I think the real issue is that comparing the GRE quantitative section to the Putnam isn’t reasonable. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there are tons of people who are not capable of scoring anything at all on the Putnam, yet have perfect GRE quant scores.
In any event, seeing researchers using the naive measure (if this is indeed what they did) to compare what are blatantly apples and oranges makes me feel a bit uneasy.
We are aware that the SAT and GRE quant sections have low ceilings, which is why you also need a very high verbal score to qualify through one of those tests alone. But some extremely intelligent people fail to clear the verbal cutoff (especially likely when English isn’t their first language), so we figured it was worth mentioning that performance on the level of Putnam Honorable Mention gets you in regardless of your standardized test scores.
Also keep in mind that these are just automatic qualifying criteria. We’ll admit a fair number of volunteers who don’t satisfy any of them.
I think the real issue is that comparing the GRE quantitative section to the Putnam isn’t reasonable.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there are tons of people who are not capable of scoring anything at all on the Putnam, yet have perfect GRE quant scores.
In any event, seeing researchers using the naive measure (if this is indeed what they did) to compare what are blatantly apples and oranges makes me feel a bit uneasy.
We are aware that the SAT and GRE quant sections have low ceilings, which is why you also need a very high verbal score to qualify through one of those tests alone. But some extremely intelligent people fail to clear the verbal cutoff (especially likely when English isn’t their first language), so we figured it was worth mentioning that performance on the level of Putnam Honorable Mention gets you in regardless of your standardized test scores.
Also keep in mind that these are just automatic qualifying criteria. We’ll admit a fair number of volunteers who don’t satisfy any of them.
Christopher Chang, BGI Cognitive Genomics
Great to hear from you, that’s good to know!