What does the GRE test.

Factual Questions
1

I took the GRE back in1964.

I was a French lit major and needed to get at least 1000 on the GRE to get into grad school.

I was terrible in Math, so took the fewest Math courses possible to get a BA degree. Which back then amounted to one course …Math 101. Which I passed with a C.

So… I get the test results back and I had scored a 1080…Enough to get into grad school. Whoopie !!.

What has always puzzled me is the reason I made that high a score was not my non math skills, but my math skills. I scored a little over 500 on the English part and a little higher than that on the Math part.

I thought what the GRE was supposed to show was what you had learned in college.

I learned almost nothing about Math in college. Math 101 was a joke…
Even the football players could pass that course.

My concentration in college was in languages, history, the humanities, etc.

All I remember about the test was that the English part was first and I completed it in plenty of time. The Math part I didn’t come close to completing. And I had a severe headache after completing what I could.

So… What happened? Did I just have a lucky day in Math that day? Did I have some sort of innate Math ability I never knew about. Why did I test so relatively lousy on the English part?

And, back to the OP, does the GRE really test what you have supposedly learned in
college?

2

Sorry about the missing question mark in the title.

3

They changed the GRE recently, but when I took it (2007 I think) the math portion was extremely easy. Something like 7% of the people taking it got perfect scores. The English portion, on the other hand, only required something like a 700/800 to get into the 99% percentile. So, regarding your scores, it’s just that the math portion is easier.

As to what it tests, I recall the math portion testing reasoning skills and mental computation. The English portion tested vocabulary (or ability to memorize if you studied a lot). They absolutely do not test what you learned in college. That’s be impossible to design a test for all majors.

4

There is no math section on the GRE general test. There is a Quantitative sub-test. That may seem like a pointless distinction but it isn’t. The GRE is not an achievement test. That portion of the test tries to measure raw quantitative ability (or lack thereof) among all college graduates that want to go to graduate school. Because so many college graduates take few to no real math courses in college, the only way to do that is to give a quantitative subsection that is actually easier in the level of math involved than high school graduates who take the SAT.

College graduates that wish to go to graduate school in Math take the Math subject test which is designed to measure college level Math concepts.

5

OK. Makes more sense to me now. Always wondered if I had a great mathematical talent that I somehow never noticed.

Still lousy in Math skills.

Although it still surprises me that the only way I got into grad school was by way of the Math section on the GRE.

Or sub quantitated something or other skill test.

6

Sorry. Still didn’t do that last part right. English skills seem to keep failing me.

7

My impression was that the math section was testing me more for the ability to reason quantitatively, quickly and accurately, rather than any familiarity with more advanced mathematical branches like calculus. I don’t think there was anything beyond simple parallel equations. On a couple of different occasions I’ve taken the GRE, and in preparing for the second time I was able to bump up my math score about 150 points just by boning up on basic algebra and doing all the practice questions–particularly parallel equations–I could get my hands on.

I disagree. While it’s certainly true that the GRE isn’t supposed to test what you’ve learned in college, I think the content of the verbal section is definitely more geared to the vocabulary encountered in college level literature and humanities courses. Or to put it another way, you could say the math portion doesn’t go beyond early high school math for most people–or early middle school math for most STEM majors. But that’s not true of the verbal. If you weren’t the bookish type, you could cram for the test with vocabulary flash cards and improve your score, but I don’t think that comes as easily as practicing for the math section.

8

To sum up my point more concisely: you can cram for the verbal but wind up getting different words on the test. By contrast, in doing the same for the math part you don’t have to worry about getting different numbers; the numbers all work the same.