Has anyone taken the GRE? Tips/Advice/Suggestions

[Ciggavelli]

I take that concession partially back.

There is still debate:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/magazine/can-you-make-yourself-smarter.html?pagewanted=all

“Fluid intelligence is not culturally derived,” he continues. “It is almost certainly the biologically driven part of intelligence. We have a real good idea of the parts of the brain that are important for it. The prefrontal cortex is especially important for the control of attention. Do I think you can change fluid intelligence? No, I don’t think you can. There have been hundreds of other attempts to increase intelligence over the years, with little or no — just no — success.”

At a meeting of cognitive scientists last August, and again in November, Engle presented a withering critique of Jaeggi and her colleagues’ 2008 paper. He pointed to a variety of methodological weaknesses (many of which have been addressed in subsequent papers by Jaeggi and others) and then presented the results from his own attempt to replicate the study, which found no effect whatsoever. (Those results have yet to be published.)

The most prominent takedown of I.Q. training came in June 2010, when the neuroscientist Adrian Owen published the results of an experiment conducted in coordination with the BBC television show “Bang Goes the Theory.” After inviting British viewers to participate, Owen recruited 11,430 of them to take a battery of I.Q. tests before and after a six-week online program designed to replicate commercially available “brain building” software. (The N-back was not among the tasks offered.) “Although improvements were observed in every one of the cognitive tasks that were trained,” he concluded in the journal Nature, “no evidence was found for transfer effects to untrained tasks, even when those tasks were cognitively closely related.”

@TLOL is back

 

[Ciggavelli]

That is irrelevant to the fact that half of the time the variability in scores in one test is irrelevant to the other.

The fact that researchers consider it a high correlation and love it is irrelevant to the fact above.

Oh, and researchers on intelligence tests obtain correlations of .8-.9 all the time, just read the reliability and validity chapters of an IQ manual, not that it is relevant to the fact stated above anyway.

Isn't that a little misleading? It doesn't mean half of the time it is completely unrelated. It means that half of the variability is unrelated. The other half is still there. And 50% is still very big in my eyes.

But yes, it does mean other things are in play here. But IQ is still the best predictor of GRE scores, no?

 

[JahBuhLun]

I took the test last Sept. My advice is to study and study some more, I am horrible at math and didn't study at all, I received the lowest possible score you could and still had a high enough score to get accepted into Grad school at my university. The test took 4 hours, and they watch you as if you were near the specs for the new iphone. Funny thing is, I done a semester of grad school and was like "fukk it", I hated writing research papers because I'm a graphic designer.

 

[KenyaDoll]

If so how long did you prep for it? I aiming for August to take it. What advice/resources do ya'll have?

I took a GRE prep class through the local state college (it was much cheaper than a Kaplan course). It met every every Saturday from like 9 to 5. I think it lasted for like 2 months. In all, I think I studied for 3 months (I was working full time so I wasn't studying every day).

- I tried to write at least 10 to 20 word flashcards per day and study them in my down time. You should also practice using the words in sentences.
- I simply used the workbooks for the math. If you get hung up on something, use youtube videos.
- I also made up catchy songs to remember all of the formulas I needed.

I was aiming for at least a 1300 and that is exactly what I got (I took the test in 2010). That roughly translates to a 315/316 on the new scale. I applied to 13 Phd programs, I got into 10 of them including Harvard, Columbia, Vanderbilt, University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins. My UGPA was 3.35 and my masters GPA was 3.98.

 

[Hawaiian Punch]

I basically just went through the Kaplan books and made like 200 flashcards that I carried with me for like a month. One bit of advice, actually two, is don't dwell on any test question and wear lots of deodorant. Keep in mind everything is timed and you just gotta answer and not dwell. I just remember panicking during the test because I thought too long on certain questions. When I heard the administrator like "you have 30 seconds" and I had like 10 questions left I was like . All I know when I walked out the test room I was looking like the dude from airplane.

 

[TLOL is back]

Okay, I'll give you that. I hadn't read that article. I still need to see some more research to be fully convinced (as even that article said it was a long standing belief that IQ doesn't change). But I will concede to you for the time being.

IQ doesn't change if you do nothing. The studies show mixed results, because different studies use different training programs.

It is very unscientific to say "you can't change IQ." If one doesn't believe there is anything out there to change IQ, the scientific attitude would require one to say "there are no known methods of changing IQ."

Research testing long term effects would require an extraordinary amount of participant compliance, since they would need to practice at home -- Something that a regular motivated person can do by themselves with or without research.

Isn't that a little misleading? It doesn't mean half of the time it is completely unrelated. It means that half of the variability is unrelated.

How do you expect to check relationships without using the variability? The formula for the correlation coefficient is based on variability.

And 50% is still very big in my eyes.

That's fine and all, but remember the .7 is for the verbal portion. For the math portion the correlation is .6, meaning only 36% of the variability in one is related to the other. Also remember that the variability which is related to the other reflects some type of relationship, it does not mean that one determines the other.

It is entirely possible that people with high IQs have higher levels of self-efficacy, and therefore study more for the GREs; people with low IQs have lower self-efficacy, and study less for the GREs -- voila, we have a correlation. So you see, it is extremely irresponsible to tell someone to study a week or two in advance based on a correlation. It doesn't make any sense, and this test is an important part of his future.

Chocolate consumption within a country is an even better predictor of Nobel Prizes (r=.8). So those guys in 3rd world countries shouldn't even bother doing research.

The GRE is mostly difficult because of time constraints. Some of preparing for the GRE is based on skill, which can be developed, and the rest is using tips and tricks to use those skills quickly. Obviously more training would mean better results, especially since people progress mastering problems of varying difficulties.