people with suck scores

Forum for the GRE subject test in mathematics.
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tundrawolf
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2011 1:56 pm

people with suck scores

Post by tundrawolf » Sat Dec 10, 2011 4:10 pm

How many did you guys leave blank and how many do you think you answered wrong? (roughly)

cabriner
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2011 3:08 pm

Re: people with suck scores

Post by cabriner » Sat Dec 10, 2011 4:22 pm

I would be offended by this "suck score" thing, but...
I left about 6-8 blank, I think, and I felt pretty confident about at least 40-45 of the ones I answered.
And then...600, 37%. Really huge WTF moment.

I took my first practice test in August (the most recent one, I think) without preparing, and I scored about 700/65%. Which is, you know, not terrific but perfectly acceptable for where I wanted to apply. I didn't find the one in November to be any more difficult than that one, and I thought my performance was pretty consistent. Plus I've studied and taken more math since then.
ARGH. And I will never even find out what happened.

I'm almost desperate enough to pay for the hand scoring thing, on the off chance that something went wrong with that. But maybe I somehow got off by one at the end and then bubbled everything in wrong?

renatamaria
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2011 1:48 pm

Re: people with suck scores

Post by renatamaria » Sat Dec 10, 2011 4:38 pm

I'm in the same boat (skipped q's/confidence) with a 620. I have no explanation. Every practice test was in the 70s range... I guess this is an indication that I may not really be ready for PhD program.

I walked out and thought I was HEDGING by telling people in the 65% range...

tundrawolf
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2011 1:56 pm

Re: people with suck scores

Post by tundrawolf » Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:04 pm

It's possible that all the cheaters in China massively fucked up the distribution

fireandgladstone
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2010 4:57 am

Re: people with suck scores

Post by fireandgladstone » Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:08 pm

Chinese students taking the GRE is not a new thing.

nchen5
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Dec 09, 2011 5:44 pm

Re: people with suck scores

Post by nchen5 » Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:16 pm

It's unfair for Chinese students who have not cheated like myself.
The problem is with ETS, not with the Chinese.

cabriner
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2011 3:08 pm

Re: people with suck scores

Post by cabriner » Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:31 pm

tundrawolf wrote:It's possible that all the cheaters in China massively fucked up the distribution
Certainly, there is cheating on the GRE. Maybe more of it takes place in China, but I think that is probably just because there is more opportunity to cheat there, and graduate schools know that when they look at your GRE scores. I sincerely doubt that Chinese students are a more dishonest bunch than the rest of us.
nchen5 wrote:It's unfair for Chinese students who have not cheated like myself.
The problem is with ETS, not with the Chinese.
I agree. Some people cheat. It's a fact of life. ETS should be aware of this and make it more difficult to cheat.

Also, all the stereotyping on this site makes me sad. We're mathematicians, people! (well, maybe you are, I only got a 37% on the MGRE... :wink: ) We should be able to evaluate people based on their contributions and not solely on their place of birth.

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exxx
Posts: 18
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Re: people with suck scores

Post by exxx » Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:25 pm

Nobody is claiming Chinese students are more dishonest, if American students had the opportunity to see all the questions ahead of time they would jump on it. They just don't have that opportunity.

There are numerous Chinese and Korean language websites where all the past exam questions are posted, but they are in Chinese and Korean.

I have spoken to six of my Chinese friends who took the exam or last month's exam, and they all say they had seen more than 50% of the questions ahead of time verbatim (even down to the correct letter answers).

In addition, I have spoken to my Chinese professor (one of my favorite professors), and he said even back when he took the test, he had seen all the questions ahead of time.

More Chinese and Korean students are taking the test every year (out of the five people taking the Math GRE when I went, I was the only non-Chinese student, and the only one who hadn't seen the questions ahead of time--they all commented immediately afterwards that it was mostly repeats), and things are being shared more rapidly on the internet, and so more of them have seen all the questions and answers ahead of time. I don't think this test has any legitimacy anymore.

The really tragic thing is ETS would only have to do ONE thing to solve this: make all the questions from past exams available online to EVERYONE, not just Chinese students. It would mean they'd have to slightly change the questions or answers each session, but they certainly charge enough to afford doing that.

I'm not blaming Chinese students at all, I'm blaming ETS for failing to respond to the realities of giving standardized tests.

mhancock743
Posts: 35
Joined: Sat Oct 15, 2011 2:08 pm

Re: people with suck scores

Post by mhancock743 » Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:53 pm

exxx wrote: The really tragic thing is ETS would only have to do ONE thing to solve this: make all the questions from past exams available online to EVERYONE, not just Chinese students. It would mean they'd have to slightly change the questions or answers each session, but they certainly charge enough to afford doing that.
The real tragic thing is that no one's asked for a translation. :lol:

castlevania87
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2011 2:38 am

Re: people with suck scores

Post by castlevania87 » Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:20 pm

exxx wrote:Nobody is claiming Chinese students are more dishonest, if American students had the opportunity to see all the questions ahead of time they would jump on it. They just don't have that opportunity.

There are numerous Chinese and Korean language websites where all the past exam questions are posted, but they are in Chinese and Korean.

I have spoken to six of my Chinese friends who took the exam or last month's exam, and they all say they had seen more than 50% of the questions ahead of time verbatim (even down to the correct letter answers).

In addition, I have spoken to my Chinese professor (one of my favorite professors), and he said even back when he took the test, he had seen all the questions ahead of time.

More Chinese and Korean students are taking the test every year (out of the five people taking the Math GRE when I went, I was the only non-Chinese student, and the only one who hadn't seen the questions ahead of time--they all commented immediately afterwards that it was mostly repeats), and things are being shared more rapidly on the internet, and so more of them have seen all the questions and answers ahead of time. I don't think this test has any legitimacy anymore.

The really tragic thing is ETS would only have to do ONE thing to solve this: make all the questions from past exams available online to EVERYONE, not just Chinese students. It would mean they'd have to slightly change the questions or answers each session, but they certainly charge enough to afford doing that.

I'm not blaming Chinese students at all, I'm blaming ETS for failing to respond to the realities of giving standardized tests.
Strongly agreed. I am Chinese origin and I can read. I found out my October test was exactly the same as one of the old tests after I took the test. The moment I saw it, I regretted, why didn't I do a bit search before that ? This is human nature.

But I did ok eventually.

Another reality is, US schools only have a limited number of spots for international students, and they have to be diversified as well, so maybe each top school can only admit 1-2 Chinese students. Image how many Chinese students with good background applying for admission each year, they have to compete among themselves first. That's why I have seen students who got low 90% very depressed, because many of their peers were getting 95%+. However, if you are a US domestic student, no one cares about MGRE if you get above 80%. Even if you did below than that, there are other factors to make up for, such as your GPA, LOR.

I think (and my advisor told me) the single most important factor for getting into a competitive Ph.D program is LOR. A good LOR with connection is enough to place you on the shortlist. MGRE may be able to show that you can do test well, but a good LOR shows your research potential. Guess which one does the admission committee care ?

deckoff8
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:12 am

Re: people with suck scores

Post by deckoff8 » Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:47 pm

exxx wrote:Nobody is claiming Chinese students are more dishonest, if American students had the opportunity to see all the questions ahead of time they would jump on it. They just don't have that opportunity.
Yeah, because it's so hard for any american students to just find a guy who can read chinese to help them find the stuff. I personally never looked because I didn't feel like cheating, and I feel most of the students I know from my school didn't cheat for the same reason, not because they were too stupid to ask someone to help them google something. Like I said, this situation hurts international students with integrity the most, so its a really rough situation for them/

tundrawolf
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2011 1:56 pm

Re: people with suck scores

Post by tundrawolf » Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:57 pm

Why don't they just stop accepting yucky Chinese anyhow? They're uncreative and can't do research, and Jews, Hungarians, etc are much better anyway. Even Japanese are better.

fireandgladstone
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2010 4:57 am

Re: people with suck scores

Post by fireandgladstone » Sat Dec 10, 2011 8:31 pm

lol

Image

dragoonlp
Posts: 54
Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2010 4:38 pm

Re: people with suck scores

Post by dragoonlp » Sun Dec 11, 2011 12:32 am

Take it easy guys. We can not change our MGRE now anyway. If you already submitted your application, then, just wait for good news; if you still working on your application, such as SOP, then, do your best!!

I'm sure guys, we will get what we want in next year!!!

Good luck my friends!!!

omgmath
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 11:45 am

Re: people with suck scores

Post by omgmath » Sun Dec 11, 2011 7:15 am

tundrawolf, you should tone down on the insults. But you know there's some good out of what you're doing, which is to get people to take notice.

dasgut
Posts: 250
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:20 am

Re: people with suck scores

Post by dasgut » Sun Dec 11, 2011 10:57 am

omgmath,
I think tundrawolf is a troll. If we stop feeding him perhaps he'll go back under his bridge.

rahulshr
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2011 12:16 pm

Re: people with suck scores

Post by rahulshr » Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:04 am

I do not think we can do anything about this chinese cheating thing, or whether ETS would be able to do anything sooner.
However, as I understand of the admission process ( at good universities) - I believe they look at scores of applicants, relative to other applicants from similar background. - so that should nullify the effect a bit.
But yes, it does make it hard for us to judge our own application, and we can never be sure about how we performed against applicants from similar background. and we will end up missing some good opportunities.
And anyways, it is just one off score - if you are sincere and passionate about your field - it should not matter in the long run.

hulksmash
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2011 11:50 am

Re: people with suck scores

Post by hulksmash » Tue Dec 13, 2011 12:59 pm

Since a lot of people have been commenting about Chinese cheating thing, I would like to comment on that.

I would say it's more a problem with the ETS then with anyone else. THEY SHOULD NOT BE REUSING ANY OF THE OLD TESTS AT ALL.

why ETS is a SCAM and GRE tests useless:
1. I read somewhere that ETS says that since somehow it takes them $300,000 approx to write a test they have to recycle the test questions. Maybe I and some 10 odd senior UG's could write the MGRE for $100 each. :|
2. They charge you $12 (as i remember from 10 mins back) for an automated 1 min (max) message giving out your MGRE/GRE score.
3. I and others have paid $165 (GRE) + $140 (MGRE) + $165 (TOEFL, though i don't feel i need to give the TOEFL) for the tests that don't measure your graduate school potential in any way. I got pretty high SAT (2060) and GRE (1450), which i assume that most people believe measures college/gschool potential. This is bullshit. i am a slightly above average student and i have seen mannnny students getting lower SAT and GRE scores who have done waayyyyy better in college than me.

I went to some website (I can't find it now) which mentioned that ETS has been paying its 30 something shareholders $30,000+ a year. it pays $300,000+ to its board of directors and $800,000+ to its CEO. It's pretty hard to understand this since they are supposed to be NON-PROFIT. There are lawsuits against them in this regard to remove the non-profit tag that they have on them.

Back to the Chinese student thing: Since the ETS charges such exorbitant fees from the test takers (and is such a great thug) they should at least be making new tests every single time. They can just take some money off from the "modest" salaries and bonus of directors of their "non-profit" company. We can't blame the chinese students for getting a cheating oppurtunity that we don't have.

goombayao
Posts: 53
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2011 9:17 am

Re: people with suck scores

Post by goombayao » Tue Dec 13, 2011 1:48 pm

cabriner wrote:I would be offended by this "suck score" thing, but...
I left about 6-8 blank, I think, and I felt pretty confident about at least 40-45 of the ones I answered.
And then...600, 37%. Really huge WTF moment.

I took my first practice test in August (the most recent one, I think) without preparing, and I scored about 700/65%. Which is, you know, not terrific but perfectly acceptable for where I wanted to apply. I didn't find the one in November to be any more difficult than that one, and I thought my performance was pretty consistent. Plus I've studied and taken more math since then.
ARGH. And I will never even find out what happened.

I'm almost desperate enough to pay for the hand scoring thing, on the off chance that something went wrong with that. But maybe I somehow got off by one at the end and then bubbled everything in wrong?
I left 8 blank and felt confident on about 50 of them. I ended up with 670/56% which was a huge WTF for me as well. I also thought about hand scoring... I wish I knew my raw score to see how many I omitted (perhaps some weren't bubbled dark enough?).

Unfortunately, scores are placed "on hold" if you request hand scoring, which takes 4 weeks.

ANDS
Posts: 47
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2011 8:41 pm

Re: people with suck scores

Post by ANDS » Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:26 pm

renatamaria wrote:I'm in the same boat (skipped q's/confidence) with a 620. I have no explanation. Every practice test was in the 70s range... I guess this is an indication that I may not really be ready for PhD program.

I walked out and thought I was HEDGING by telling people in the 65% range...
Or that you may not be ready to take standardized tests in a compressed manner, where the questions are meant to be answered quickly without much thought. IE, not at all the environment that you'll be tested in in a doctoral program. If a low score has turned you off to applying for graduate school, you're going to be missing out on a lot.



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