GRE Tips: Spend More Time on First 15 Questions

Today’s GRE Tips  comes from HSB fan who shared his GRE test performance data. It would be useful if ans who took GRE can post similar data in the comments below.

I am Kaustubh from pune, I had my GRE on 13th Oct 2010. I just wanted to say one thing which i experienced that always try to answer first 15 questions correct in each section and dedicate 2/3 of time towards it. Here is the data which i guess will convince everybody, I got 6 answers wrong in Quantitative section but i got 14 of first 15 correct. Give ten days to Quantitative study and 800 is not so far.

  • GRE  Total-1260 (not great but decent)
  • Q-760
  • V-500

Quantitative Section Scoring

1. Right 2
2. Right 2
3. Right 2
4. Right 4
5. Right 3
6. Right 2
7. Right 3
8. Right 2
9. Right 4
10. Right 4
11. Right 3
12. Right 3
13. Right 4
14. Right 4
15. Wrong 5
16. Right 4
17. Wrong 5
18. Right 3
19. Wrong 4
20. Right 4
21. Right 4
22. Right 4
23. Right 4
24. Right 5
25. Wrong 5
26. Right 5
27. Wrong 5
28. Wrong 5

Verbal Section-

1. Right 3
2. Right 3
3. Right 3
4. Right 3
5. Right 3
6. Wrong 3
7. Wrong 2
8. Right 3
9. Wrong 3
10. Wrong 3
11. Right 4
12. Wrong 5
13. Right 4
14. Wrong 4
15. Wrong 4
16. Wrong 3
17. Right 3
18. Wrong 3
19. Wrong 3
20. Wrong 3
21. Right 2
22. Wrong 3
23. Right 4
24. Wrong 3
25. Right 3
26. Right 3
27. Wrong 2
28. Right 3
29. Wrong 3
30. Right 3

Hope this data will help another guys like me. Now, you may wonder how did I get this data from ETS after taking GRE.  The service is provided by ETS for free at GRE Diagnostics. They will ask you for your registration number printed on your score report or online score but it can be used only after you receive the score report by mail and not online. They ask for test month and year and also birth date.

Thanks for sharing this data and GRE Tips. This will certainly help GRE test takers and if you are planning to re-take GRE, this GRE test scoring data from ETS will come in handy. I wonder how many GRE Test takers have seen their performance in after completing GRE Exam.

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27 Comments

  1. how can I share my story with some not so smart people at taking standardized tests like GRE?

    In short…

    December 11- Q-520 V 360 AWA 4

    February 5- Q-560 V 410 AWA 3.5

    March 5- Q-720 V470 AWA-awaited

    Not great but I guess someone might gain something from my experience. I'm willing to write an article. I know its not a great score to some people but for someone like me who is a slow learner its perfect!!!!

  2. Some of my friends say that writing gre for the 2nd time has a disadvantage, is that true? I was told that the professors in US while going through out profile, can know whether we have written in 1 time, or gave 2nd attempt, and then give priority accordingly. Is it true? plz answer this, i'm confused.

  3. Hi,

    I would like to add one more detail to the original post. There is a difference between every question in GRE but the difference doesn't come from the question number but by the difficulty level. each question has a difficulty level associated with it. These levels are from 1 to 5. And how much u score or lose in a question depends on the difficulty level. For eg u r likely to lose more points if u answer a question whose difficulty level is 2 or 3 incorrectly than if u make a question with a difficulty level of 4 or 5. And the difficulty level of the question depends on the answer to the previous question and to some extent to the answer to all the previous questions. @HSB i have mailed the my entire but generally i got 10 questions wrong in verbal for a score of 650 and 7 questions wrong in quants for a score of 780.

  4. guys due to health sickness i did not get the desired gre score otherwise my profile is very good
    i am a final year m.tech student at nit warangal.is there anyone who could help me for PhD admissions with this profile

    1) gre-1000(v-340,q-660,AWA-5.0), TOEFL-110
    2) b.tech cgpa-8.65/10
    3) m.tech cgpa- 7.9/10
    4) won 2 design competitions, 5 technical projects(including 1 ISRO sponsored satellite design+ 1 battery operated electric vehicle design)
    5) 2 extracurricular certificates
    6) summer intern at ABB LTD.
    7)final year project on energy conservation
    8) interested in pursuing doctoral degree in energy related field at dept of ece

    is there any possibility to get phd admit with the above profile.
    please help me out

  5. Thanks very much guys. here is my story.. I took the GRE on the 11th of December(yeah last Saturday). I got horrible scores(520 in quant and 360 in verbal). On the verbal and quant section I was more concerned with finishing the test so I was rushing my responses. I took only four days to prepare for the test which was definately a bad idea. I must say the quant section was a huge surprise because I had spent most of my time preparing for the verbal section and did little in quant. I never took the break, when I got to the test centre I was scared and was still reading some english words.

    I spent 4 minutes on the first question and that scared me and I even stopped writing anything. Now I want to take the GRE again next month. Please help me on how I can get the elusive 1300 score.

    1. Phineas, if you just go with a cooler head and little preparation (I did it for couple of days only) into the Quant section, it is not very difficult to score 700+ but for verbal, you need to mug up those 5000 words. No other way, friend … try to revise as many wordlists as you can… I know it sucks to sit down and mug those words up, but that's unavoidable

      1. Thanks Abhu. I have the Big Barrons book, is it enough for verbal? I have started reading already, I hope I will pass next time!

          1. hai Abhu, did you take the test after or around 15th December?

            I took the test on 15th December and the quant part was really horrible. My 2nd quant question was "A printer numbers the pages of a book starting with 1 and uses 3189 digits in all. How many pages does the book have?"

            unfortunately i did not understand the question.

  6. Thanks for the info about the GRE diagnostic tool. I was able to see how I had performed, how many I got correct and what levels of difficulty the questions were. Definitely very useful info.

    I got 790 in quant with 4 wrong answers (10,14,17,21)

    and, 580 in verbal with 11 wrong answers (1,6,8,11,12,15,16,22,28,29,30)

    The link to GRE Diagnostic Service for others who are interested is: https://grediagnostic.ets.org/grediag/basic/gre.h

  7. Here is one small tip from my personal experience. Do take that optional 10 min break between verbal and quant sections and clear mind. When I gave my exam the first time I felt I had screwed up my verbal so badly that I lost my focus and screwed up in quant. Only in the end I realized that I had scored 490 in verbal & 680 in quant thus screwing my sure shot quant marks over nothing.. I appeared again next month, still felt that I had not done great in verbal but still took the break, cleared my mind and gave quant with cooler head… result 500+800 which was more kinda score I was hoping I should have got with my preparations… moral of the story…. keep two sections separate and don't carry your disappointment if any from first section to other …

    1. heyyy if i get less score can and i submitted the xam.and want to write again is it possible??wat scre dey vil consider??

      1. vbharat,

        What do you mean by 'submitted the exam' ? Are you referring to reporting of scores or not canceling the scores immediately u felt that u did not do well in the exam during ur GRE test. I will answer for both –

        You can write GRE multiple number of times but only once in a calendar month so if you scored badly, you need to book your next date in next calendar month and also there is some upper cap (6 i think) in a given year.

        No matter how many times you write your exam, ALL, yes all scores would be reported by ETS to universities but only the latest one is considered valid. (If you score less than earlier I suggest you check with ETS), and you can opt to report only a particular exam score.

        If you are asking about canceling (during exam) and again reappearing for it, it is very much possible.

        I hope that answers all your questions.

        Regards,

        Abhi

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