Blew It

After all my preparation, I blew the GRE :-(. I knew while I was taking it that I blew it, so I canceled out of the test. That means the score won’t be recorded, so I can try it again later. There are three sections to the test: essays, verbal, and math. It’s probably not a shock to hear me say I wasn’t worried about the verbal and essay sections. So I spent a few weeks studying for the math section. In the last half dozen practice tests I took, I was scoring between 640 - 690 (10-14 wrong out 60), which is slightly better than I did when I first took the test in 1992, so I was happy with that. But I made two fatal mistakes that led to disaster in the end:

1. I was practicing with a GRE prep book that was several years old (a co-worker loaned it to me). It turns out the verbal section of the test hasn’t changed at all since the book was published, but the math section has. It has fewer questions now, and more time, but the questions are harder. After paying ETS $105 for the privilege of taking the GRE, they sent me a “free” CD with a couple of practice tests in the new format. So on Friday I tried those: I scored a bit worse - 620 and 640 - but still felt good enough to proceed with the real test on Saturday.

2. Before leaving the house on Saturday morning, I went online to find out if I’d be better off guessing the answer for questions I couldn’t figure out, or if I should leave them blank. The GRE test tips site I found said I should always guess, which was fine with me. But then I came across something I didn’t know. While I knew the test questions were presented dynamically - you get harder questions if you’re doing well and easier questions if you’re doing badly - what I learned from this site was that the dynamic analysis ceases after the first 10 questions. At that point you’re on a “track” that you can’t get off. If you get stuck on the easy question track, there’s a fairly low ceiling established for your maximum score. The site recommended spending half the test time on the first 10 questions if necessary, so as to maximize your chances for getting on the track with the potential for the highest score. I took that advise, which turned out be an extraordinarily bad move. Because, in the end, whaddya know - there’s only 5 minutes left and I still have 10 questions to go! Brain freeze. Panic. A little more panic. Hit the panic button. Get out. Argh.

Don’t practice with an old, outdated book, and don’t change your strategy at the last minute with an approach you’ve never even tried before. Two things that seem awfully obvious now that I’m writing them down. It’s a good thing I’m not being evaluated on my test preparation techniques. At least I had the foresight to sign up for an April test - it leaves me enough time to take it again in May, so I can submit my scores before the June application deadline. I’m headed over to Amazon now to get a new test prep book!