October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Forum for the GRE subject test in mathematics.
Post Reply
Mathwhiz25
Posts: 42
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2014 3:36 am

October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by Mathwhiz25 » Sun Nov 23, 2014 12:25 pm

Results for the October 25, 2014 subject tests will be out tomorrow. I saw that they were already reported to universities yesterday. I am curious to know how others did on the exam. Let me know what your score was, if you don't mind, how many problems you remembered attempting and how many you thought you got right.

MathCat
Posts: 187
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2014 12:17 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by MathCat » Mon Nov 24, 2014 1:07 am

I was aiming for 800, which is exactly what I got. I'm really surprised!! I only attempted 53 questions, 4 were guesses (as in I didn't do any work, just went with gut instinct answer because of time crunch), and probably 3-4 more were rough work, so not exactly guesses but not 100% sure of my answer. I knew I had to answer more questions to have a shot at that 800 mark so this was my strategy in the last 30 minutes.

I am so relieved. 800 is exactly the 80th percentile, by the way.

Austin
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:32 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by Austin » Mon Nov 24, 2014 1:25 am

I answered 64 questions and immediately after leaving the exam I thought of four that I had definitely missed. I only answered a question if I could eliminate at least one choice, but for the most part I felt confident about my answers.

With the four sure-fire misses and using my practice tests to approximate my accuracy on the remainder of the questions, I guessed that I missed 10-12 questions. However, I was very pleasantly surprised to earn a score of 860, which is the 90th percentile. This is much, much better than I expected.

Good luck to you all!

Mathwhiz25
Posts: 42
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2014 3:36 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by Mathwhiz25 » Mon Nov 24, 2014 1:30 am

GRRRRR!!!! I am so pissed!!! I was aiming for 800 and did not get it!!! I managed a 750, the 71st percentile. That exam had some hard problems though. This is the 2nd time being disappointed. I took the paper GRE on October 18th and the results were way below what I was aiming for. I felt really good about that exam. I don't know what happened. They just want you to keep retaking the exam so that they can make money!

Yuxun
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Mar 20, 2014 12:14 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by Yuxun » Mon Nov 24, 2014 1:59 am

I just checked the website and found out that I got only 660 on the Oct mGRE, which is in the 51%. Very disappointed, I was thinking if that score would get me into any program. :( :( :(

Fw1812
Posts: 23
Joined: Sun Nov 11, 2012 12:19 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by Fw1812 » Mon Nov 24, 2014 2:12 am

Answered 63 problems, got an 890, which is 95th percentile. Pretty happy with this :D

MathCat
Posts: 187
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2014 12:17 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by MathCat » Mon Nov 24, 2014 2:24 am

Fw1812 wrote:Answered 63 problems, got an 890, which is 95th percentile. Pretty happy with this :D
I would certainly hope so! Congrats.

sioma
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2014 1:26 pm

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by sioma » Mon Nov 24, 2014 1:31 pm

I'm shocked. I just looked at my score, and I'm in the 31st percentile. I was expecting at least 55th. At the end of the test, I was on a time crunch and I made the incredibly bad decision to go through all the rest of the questions, eliminate 1 answer in each, and guess. I'm assuming my guesses were mostly wrong.
I have a 3.98 overall GPA from UCLA, did one undergrad research project, and have great general GRE scores. Two strong letters of rec, one good letter.
I'm now seriously considering applying only to grad schools where the MGRE is not mandatory. What do you guys think?

Hassan1
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2014 3:51 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by Hassan1 » Mon Nov 24, 2014 1:50 pm

sioma wrote:I'm shocked. I just looked at my score, and I'm in the 31st percentile. I was expecting at least 55th. At the end of the test, I was on a time crunch and I made the incredibly bad decision to go through all the rest of the questions, eliminate 1 answer in each, and guess. I'm assuming my guesses were mostly wrong.
I have a 3.98 overall GPA from UCLA, did one undergrad research project, and have great general GRE scores. Two strong letters of rec, one good letter.
I'm now seriously considering applying only to grad schools where the MGRE is not mandatory. What do you guys think?
I think you're making a mistake because you are upset right now, overall you have a strong application, apply to other schools too.
The bad feeling will go away after some days, so don't think about it too much and don't make decisions right now.

by the way I got 48%, stupid score :(

MathCat
Posts: 187
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2014 12:17 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by MathCat » Mon Nov 24, 2014 2:52 pm

sioma wrote:I'm shocked. I just looked at my score, and I'm in the 31st percentile. I was expecting at least 55th. At the end of the test, I was on a time crunch and I made the incredibly bad decision to go through all the rest of the questions, eliminate 1 answer in each, and guess. I'm assuming my guesses were mostly wrong.
I have a 3.98 overall GPA from UCLA, did one undergrad research project, and have great general GRE scores. Two strong letters of rec, one good letter.
I'm now seriously considering applying only to grad schools where the MGRE is not mandatory. What do you guys think?
You should still reach. mGRE is only one factor, and it's one pretty dumb factor really. Maybe you want a few backups, but I think the rest of your app will make it pretty clear that this test was out of the ordinary for you, and does not reflect your abilities. Look at the profiles threads: there are people with worse profiles than you, and 30th percentile mGRE scores getting into top 20 schools.

clarinetist
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2014 12:08 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by clarinetist » Mon Nov 24, 2014 6:29 pm

Wow, I thought I was alone in this boat. I hit 18%tile on the Math GRE Subject Test; answered approximately half of the questions. I'm going to take this again in April... and I have quite a few books to go through in the meantime.

bobbydd21
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2014 11:30 pm

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by bobbydd21 » Mon Nov 24, 2014 11:57 pm

Good to know I'm not alone. Got a 23%. I am thinking I should leave my scores out of my application.

Brick
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2014 10:59 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by Brick » Wed Nov 26, 2014 11:04 am

I attempted 50 (I ran out of time). I was expecting a better score, as I got 670 or 53 percentile. I must have got a lot of the 50 wrong too. :( I noticed many of the answers are designed to trick you if you're not careful. After the test I made the mistake of thinking I got most of those 50 right and ballparking my score to be 60-80 percentile, so I was a bit surprised haha.

My program is all applied (haven't taken abstract algebra or topology), so all along I was expecting I'd do poorly, but then after taking the practice test, I had hope, but I guess I messed the regular test up a bit after all. xD

My adviser said not to include the score if they don't require it, but I'm unsure... as colleges do say it's recommended, even when it's not required. (?) Advice?

FizzFizz
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2014 4:25 pm

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by FizzFizz » Wed Nov 26, 2014 4:36 pm

Just wondering - for you guys who scored so well (IMHO, 70% or above), what did you do to prepare?

xor
Posts: 53
Joined: Tue Sep 16, 2014 9:34 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by xor » Wed Nov 26, 2014 4:57 pm

FizzFizz wrote:Just wondering - for you guys who scored so well (IMHO, 70% or above), what did you do to prepare?
I think if you scored above 70% you were rather prepared for the exam months before it happened.

I strongly doubt one can have a significant rise in scores (e.g. 20% to 60%) merely from some months of study. The exam is way too tricky for that.

MathCat
Posts: 187
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2014 12:17 am

Re: October 25, 2014 Math Subject Test Results

Post by MathCat » Wed Nov 26, 2014 5:18 pm

xor wrote:
FizzFizz wrote:Just wondering - for you guys who scored so well (IMHO, 70% or above), what did you do to prepare?
I think if you scored above 70% you were rather prepared for the exam months before it happened.

I strongly doubt one can have a significant rise in scores (e.g. 20% to 60%) merely from some months of study. The exam is way too tricky for that.
I think I agree with this. I spent about 2 months studying for the exam, but that was mostly spent reminding myself of how to do all the calculus questions, and improving my speed, since it had been 3.5 years since I took my last calculus course. I still did not answer all of the calculus questions (the later ones I mostly left blank). But, I'm pretty strong in the pure math topics like analysis and topology, and decent in algebra, and recently took courses in all of them. I did not review those topics at all, and I answered almost all (or maybe all?) of the questions on analysis and topology. I'm weaker in algebra, and left a few of those blank.

I do not think it is possible to really change your grade a huge amount just from cramming for the exam. You have to have learned this stuff throughout your degree, and just go back and revise a bit to make sure it's fresh. Maybe you can learn a new subject if you give yourself a lot of time to prep (6 months+?). The theoretical questions are things I don't think you could answer unless you really understand the material. It's not usually just a statement of a theorem you could memorize: you need to have examples and counterexamples at your fingertips, and that's something you get with practice, not in cramming.

The main thing I think you can do is strategize. Write the practice tests in timed conditions. Figure out what strategy works best for you, figure out what you have to do to get the score you want. I tried different strategies on different tests, specifically what to do in the last 30-45 minutes: should I review the questions I've answered, to fix stupid mistakes? Should I try to answer as many as possible? When should I skip a problem? Ultimately, what worked for me was to know roughly how many questions I had to answer to have a shot at my goal score (800). If I was certain I could do a problem but it might take me 5 minutes instead of 2, I still did it. If I wasn't sure I could do it, I left it for after the first pass through. I wrote down all my work. This slowed me down, but was hugely important to avoiding dumb mistakes, which sometimes cost me a lot on my practice tests. As I said above, my strategy on the actual test day was to spend the last 30 minutes answering about 8-10 more questions, because I knew I needed to answer at least around 50 to have a chance at 800 (and probably more). If I hadn't been aware of this I probably would have played it safe and not answered enough questions.

One major thing I changed after the practice tests: do not rush. People go on and on about how you have to work super fast. I did this at first, and made so many dumb mistakes that I could easily get 10+ questions wrong. It's better to get a correct answer a little slower, and answer fewer questions. Also, learn how to do all the problems on all the practice tests. Similar problems can show up again.



Post Reply