You took the GREs cold. I’m surprised you did half as well as you did. Why? Because anyone who is not mentally handicaped can pay tutor a large sum of money, do exactly what the tutor says, and get a perfect score. I’m not exagerating—I have friends who tutor in this business, and every year they sit for the GRE as a requirement for their job, and get a perfect score. It’s a teachable skill, and one which has very little to do with the subject matter.
Now consider that most of the other people who took the GRE knew about this weakness. Especially internationally in places like China and India where (1) there are a lot of test takers, (2) a much larger test prep industry, and (3) massive incentives to do well (so as to get into an American or European university). Now keeping all that in mind, you still scored better than 72 / 68 percent of the competition despite having absolutely no preparation whatsoever.
I’m not convinced this is a good argument. You’re certainly over-stating how teachable the GRE is, and I have a least anecdotal evidence of lots of people who scored above 90% on the general GRE quantitative section without tutors. This includes at least one person who “took it cold.” Maybe those are super exceptional folks, but I think the statement that most of the people scoring in the top 30% had tutors is a really strong statement. I have worked for a test prep agency before and there aren’t a lot of top tier students in those classes, and indeed the courses and techniques really geared towards the bottom/middle-tier students. Also, you can’t do well on the GRE, especially the subject tests, without knowing the subject matter.
Your argument is plausible, but it’s all conjecture. I’m curious as to whether you think the GRE percentages mean anything at all, and if so, what the ‘adjustment’ for taking it cold should be,
You took the GREs cold. I’m surprised you did half as well as you did. Why? Because anyone who is not mentally handicaped can pay tutor a large sum of money, do exactly what the tutor says, and get a perfect score. I’m not exagerating—I have friends who tutor in this business, and every year they sit for the GRE as a requirement for their job, and get a perfect score. It’s a teachable skill, and one which has very little to do with the subject matter.
Now consider that most of the other people who took the GRE knew about this weakness. Especially internationally in places like China and India where (1) there are a lot of test takers, (2) a much larger test prep industry, and (3) massive incentives to do well (so as to get into an American or European university). Now keeping all that in mind, you still scored better than 72 / 68 percent of the competition despite having absolutely no preparation whatsoever.
Why are you not congratulating yourself?
I’m not convinced this is a good argument. You’re certainly over-stating how teachable the GRE is, and I have a least anecdotal evidence of lots of people who scored above 90% on the general GRE quantitative section without tutors. This includes at least one person who “took it cold.” Maybe those are super exceptional folks, but I think the statement that most of the people scoring in the top 30% had tutors is a really strong statement. I have worked for a test prep agency before and there aren’t a lot of top tier students in those classes, and indeed the courses and techniques really geared towards the bottom/middle-tier students. Also, you can’t do well on the GRE, especially the subject tests, without knowing the subject matter.
Your argument is plausible, but it’s all conjecture. I’m curious as to whether you think the GRE percentages mean anything at all, and if so, what the ‘adjustment’ for taking it cold should be,