secrecy

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betelgeuse1
Posts: 116
Joined: Sat May 09, 2009 10:14 am

secrecy

Post by betelgeuse1 » Fri Oct 23, 2009 9:20 am

Hi everyone,
I really feel very bad about this and I am sure that some of you that are asking me about specific problems in the October test are just trying to remember some problems but... how should I say... I'm glad to give advices or general observations about the test... but I can't give you any specific problems... I try to "extend" the interpretation of what I signed during that test as much as I can but I won't tell anyone the exact form of a problem...
I hope you all understand this and can still consider me a sort of friend from a far away country!
Good luck!

physics_auth
Posts: 163
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2009 7:24 pm

Re: secrecy

Post by physics_auth » Fri Oct 23, 2009 4:03 pm

betelgeuse1 wrote:Hi everyone,
I really feel very bad about this and I am sure that some of you that are asking me about specific problems in the October test are just trying to remember some problems but... how should I say... I'm glad to give advices or general observations about the test... but I can't give you any specific problems... I try to "extend" the interpretation of what I signed during that test as much as I can but I won't tell anyone the exact form of a problem...
I hope you all understand this and can still consider me a sort of friend from a far away country!
Good luck!
I strongly agree with your stance Betelgeuse1. It is NOT AT ALL a fair "game" when some "opponents" know the secrets...! Don't forget (Betelgeuse 1) that some questions may reappear in the November test and if so, other candidates will earn additional points simply because of the disclosure of part of the content of the test by you ... this is NOT fair again. Finally, don't forget that all of us are candidates for US universities and everyone should have some cards up their sleeve... . Once again, I strongly bolster your position and don't feel guilty for not divulging info about the content of your test ... some people don't bother getting involved in "fraudulent actions" ... and this should be thwarted by any means!

N.B.: I exclude the case where sb paid to participate in a test ... only to know what its content is ... .

idontknow
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Oct 24, 2009 11:35 am

Re: secrecy

Post by idontknow » Sat Oct 24, 2009 11:51 am

I agree, we should try to keep it fair. Here is a question: do those who take the test more than once have an unfair advantage over those who only take it once? After all, during the test you get to look at 100 unreleased questions for 170 minutes, then, a month and $130 later, you can take the test again. Is that fair?

kroner
Posts: 217
Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 1:58 am

Re: secrecy

Post by kroner » Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:29 pm

Yeah that's a good point.

Is there any evidence that questions are repeated between the Oct and Nov exams any more often than between exams in different years? For example have people who have taken both noticed a trend? I've heard that said a few times here but that seems like it would be a strange move by the ETS.

physics_auth
Posts: 163
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2009 7:24 pm

Re: secrecy

Post by physics_auth » Sat Oct 24, 2009 2:12 pm

idontknow wrote:I agree, we should try to keep it fair. Here is a question: do those who take the test more than once have an unfair advantage over those who only take it once? After all, during the test you get to look at 100 unreleased questions for 170 minutes, then, a month and $130 later, you can take the test again. Is that fair?
I believe that ETS makes drastic changes only once a year ... . Let me give an example, as I saw in this forum there was a question about a particular elementary particle in the October test or November test (or maybe both, I don't remember exactly). This question also appeared in the April test (I remember that question since I sat the test in April, but I wasn't member of the forum ... that period. Had I known of it, I would have read one page about this particle and would have answered this question instead of leaving it unanswered. Besides, I noticed that a very small number of questions from the released tests (by ETS) keeps re-appearing in current tests. I think the content that is examined in several PGRE questions changes slowly enough. As opposed to that, some of the tactics that could be employed in older versions of the PGRE test, like the one when the answers are not numbers but algebraic quantities (i.e. the method of examining particular limiting cases), can currently be employed less and less since ETS tends to provide numerical answers, and almost always numerical questions require full attack of the question. All in all, though the advantage from October to November test may be not that essential, the advantage of having taken the test for more than 3 consecutive times is more pronounced ... . [It has been stated openly in this forum ... that some candidates earned some points only due to repetitions ... from one test to the next.]

@i dont know = sounds a strange nickname to me :lol:

matonski
Posts: 121
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:03 pm

Re: secrecy

Post by matonski » Thu Oct 29, 2009 3:35 am

Just as an example. I took the PGRE last April, and a couple nights before the test, I browsed through threads from testing time October and November of last year. I was able to infer pretty much exactly what 2 problems were. Low and behold, I had those same problems on my test. I knew exactly how to answer them having just thought about those questions. I wasn't reading the threads looking for secret info, but when it was staring me in the face, I of course thought through the problems myself.

I actually got really lucky that way. The night before the test, my brain was fried but I wanted to keep learning. I knew nothing about particle physics so I decided to watched part 4 of this video. There ended up being about 5-6 particle physics questions and I was able to answer 4 just because I watched the video the night before.

And that's not all, the morning before the test, I did a few optics problems from Halliday/Resnick/Walker. One of the problems on diffraction was exactly on that test. So all in all, I was able to get 7 questions on sheer luck and timing.



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