Question for people who have already taken a GRE

[P00057870]

I am reading the instructions for the GRE psych subject test and it states:


Questions for which you mark no answer or more than one answer are not counted in scoring.

As a correction for haphazard guessing, onefourth of the number of questions you answer incorrectly is subtracted from the number of questions you answer correctly. It is improbable that mere guessing will improve your score significantly; it may even lower your score. If, however, you are not certain of the correct answer but have some knowledge of the question
and are able to eliminate one or more of the answer choices, your chance of getting the right answer is improved, and it may be to your advantage
to answer the question.

My question has to do with the following:

I have been told that the FCAT that is given to students here in Florida, they are instructed NOT to guess -- in fact it hurts them less if they do not fill in the answer at all.

Am I reading this correctly, in that this may be a similar situation?

Judy

[alissaroot]

I am not familiar with the FCAT, but there is a scoring penalty for every question answered wrong on the GRE. For example:

200 questions total
150 correct
0 incorrect
raw score will be 150

but

200 questions total
150 correct
50 incorrect x .25 = -12.5
raw score will be 138

So wrong answers can really cause your score to go down, even if you have the same amount of correct questions as someone who left 50 questions blank.

I took a bunch of practice tests leading up to the GRE Psych, and I would recommend trying some tests with guessing and some without. I noticed my score dramatically improved when I guessed, so I decided to guess on the real thing.

[TMW2010]

The advice that I've been given on this subject is to guess on any question that you can eliminate the choices down to 2 answers.

If get 150 questions correct, guess on 25 that you were able to narrow down to two choices, and leave 25 blank, you will, in theory, have 12-13 questions correct, and 12-13 questions incorrect, netting you 9 or so raw points higher than you would have if you left them blank.

You could get all 25 wrong, you could get all 25 right. Its a risk, but the question is, 'Do you feel lucky?' (or do you believe in probablilty theory at all if you don't believe in luck?)

Also, according to probablility theory, you'd have a 1/5 chance (since there are 5 answers in the multiple choice) randomly guessing on problems, which would still equate to the probability of 10 correct out of 50 random guesses, which would put you at an approximately 150 raw score if the numbers hold up. (the same amount that you would have had if you didn't answer the questions.) And of course the probability increases if you can narrow down the answers to 4,3, or as discussed up there, 2.

But that being said, I'd stick to guessing on the problems which you have a 50% chance of getting correct.

*Edit - And if you think that's bad, you should know that ALEKS Statistics has ruined Yahtzee for me.

[P00057870]

Thanks to you both for clarification and for the chuckle -- I suspected that stats can do that to us!


Looks like I will test as normal except when I really don't know -- then a blank it is.