I Suck at Math (GRE-Related)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Last night I got one of those GRE preparation study guides, and, full of confidence and whimsy, took the diagnostic test. That’s the one that you take before you study so you can figure out what you need to study.

I got a 650 on the verbal part, not quite as good as I expected but certainly respectable. The history department requires a 500, so I’m good there.

Now obviously I didn’t make it this far in life without knowing that I suck at math. I can balance my checkbook and add numbers in my head (occasionally with the help of my fingers), but that’s about it. While still an undergraduate I foolishly put off taking my two required math classes until the last semester, and ended up doing statistics during the first summer term and what I fondly refer to as Dumbass Math the second summer term so I could graduate at the end of that summer. I loved statistics, but the professor the dumbass math class was so far beyond the material that he couldn’t figure out how to teach it to those of us who needed it. Fortunately, Mr. Sane is great at both understanding and explaining math, so he kindly tutored me and Izzybella and we scraped through with C’s.

I’m telling you all this so that you’ll understand where I’m coming from. That was in 2004. Last night, a little over 4 years later, when I took the quantatitive portion of the diagnostic GRE sample study exam, I scored a 240. :o The lost score you can make on a section of the GRE is 200. My 240 puts me, according to Wikipedia, in the 1st percentile. I think I’d have gotten a higher score if I just randomly guessed. And I’ll grant that I did just randomly guess on probably 50% of the questions (I know enough math to know that 50% is half).

Fortunately, the history department doesn’t care about the quantatative score. I’m certainly never going into any math/science-based fields. So when I’m taking the actual exam, should I actually try to work out the ones I think I know, or would it matter much if I did just guess on them all. Of the ones I got right (7 out of 28), only 2 or 3 of those were problems I really worked on. The others were where I made semi-educated guesses. Is it important enough that I should study up on the math questions so I could scrape a 300 or 350?

2

I suck at math (in my current job I can’t figure anything out without excel). When I took the GRE I was in a similar spot as you. What I did was do the practice tests over and over, wrote down any of the formulas that were tripping me up, made flash cards, and seriously memorized those guys. I don’t remember my exact numbers but I ended up impressing myself with my eventual math score.

And then I promptly forgot everything I memorized (which is, I guess, why rote learning isn’t great). But it got me through the GREs - and since my graduate degree didn’t need math, it was all I needed.

3

When I took the GRE practice exam for math (I took it cold-4 years of HS math, no college math and all of this was over 20 years ago), I scored so low, it did not register. I had no score. It didn’t give me a zero, either, so (?) (If I remember correctly, I got less than 100 and they don’t tally less than 100. I know I was not shown a zero, though). I also remember thinking–well, hell, I could have guessed more correct than I solved, like you. :slight_smile:

I started reading the GRE practice stuff, studying every night for an hour and did the entire math practice section in the book and all the tests on the CD. I wasn’t too worried about the verbal portion, but I did do some of the practice tests–the word equivalencies etc. I got a 770 on the verbal and a 510 on the math. I concentrated on geometry and algebra. I did not go beyond the most rudimentary issues of pi, for example–trig never did make any sense to me.

I am incredibly proud of that 510. I am THAT bad in math. But given where I came from, it’s a marked improvement.

I can’t answer whether or not it’s important to up your score on the math portion. My master’s didn’t care about the math score (library science). Maybe you could ask a prof? Don’t be surprised if you get the party line, though. Good luck.