate the test becoming easier. And many places refer to the scaled score going up to 990, including the Princeton Review, but on recent conversion charts it only goes up to 900. This is all very confusing. Anyone know more about what is going on? And I REALLY wish your score report would show your raw score. That way you would really know how accurate you were.
I can't really answer your question, but I give a small rant on a similar topic :wink:
Having given the Math GRE last year(and again in September), the only thing I can say is that the scoring works in mysterious, even funny ways. The conversion from the raw score to the scaled score covers a lot more than just factoring in the difficulty of the test. It is claimed(unofficially, of course) that two people getting the same raw score on the exact same test in two different locations can get different scaled scores(and thus, different percentiles). Since absolutely nothing about the conversion is told to us, most likely nobody knows anything about how it works.

It does go beyond 900 though, as I remember someone posting last year that they got higher.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 3:19 pm
by ermiaazarkhalili
boo78 wrote:I will not attempt to debate your personal ethics, your opinion on the consequences of your actions with regard to fairness for other test-takers, or personal feelings about ETS. The matter at hand is that you wrote and signed your name to those exact words and then violated them. I just copied that quote directly from the ETS answer sheet. If you are so sure you have done nothing wrong, then you should be willing to reveal your true name and test location. If you do not feel comfortable revealing this information on this message board, then write to ETS directly with this information, as well as the information of all the members of your group, and explain to them exactly what you have done. I challenge you to do this, since if you truly believe you have done nothing wrong you should not fear any penalty.

Sorry, however you are not the person who should/could challenge me! :|

Why you think they are the eligible guys I should let them know? They are not clergies thing that I go to church and ask them to pardon me! Unfortunately I am agnostic!

you really do not know all Chinese are cheating in their GRE exams? You seems much more smart that you show!

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 3:22 pm
by ermiaazarkhalili
ermiaazarkhalili wrote:
Gasquet wrote:Of course it is wrong. It's quite stupid to claim otherwise.
Anyway, this user may very likely be a troll. A quick Google search tells me that there is PhD student in UC Boulder(joined 2011) with the same name, the exact same background as he mentions in his other thread and even working in the same area of math that he wants to work in.

You may be a bit smart, but not much as we are; hence, if you really think you find me, I have no problem at all. :lol: go a head.
good luck.

Moving on,
boo78 wrote:I do have a nagging question. On the practice test the GRE sends out, which was used only five years ago, a scaled score of 750 is 77th percentile, so I was a little disappointed that my 750 last year was only a 72nd percentile. I can understand making adjustments to conversions from raw scores to account for varying difficulties of different tests, but what can possibly be meaningful about the scaled scores if their correspondence to percentiles is not consistent? Does the correspondence between scaled score and percentile change every year, but remain constant for all tests taken that year? Everyone seems to suggest that the tests are becoming more difficult, but then why has the same scaled score DROPPED 5 percentile points in 5 years? This would indicate the test becoming easier. And many places refer to the scaled score going up to 990, including the Princeton Review, but on recent conversion charts it only goes up to 900. This is all very confusing. Anyone know more about what is going on? And I REALLY wish your score report would show your raw score. That way you would really know how accurate you were.
I can't really answer your question, but I give a small rant on a similar topic :wink:
Having given the Math GRE last year(and again in September), the only thing I can say is that the scoring works in mysterious, even funny ways. The conversion from the raw score to the scaled score covers a lot more than just factoring in the difficulty of the test. It is claimed(unofficially, of course) that two people getting the same raw score on the exact same test in two different locations can get different scaled scores(and thus, different percentiles). Since absolutely nothing about the conversion is told to us, most likely nobody knows anything about how it works.

It does go beyond 900 though, as I remember someone posting last year that they got higher.


You may be a bit smart, but not much as we are; hence, if you really think you find me, I have no problem at all. :wink: go a head.
good luck.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 5:30 pm
by goatman2743
It is clearly unethical to share questions with others who have yet to take the test. That said, lol at reporting op to ETS. There's basically nothing they can do. Even if op is not a troll and was dumb enough to use his actual name they still can't punish him. If ETS cancelled op's score then how could they stop someone from making an account with the name of someone they don't like, "admitting" to cheating, and then reporting their own account to ETS? Because of stuff like this they can't do much without actual proof that the person behind the computer matches the screen name, and I don't see how they could ever get such proof.

fwiw, people around here have claimed that there is massive cheating of the test going on among Chinese students, with people posting all the old questions on Chinese language sites, and again, there's nothing ETS can do about it. (although in fairness, I haven't seen any actual evidence that old tests are posted on Chinese language sites, for all I know this could be a myth people from the rest of the world made up to deal with the frustration of being outperformed!)

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 2:51 pm
by cybersilence
Hey all!

This man ermiaazarkhalili is fake .. :D
Whatever he claims to be is a lie. He has no team. I have come to know this from sources who are wayyy smarter than him.(smarter than he claims himself to be, alas)

Lets ignore him and move forward guys .. we have better & more important things to do :D

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 4:17 am
by Madaan
Hi! I am new to this forum and an international student. I took the October 19th gre subject test but didn't do well. I am wishing to apply for master's to a school that says gre subject test strongly recommended. I asked a counsellor here in India , and he said that I anyways should send the scores . He gave me a reason that showing that you appeared for the exam is better than not appearing at all. I haven't received the score report yet. Should I send bad scores or no scores at all?

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 4:55 am
by mathfreak
boo78 wrote:I will not attempt to debate your personal ethics, your opinion on the consequences of your actions with regard to fairness for other test-takers, or personal feelings about ETS. The matter at hand is that you wrote and signed your name to those exact words and then violated them. I just copied that quote directly from the ETS answer sheet. If you are so sure you have done nothing wrong, then you should be willing to reveal your true name and test location. If you do not feel comfortable revealing this information on this message board, then write to ETS directly with this information, as well as the information of all the members of your group, and explain to them exactly what you have done. I challenge you to do this, since if you truly believe you have done nothing wrong you should not fear any penalty.
Unfortunately this kind of cheating is very common in some areas. I'm pretty sure ETS knows about it but they prefer to do nothing.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 6:34 am
by yotamh
Madaan wrote:Hi! I am new to this forum and an international student. I took the October 19th gre subject test but didn't do well. I am wishing to apply for master's to a school that says gre subject test strongly recommended. I asked a counsellor here in India , and he said that I anyways should send the scores . He gave me a reason that showing that you appeared for the exam is better than not appearing at all. I haven't received the score report yet. Should I send bad scores or no scores at all?
I would advice you not to send bad results if it's not a must.
You can also wait until the results are published, and than decide what to do after you know how bad your results really are.

Re: Regarding GRE subject on October 19th 2013

Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 1:27 pm
by safetybelts
boo78 wrote:If you are so sure you have done nothing wrong, then you should be willing to reveal your true name and test location.
While I'm not happy about cheating, I want to point out the logical fallacy here.

Just because you don't think you're wrong doesn't mean you have to submit yourself to someone else's interpretation. Let's say for instance that you're gay, and you're proud of yourself and you think it's ok to be gay. But you live in an area where gays get beaten to death. Just because you believe in yourself doesn't mean you should make your identity public.

Thinking that only those who are wrong need privacy is a particularly dangerous way to think in this day and age, when the government is spying on everyone.