GRE is done

June 18, 2006

Yesterday I took the GRE. The last time I took a standardized test, it was paper-and-pencil where you had to fill in those little bubbles. But these days the test is done on computer. So when you go take the test it’s this room of little mini-cubicles where people might be taking some other test besides the GRE.

The test is supposedly adaptive–it raises and lowers the difficulty of each question based on how you do on the previous question. It thus tries to narrow down on your “real” score. The key then to getting a good score is the first few questions. Because that’s when the biggest jumps in score between questions. At least, that’s the strategy I learned out of the GRE prep course I took.

Towards the end of the math section I was just guessing because I was running out of time, having spent so much time to make sure I got the first few questions right. I know I was missing a few towards the end. But I still scored extremely well so I believe the strategy worked.

That’s the other nice thing about computerized testing–they can give you the score immediately at the end. I got a 690 on the verbal, and an amazing 800 on the math section. Those should be plenty good enough scores to get me into U of L.