Physics GRE of 25th October

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heisenbergh23
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2014 10:56 am

Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by heisenbergh23 » Sat Oct 25, 2014 5:39 am

Hello guys, how did it go? I found out the test to be more difficult than the practice test of 2008. What do you think?

slowdweller
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 8:47 am

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by slowdweller » Sat Oct 25, 2014 6:08 am

Certainly somewhat harder than the 2008 test, though not by much. I have a feeling that the difficulty wasn't different enough to change the curve from the 2008 test by a lot. I attempted around 88-90 I think, (didn't really have time to count exactly how many I skipped) out of which probably 7 or 8 were guesses. I can already think of 4 problems I got wrong, so I'm not feeling very good about it...

Where did you take it OP?

majid23
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2014 6:57 am

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by majid23 » Sat Oct 25, 2014 7:01 am

i attempted 85 questions. I am almost sure that about 82 of them were correct.
How good or bad is that. What kind of score should i expect.

heisenbergh23
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2014 10:56 am

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by heisenbergh23 » Sat Oct 25, 2014 7:05 am

I believe that will be close to 990.

My test became difficult due to time constraints. Are there people who wrote the test today and on September as well? If so, can you tell us which test was more difficult?

gendf
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2014 10:39 am

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by gendf » Sat Oct 25, 2014 11:34 am

Hi everyone.
I attempted 88 questions, but left blank 6-8 out of these. Definetly I answered #71 wrong.(

floating
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2014 11:55 am

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by floating » Sat Oct 25, 2014 12:17 pm

The guy next to me said it was easier than practice tests. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the test was actually a bit more difficult. He also said Oct tests are more difficult than Sep and April ones, is that correct?
If that is true, it won't have any influence in our scores, right?
I mean ETS gives 990 to the top 6 percent "of each test", 980 to the top 7 percent, and so on, regardless of how many questions they've got right, am I right?

Yourself
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:22 pm

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by Yourself » Sat Oct 25, 2014 12:59 pm

There were a lot of trivial questions (as usual) but also a few obscure/unclear ones. I had no idea at all about the last question. Did anyone get the last question? (Obviously you're not supposed to write the question or the answer in public.)

dak213
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:17 pm

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by dak213 » Sat Oct 25, 2014 1:08 pm

I don't know why but I had a much harder time with this one than the one in September. Maybe an off day or the exam was harder in general.

pseudoscalar
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:30 pm

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by pseudoscalar » Sat Oct 25, 2014 3:10 pm

Definitely found this to be harder than the September 27 one. But maybe it was due to my nervousness. As usual, I started to lose track of time in the middle of the test, when doing No. 50-70 or so and was scrambling to finish up, but still managed to answer 90 questions. I already know that at least 2 of them are wrong though. Spent so much time revising more exotic topics that I misremembered some more basic things. :cry:

dak213
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:17 pm

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by dak213 » Sat Oct 25, 2014 9:30 pm

pseudoscalar wrote:Definitely found this to be harder than the September 27 one. But maybe it was due to my nervousness. As usual, I started to lose track of time in the middle of the test, when doing No. 50-70 or so and was scrambling to finish up, but still managed to answer 90 questions. I already know that at least 2 of them are wrong though. Spent so much time revising more exotic topics that I misremembered some more basic things. :cry:

Out of 90, I feel like getting 2 or a few more incorrect won't really hurt your chances. I think you're in pretty good shape but I know what you mean. I messed up on stuff I know backwards and forwards every other day of the week.

Explorer33
Posts: 32
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:28 am

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by Explorer33 » Sat Oct 25, 2014 10:53 pm

I gave it too. Mine went reasonably good for the amount of time I had to prepare for the test. It was a tough test for sure if you were aiming for anything > 950.

Hmm let's see:

Classical Mechanics: Tricky, Very tricky. Even some of the simple sums can take time and that's the problem for me once I get hooked it's difficult to leave :)

Atomic Physics and Specialized Topics: By far the simplest .Some of the questions are so simple they take 5 secs.

Quantum Mechanics: Did not study this so it was total guess work from my side

Themodynamics and Optics: Slightly Hard

Electromagnetics: Pretty Simple

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a strategy I decided to attempt all 100 and guess the ones that I had no clue about which means I guessed around 15 atleast. I am hoping luck evens out ( as it should by probabilty) or who knows maybe get lucky :D

McCankles
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 8:30 pm

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by McCankles » Mon Oct 27, 2014 8:40 pm

I must say it was a bit more difficult than the September one for me. I went into the September one relatively unstudied having really only covered Classical Mech and was able to take a swing at around 63 of the questions either by limit analysis or from class recollection. I spent October 14th to 25th studying (had to take the normal GRE on the 13th) E+M and other topics in depth and I found the Classical Mech stuff more difficult on this exam. E+M stuff was a breeze, a total joke compared to the Sept one. Quantum was more fact based than calculation based. Couple of simple SR calculations nothing too serious. Thermo was also relatively easy going. Most of the ones I left blank were fact questions about particle physics or experimental physics or error analysis. I have never taken Optics or Electronics and my A&N is also very weak outside of knowledge from QM. A lot of number crunching for me on this one, didn't really have that in Sept as I recall, left me sparse on time. I answered 75 of them, about 62 I solved outright. Only had time for one slow calculation run through and a quicker limit analysis intuition guess run through. In Sept I had time to go through the whole exam three times essentially.

In general, I could usually narrow down to two answers on the ones I couldn't outright solve in time. Hoping for above a 750 but definitely more nervous this time due to the difficulty and high chance of me making stupid little mistakes.

Edit: Anyone get discouraged after these exams? I took the whole day Sunday off post exam free from physics and returned to thinking about it today. I could remember and solve to see that I made stupid errors on 6 of the 13 I limit guessed. Keep reminding myself it's not a good indicator of physical ability but it does say something to have a solid ground in the material and be comfortable with these quick calculations.

Explorer33
Posts: 32
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:28 am

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by Explorer33 » Mon Oct 27, 2014 9:24 pm

I also thought it was tougher too overal but not by too much. Hopefully it means that we need lesser raw scores to get a higher net score. A raw score of 60 on the 2008 one will get you ~800 so that's good.

sjamalanwar
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Oct 29, 2014 11:55 am

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by sjamalanwar » Wed Oct 29, 2014 12:09 pm

aoa,
friends i have attempted 77 questions, 22 are wrong and i hope my raw score will 49, can i will get 45 percentile

slowdweller
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 8:47 am

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by slowdweller » Thu Oct 30, 2014 1:49 pm

sjamalanwar wrote:aoa,
friends i have attempted 77 questions, 22 are wrong and i hope my raw score will 49, can i will get 45 percentile
Just look at the 2008 test book. On that test a raw score of 49 corresponds to the 59th percentile. Even if the curve is harsher for the Oct 14 test, it should still be above a 45 I think.

seanspins211
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2014 10:25 pm

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by seanspins211 » Thu Oct 30, 2014 10:34 pm

I took the PGRE in Sept and Oct of 2014. In Sept, I answered 78 and got an 810 (knew for certain I got 5 wrong shortly after). The Oct exam was definitely harder. I was much more prepared, and answered 82. Based on my accurate prediction of an 800 in Sept, I'd say my prediction for Oct is a 900. (I know of only 2 questions I got wrong.) Hope that can give you some insight.

shep23
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2014 11:18 pm

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by shep23 » Thu Oct 30, 2014 11:34 pm

I thought the test was fairly close to the difficulty of the 2008 exam. As others have said, Classical stuck out for being tricky and Quantum was ridiculously simple. I don't think it was necessary to even solve a quantum problem, you just needed to know definitions. There also seemed to be a heavier focus on modern physics as compared to the practice exams, most of which was trivia instead of quantitative.

I left only 3 blank, but I have a philosophy that no question should be left blank, since if you can eliminate even 1 answer it is favorable to guess. So, many answered questions were educated guesses that perhaps others would not have left blank.


When will the scores first be available online?

masterika
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2014 2:07 pm

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by masterika » Sat Nov 01, 2014 2:15 pm

hey guys,

I also found 25 october test more difficult than 2008 practice test, and maybe as difficult as 2001 practice test? what do you think, how much change will be in raw score to scaled score conversion? maybe 990 will correspond to 80 now, instead of 82 in practice test 2008?

nik
Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Nov 09, 2013 7:10 pm

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by nik » Mon Nov 03, 2014 2:22 pm

Hey Guys... before I write anything about the difficulty of the Oct'14 test, I would like to ask, are you guys ALL from USA or did u ALL write your exams in the same state? I guess not.

Here is the point: the PGRE test starts at 8:30AM local time all around the world. Anyone with a good memory taking PGRE in New Zealand or Australia can fairly pass 20% of the test questions to his/her friends in Washing or Alaska approximately 10-12 hours before the test starts!!! Or lets say students in Israel or Jewish students in USA, who take Monday test can get the question basically 48 hours before their test!!!

Surely, that DOES NOT happen. There are are 24 timelines in the world, so using 6-8 different sets of questions, this "question leaks" can be prevented easily. Then how can you guys compare the difficulty of your question with others without even knowing where they did their exams?

Before you start the test, you need to write down a 5 alphanumeric code, called the "Form Code" which can be found at the back cover of your test book. If your form codes are same, you can be sure that the questions inside are also same. Only then you can compare the difficulty of your test, otherwise not.

Well, I do remember my form code. It was :shock: :roll: :D :lol: :o. The test was much easier than the 2008 practice test, and I think 990 will correspond to >=86 raw score for my test. In that case I'm *****d because I answered only 91 questions. I already know that 3 are wrong.

Thanks and Good luck.

TakeruK
Posts: 941
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2012 3:05 pm

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by TakeruK » Mon Nov 03, 2014 3:30 pm

It would be a really bad test if ETS' attempts at maintaining security compromised the "standardized-ness" of the exam. But, keep in mind that variations in how people determine "difficulty" are probably much much more influenced by each test taker's subjective opinion rather than the actual variation in difficulty.

So, while very broad generalization might be useful (i.e. the test was more like 2008, or more like 1986 or whatever), I don't think subjective reports of difficulty from other test takers are reliable enough for anyone to distinguish between whether a raw score of 80 or a raw score of 82 is needed to score 990.

That is, I think the "error-bars" on each human's subjective evaluation of test difficulty would be much larger than the actual variation in difficulty of different versions of the test. So, even if you knew the form code, you would still be dominated by human judgement error. Therefore, for the purposes to post-test-anxiety-comparisons-even-though-we-know-rationally-that-we-can't-do-anything-about-it-now (I've been there!), I don't think knowing the form codes would make a difference.

uhurulol
Posts: 79
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2014 12:38 am

Re: Physics GRE of 25th October

Post by uhurulol » Mon Nov 03, 2014 6:50 pm

McCankles wrote:Edit: Anyone get discouraged after these exams? I took the whole day Sunday off post exam free from physics and returned to thinking about it today. I could remember and solve to see that I made stupid errors on 6 of the 13 I limit guessed. Keep reminding myself it's not a good indicator of physical ability but it does say something to have a solid ground in the material and be comfortable with these quick calculations.
Don't get discouraged. The professors at my school all agree that the test is a terrible indicator of your abilities as a physicist. Some of them actually speak very harshly against it. I let it get to me for about a day, but I got over it pretty quickly.



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