GRE Subject Exam feedback

[Old Rusty Pipe]

While not one of the most popular options on the board, there does appear to be some consistent interest in the use of GRE Subject Exams for earning credit. With the October and November exams nearly upon us, I ask those who have taken one before or those who soon will to submit some kind of feedback.

Whichever you have taken, or plan to, please let us know what you thought of the experience, how much time you put in, resources used, etc. Essentially everything we already have in the exam feedback section, just for one of the GRE Subject Exams.

Thank you.

[alissaroot]

While not one of the most popular options on the board, there does appear to be some consistent interest in the use of GRE Subject Exams for earning credit. With the October and November exams nearly upon us, I ask those who have taken one before or those who soon will to submit some kind of feedback.

Whichever you have taken, or plan to, please let us know what you thought of the experience, how much time you put in, resources used, etc. Essentially everything we already have in the exam feedback section, just for one of the GRE Subject Exams.

Thank you.

Of course I already posted a huge reply about some of the stuff I have done to prepare for this test. The Psychology one. I also have a huge outline I put together, but I don't think I will post it because it is too long, and I fear a 10 page outline with relevant websites, although it's been useful to me, will scare everyone off rather quickly...

The test is less than three weeks away, and I am pretty much having a panic attack about it daily. By the time I take it, I will have studied for 9 weeks. I think I will get a decent score, though. My biggest recommendations are to concentrate on names, along with the experiments they performed or theories. It has really helped me pass the practice tests. And I like to try and incorporate studying into my daily routine. This test is no joke, especially if you have no experience in the subject.

If anyone wants my outline, just PM me and I'll be happy to email it to you. I'll post everything I can about this test when I take it Oct. 18th. Thanks!

[she7]

Ooops, I just post a similiar question and after I posted it, I saw your post...I wonder is there any math on the psychology GRE?

[alissaroot]

Ooops, I just post a similiar question and after I posted it, I saw your post...I wonder is there any math on the psychology GRE?

Just statistics so far on the practice tests, and it's light, not a large part of the test altogether. There are a few formulas that I've been trying to memorize...not very successfully...about figuring IQ and Weber's Law, but not a huge deal of math-related stuff so far in my experience. I'm hoping that as long as I understand the Normal Distribution and basic correlations I'll be ok.

[Blitzstudie]

I am also taking it on the 18th. I am using Princeton GRE book,Instacert and I have textbooks for each subject....which may be overkill...we shall see,will post feedback.

In reference to the stats portion, remember that it is a small portion of the test,according to the PR book about 7 questions. A friend who is in a Phd program (less than 5% accepted) advised spending time in proportion to the amount of questions.

The big three are Social,Lifetime development and Personality. From what I have seen so far,knowing major players,schools of thought and experiments covers the broadest spectrum. Knowing what it ISNT is almost as valuable as knowing what it is.

I will try and check back but I am trying to spend my time studying

[Old Rusty Pipe]

I've got a friend who signed up for the Physics GRE come November. He's promised to write some feedback after that time as well. So expect that in a month or so as well.

Ideally, I'd like to get some kind of feedback going for all 8 of the GRE Subject Exams. Granted this will likely not happen, but the more feedback the merrier.

[alissaroot]

I don't know if anyone else is curious about which exams are duplicated, or not, by the GRE Psychology, but I asked Excelsior about a few of them:

I asked, "I am interested specifically in Organizational Behavior, Substance Abuse, and Management Information Systems DSSTs? I would assume these are business and health courses, but I am interested in taking them though they are indirectly related to psychology."

Jodi Bernstein-Liberal Arts Adviser-

The DSST exams Organizational Behavior, Drug & Alcohol Abuse, and Management Information Systems would not duplicate the GRE in Psychology. Org Behavior would apply as 3.00 lower level credits in the arts & sciences, while the other two exams would apply as 6.00 upper level credits under applied professional. Exams the would duplicate are CLEP's Educational Psychology and Human Growth & Development. And if you earn at least 3.00 GRE credits, you would lose the General Psychology course already on your record. Other things that may duplicate, particularly at the upper level, will really depend on your score, so I encourage you to hold off on any on any psychology type courses/exams until that time.

She is referring to the fact that my Intro Psychology course from 10 years ago is a four credit course, if I bomb the GRE and get only three credits, it will still replace and I will actually lose a credit. So, evidently, the tests duplicated are the very obvious ones, thank goodness, I can now include these 3 in my testing plan.

An update for anybody following my story, or comparing my progress with your own, I did bomb last weeks (week #6) practice test out of the Barron's book, with a disappointing 111 raw score, but thankfully it came up to a reasonable 138 out of this week's (week#7)REA practice test book. I still believe in being optimistic though!

Also, here's a meaningful site w/advice for all the GRE exams, a free sample test, and if you're willing to pay, a test prep course and more exams: psychology@subjectgre.com and the forum with good advice for all the subject GREs, although sparse on Psychology and English:GRE Subject Tests - TestMagic Forums

[Sunshine]

I don't know if anyone else is curious about which exams are duplicated, or not, by the GRE Psychology, but I asked Excelsior about a few of them:

I asked, "I am interested specifically in Organizational Behavior, Substance Abuse, and Management Information Systems DSSTs? I would assume these are business and health courses, but I am interested in taking them though they are indirectly related to psychology."

Jodi Bernstein-Liberal Arts Adviser-

She is referring to the fact that my Intro Psychology course from 10 years ago is a four credit course, if I bomb the GRE and get only three credits, it will still replace and I will actually lose a credit. So, evidently, the tests duplicated are the very obvious ones, thank goodness, I can now include these 3 in my testing plan.

An update for anybody following my story, or comparing my progress with your own, I did bomb last weeks practice test out of the Barron's book, with a disappointing 111 raw score, but thankfully it came up to a reasonable 138 out of this week's REA practice test book. I still believe in being optimistic though!

Thanks for posting this- this is very helpful for those of us thinking about GREs. We're all rooting for you!

[alissaroot]

I gave in and ordered the older ets book. I noticed the price had dropped considerably when I saw it on amazon. It isn't worth spending money on, in my opinion. It has 100 diagnostic questions, a 220 question test from 1993, and 4-5 pages of general information (nothing new). I got 92/100 on the diagnostic questions and a 177 on the practice test. This is way too good to be true. The 1993 version of the test is a lot easier than the 2000 version they send you when you register. I feel that the REA book is giving me the most realistic scores, ranging between 130-150. That is where I expect to score on the real test.

I stupidly took the 2000 version first, almost nine weeks ago, and got a 109 on it after one week of study. This scared me to death at the time. I practically hyperventilated. I now think that's not so bad for one week. I retook it the day before yesterday and got a 173, but I don't think it counts if you already went through once! I plan to spend these last three days going over the 2000 version and looking up all the answers more thoroughly on line, and going through the last bit of the ARCO and REA book I haven't used yet. And of course, going through the IC flashcards, most especially for Statistics and Research Methods.

Also, I have found mnemonic devices to be enormously helpful in remembering so much information. Here's on older thread on this forum that talks about the Psych GRE and has a good mnemonic for remembering Flourens:

http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...funny.html

And here's a good website for remembering parts of the brain, I found it very helpful. It also has a peg word method mnemonic for remembering Erikson's stages of development, but peg words don't work for me. I can remember "One-Bun, Two-Shoe" and forget the rest! Episode 72 (video): Memorize the Parts of the Brain | The Psych Files Podcast

If anyone has any more psychology mnemonics, please share them with me. Feel free to send me a PM if you'd prefer!

[alissaroot]

Whew! It's finally over, thank goodness. I live more than 2 hours from my closest GRE testing location, because I basically live in the middle of a giant cornfield, so that's how my day began. I'm glad I set out early, because finding the building and testing room was my first challenge. I've seen other posts that have mentioned that, so it bears repeating. On a big campus like Indiana University, give yourself extra time to find everything. I wandered around the building for almost 25 minutes before I found someone to ask for directions that early in the morning. And that was after I had to stop at Village Pantry to ask directions to the building at which I was supposed to be.

There were about fifty of us there. No one chatted or anything. All I said the whole time was, "Bless you" to a girl who sneezed. And I whispered. Most everyone was looking over textbooks, their GRE sample booklet, or like me, flashcards. There were about 5 people there for the Math exam, 4 for the English Lit, 3 for Chemistry, 7 for Biochem, 10 for Comp. Sci, 5 for Biology, 6 for Physics, and the rest for Psychology. We all had to raise our hands to get the right test booklet is the only reason I know this.

We were all assigned seats ahead of time, the seating was noted on a list of all test takers. The proctor must of told us 20 times we couldn't have mechanical pencils. We had to leave all our stuff at the front of the room. No one was allowed to have anything at their desk except their ID, admission ticket, and #2 pencils.Because there were so many of us, it took over an hour to get us all checked in, even though they started rounding us up at 8:00.

Anyway, the test finally began a little after 9am, and I answered every single question. I had about 40 minutes left at the end, so I looked over my answers and changed two of them. Then I got mad on the way home because I realized the correct answers to 3 of the questions that I know I answered wrong. Oh well. What's done is done. I feel like I probably got about 130-135 raw score, based on my experience taking practice tests, which is about what I expected. Even if it turns out I totally bombed, I'll still come back here and update my scores so you guys will have a baseline comparison against my scores, prior level of knowledge, and study preparation. Then you can gauge how well you think you will do. I say, go for it. For the price and time, it's worth a roll of the dice. You can always just take individual exams if you fall a little short. In fact, I think I will go register for the Literature In English GRE in April as soon as I am done with this post, because I really am just crazy like that. Why not? It's worth a shot!

As for the content of the test, I'm scared to say. They practically make you sign an oath in blood not to reveal anything to anyone about the content. And if my scores got canceled, no matter how terrible they are, I would be furious! But...here's some updated study advice. Buy at least one of the prep books. Princeton Review, Kaplan, and Arco are all about the same, so get at least one of those. I'd say that will cover about 60% of the exam. Make sure you know it by heart. And I really like the REA book as an accurate gauge of progress, even though there are more " (D) All of the above (E) None of the above" type questions in there than what I encountered on the exam. If I had it to do over again, I would spend more time on Research Methods and Design rather than Statistics, even though that is supposedly a small part of the test, there's a lot about analyzing an experiment. "What wrong with this experiment?"' "What type of experiment is this?", "What could be done to improve this experiment?" , "How would a researcher analyze the results of this experiment?", "What do these results mean according to this graph?" There seemed to quite a lot of those type questions. And a lot of analyzing a scenario. "If Bob has this symptom and this one and that one, what would his diagnosis be? Which Axis of the DSM-IV would that be? What treatment should Bob have? What is the most likely cause of Bob's illness? If Bob did such-and-such, what is that symptom called?" Those are some examples of what you will encounter. Gah!

I'm glad I found that Psychology Encyclopedia at the library, because it was really recent, and the GRE prep books don't cover anything recent. You definitely should drop some money on the most recent General Psychology textbook you can afford. And pick one up on Experimental Design and Applied Psychology while you are at it. Sorry I can't be more specific! But I really think it can be done, and if I had more time I'd go buy a new Psych textbook right now and give it another try with some more recent knowledge in the field under my belt.

Also, thank you to everyone who sent me messages and emails wishing me good luck yesterday, that really meant a lot to me. Well, it was up on the chalkboard that it could be up to six weeks before we get our scores, but I'll make sure and let you guys know how I did! I feel pretty good about it. I did the best I could do, anyway. At least I tried!