April GRE Scores

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alexgoestoschool
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:00 pm

April GRE Scores

Post by alexgoestoschool » Fri May 06, 2022 10:13 am

Howdy,
Current undergrad junior here at a tiny school
I know this forum isn't very active but the April PGRE scores just came out and I can't find anyone online or IRL who took this exam to talk about it with.
I was the only person in my department and the only person at the regional testing center taking it, also.
I remember being so nervous during the test, I put way too much importance on it. I think I almost had a panic attack during, like I could only hear my heart beating and I don't even know what the state of my thoughts were like lol. I am prone to test anxiety, but gosh darnit I know this material and think this physical/mental response to this silly exam hurt my performance.

I did fine on it, though. I got a 700. Which won't hurt my chances with a lot of schools, but won't help me with great schools. I know I can do better, especially with electromagnetism. I could polish up my quantum but feel pretty good there, and there's really no reason to miss the classical mechanics questions except that they can be a little more computational than the others.
So my plan is to make a study group at my summer REU and try not to care too much. The hundreds of flashcards I made of equations are luckily still in my brain, so I'll focus more on conceptual things and practice tests. And then work more on anxiety management before and during the exam.

Its a catch 22, the exam needs to be important enough for me to bust my ass studying, but also needs to not be a big deal for me to not spiral during it lol

Sorry for the stream of consciousness jumble of thoughts that is this post

school4ever
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri May 06, 2022 1:24 pm

Re: April GRE Scores

Post by school4ever » Fri May 06, 2022 1:46 pm

I took the April test. I felt like it started off easy and then got harder. The biggest factor for me personally was time. We get 1:42 for each question, which is more like 90 seconds if you take away reading and bubbling time. Some problems are time sinks and some are freebies where the answer can be seen immediately.

When I left the exam, I remembered 5 questions where I took a guess instead of working it out. A little more time and I would have gotten the answers to those, but I definitely got them wrong. I was actually surprised that my score was >900. I spent two months going through "Conquering the Physics GRE", which is an excellent book and I highly recommend it. If I were to take the exam again, I would do more practice exams and work on my time management.



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