Friday, July 08, 2011

percentiles

A Verbal score of 710 or 720 on the GRE puts one in the 98th percentile.

A Quantitative score of 710 on the GRE puts one in... the 74th percentile.

This promises to be a long, steep climb.


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9 comments:

Charles said...

I've always thought of you as a quality over quantity guy, anyway.

Lame joke attempt aside, good luck with the climb. I'll be climbing my own hill right along with you (if that makes any sense at all).

Surprises Aplenty said...

Here's a little math question for you, Hominid. It's what a nine-year-old was working on today at a hagwon in Busan.

Kevin Kim said...

Charles,

Joking or not, thanks. I think quality is more or less assured for the Verbal section; I merely need to miss one or two fewer questions to be golden. But for the Quantitative... it seems I'll need to work on both quality and quantity, if we're talking about bolstering my raw score.

What's fascinating is that the scaled scores (710V, 710Q) reflect similar raw scores. The reason the percentiles are different must be that most test-takers score higher on the Quantitative, making it harder to achieve a high percentile ranking. Puts me to shame.


Brian,

Took a look at the problem on your blog and got 144, as you did. I think you're right and the textbook is wrong.

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Kevin, about ten years ago, I got 800 on the verbal but am embarrassed to say what I got on the quantitative . . .

Jeffery Hodges

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Kevin Kim said...

Jeff,

Oho, le m'as-tu vu!

If you got above a 710 Quantitative, then you couldn't possibly feel more embarrassed than I do (I got a 720 Verbal back in 1999, and a 700 Quant).

So fess up! I don't doubt you did better than a 1420.

But here's what I'm wondering: ten years ago? Was this before you entered a doctoral program? Are you saying you've had your Ph.D. for less than-- what-- about six years? I was sure that you've been "Dr. Hodges" for much longer than that, and if I'm right, then that means you took the GRE for other reasons. But what other reasons could there be, aside from the standard "for shits and grins"?

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

My PhD was in 1995, but I was thinking of getting a second doctorate, in religious studies, until I decided against it.

I don't recall my quantitative score, but it might have been as low as 50th percentile, though I used to get over 90th.

I think that I was 98th back in high school, but I might only have been 95th -- and that was PSAT and ACT stuff (lower level than GRE).

Jeffery Hodges

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Kevin Kim said...

A 50th-percentile ranking would have put you somewhere in the 600-620 range for Quantitative; coupled with an 800 Verbal score, you'd have had around a 1400 or 1420. A 90th-percentile ranking on the GRE would have meant a Quant score that was easily in the 700s.

What made you decide against pursuing the doctorate in religious studies? You would have been well on your way to following the path of many of the Jesuits I knew at Georgetown-- guys with two or three Ph.D.s appended to their names, along with whatever religious titles they also held.

Do you ever think of pursuing the second doctorate later on, perhaps once the kids have grown? At this point, you could probably write a dissertation and get your degree in less than a year.

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Money and age, those were (are) the factors against a second doctorate. I considered another PhD only for career purposes. Since I no longer pine for a career, I have no interest in another doctorate. My aim now is to do well whatever I happen to be doing.

Jeffery Hodges

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Kevin Kim said...

I'm sure you scored 800 on the Fatherhood-related Issues part of the exam.