The GRE

[cpitt398]

When I took mine, 4 years ago, you had the option of throwing out the score before seeing it, and not registering the score. However bad you think you did, dont do it. I thought i did horrible, but actually did quite well.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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Stolen from the LSAT thread - I'm taking the GRE next week.

For those who have taken it.
How was it?

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Easy.
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How many times did you take it?

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Once. 4 years ago.
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Roughly how many hours did you prepare?

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I did not prepare.
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Did you do better or worse than expected?

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I don't even remember, but good enough to get into a top-5 aerospace program.
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Any info is appreciated - basically I wanna know if studying is neccesary or if it is basically just like the SAT.

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It's a SAT clone, throw in some freshman-level calc and drop the easiest SAT questions and there you go. I believe I also took a subject-specific test, but don't recall much about it. I'm sure it was harder than the general one, but I know I also didn't prepare, so it couldn't have been that terrible.

[swede123]

I didn't take the GRE, instead I took the GMAT to get into Grad school. This was a pain in the ass, simply 'cause I'd never taken the SAT or any of those super long tests, so the eight hour format really got to me. I really think the key to these tests is endurance, you have to be able to focus for many hours at a time, whereas most people kinda fade towards the last few hours.

Swede

Swede

[Peca277]

I didn't think it was very difficult. Took it once and did better than expected so there was no reason to take it again. I spent a few hours a day for 2-3 weeks before going over practice tests and using flashcards for the verbal section. Ended up with a 640 verbal (definitely helped by all the words I learned over those 3 weeks) and a 760 quant (definitely helped by refreshing my math memory with practice tests) and a 5.0 analytical writing (little disappointing).

I just used the Princeton Review Cracking the GRE book, and the online software ETS gives you access to, and they had all the information I needed to do well.

[dankhank]

this doesn't answer the question since the test apparently changed, but i will reminisce as well.

took the test about three years ago during a quiet summer. don't even know how i managed to get it properly scheduled. no preparation. _did not smoke the morning of the test_. small, sterile test taking computer room with one other person. very convenient point and click answering. i did medicore on the math and verbal but got a perfect score on the analytical part. if i remember, the questions were versions of old math class games where you have like 6 people and 7 pieces of fruit and you have to figure out who traded what piece of fruit with whom, given some clues. apparently i am good at that? since then have quit grad school and become a poker player.

[gumpzilla]

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I took the Subject Specific GRE (Physics). I wanted to just cry after that test

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The physics GRE is a completely different beast. The general GRE wasn't so bad. The physics GRE I only had time to answer 2/3 of the questions on, and that was substantially more than average. The rule of thumb I've read is that scoring over the 60th percentile for an American citizen is pretty much good enough on your physics GRE so that your GRE doesn't stop you from getting into places.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that almost every practice verbal I've seen is substantially harder than the real thing.