CHAPTER ONE: Inside the GRE Psychology Exam
WHAT IS THE GRE PSYCHOLOGY TEST?
The GRE Psychology subject test is a two hour and fifty minute exam designed to test advanced knowledge that a student applying to graduate school in psychology is expected to understand. The test requires knowledge of psychological vocabulary, names, and facts across a variety of psychological fields at the equivalent of an upper-level college class.
The GRE Psychology test is a traditional paper-and-pencil test consisting of approximately 215-220 multiple-choice questions with five answer choices, (A) through (E). For each question, you are to select the one correct or best answer from among the choices provided. There are no essay questions.
WHO WRITES THE TEST?
The GRE Psychology test is written by Educational Testing Service (ETS) -- the same folks who write the GRE general test, the GMAT, the SAT, and the LSAT. Academic faculty are consulted as the test is generated, but ultimately, the test is written by ETS.
Since these test makers write these tests over and over again, they begin to follow certain patterns that we at Kaplan can unlock for you. More on that later.To sign up for the Psychology subject test, you can register online at the gre.org website, or you can contact ETS directly:
ETS Contact Information
By mail at:
GRE-ETS
P.O. Box 6000
Princeton, NJ 08541-6000
Or by phone at:
609-771-7670
Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 8:45 p.m.
Fax: 609-771-7906
Test Dates
The GRE Psychology subject test is offered in April, November, and December. The test is normally given on a Saturday, but students claiming special circumstances may request to take the test on the Monday following a testing date.
Be sure to register for a test well ahead of your application deadlines, since you will need to take both the subject test and the general test, and you want to leave some time to retake the exam if necessary.
Testing Fee
At the time of the publication of this book, the fee is $130 if you are taking the exam in the United States and $150 everywhere else in the world. Testing fees have steadily increased by $5 to $10 each year.
On the Day of the Test
ETS recommends that you arrive at the testing center no later than 8:30 am. You should plan on being at the testing center for a total of 3 hours and 30 minutes. It is a good idea to scout out the test location prior to the day of your test, so you arrive on Test Day well prepared and with time to spare.
Required/Recommended Items
You will need to bring the following items to the testing center on the day of your test:
• Several (3 to 5) sharpened No. 2 pencils and several good erasers
• The registration card provided to you by ETS
• Photo identification with your signature (e.g., passport, driver's license, military ID)
You may also want to bring along the following items to ensure a top performance:
• Bottled water. Stay hydrated to maintain peak performance.
• Chewing gum. It's good enough for Michael Jordan, and it can work for you too.
• A portable music player. Helps keep you locked in and undistracted during the downtimes prior to taking the test.
• High-energy snacks. A fruit bar or two will keep you going through this lengthy test of your intellectual stamina.
Sending off Scores
Scores on the GRE Psychology test are good for five years. When you sign up for the exam, and again on day of the test, you will be given the opportunity to list up to four schools that you would like ETS to send your scores to for no additional charge. You can also have your scores sent to other schools for an additional charge of $13 per school. Your scores normally arrive by mail six weeks after your test date.
Canceling Scores
You can cancel your scores at any point during the test administration. No record of you taking the test that day will be reported to you or any graduate programs. While this may be a tempting offer when confronted with the frustrations of a tough exam, you should void your score only if something extraordinary has interfered with your performance on the exam. A serious illness is a good example of the kind of extraordinary circumstances that might make canceling your score a wise choice.
Taking the Test More Than Once
You are permitted to take the GRE Psychology test as often as you like. We recommend taking the test once and taking your preparation for that test seriously. All previous scores will appear on the score report that is sent to schools, so you should plan on taking the test once and knocking their socks off with a top-notch score. While schools may focus on your most recent score or your highest score, you simplify their task when your report includes only one high-end score.
WHAT DOES THE TEST MEASURE?
The GRE Psychology test measures your knowledge of a wide range of undergraduate psychology content as well as your general test-taking skills. This does not mean you have to have taken numerous undergraduate psychology courses to do well on the exam. Instead, you need to master the material that appears on the test and understand the structure of the test and how it's scored to perform at the highest level.
What Material Appears on the Test?
Although the exam tests a wide range of psychology content, it does not require in-depth knowledge of specific psychological concepts or theories. A wide breadth of relatively superficial knowledge of psychological theories, names, and terms is what it takes to achieve a high score. A deep, nuanced understanding of a certain specific school of thought or theory may help in some instances, but in general, such a level of understanding is more than you will need to perform well.
According to ETS, questions fall into one of three content categories:
• Experimental or natural science-oriented (about 40 percent of the questions), including learning, language, memory, thinking, sensation and perception, physiological psychology, ethology, and comparative psychology. They contribute to the experimental psychology subscore and the total score.
• Social or social science-oriented (about 43 percent of the questions). These questions are distributed among the fields of clinical and abnormal, developmental, personality, and social psychology. They contribute to the social psychology subscore and the total score.
• General (about 17 percent of the questions), including the history of psychology, applied psychology, measurement, research designs, and statistics. They contribute to the total score only.
These three categories cover a great deal of material. The bulk of this book is devoted to reviewing the key concepts and names in the categories described above.
How Is the Test Scored?
Your performance on the exam is used to generate a raw score, a scaled score, a percentile rank, and two subscores. Graduate programs weigh the scaled score and percentile rank most heavily.
Raw Score
Your raw score is determined by taking the number of questions you answered correctly and subtracting one quarter of the number of questions you answered incorrectly. Unanswered questions have no impact on your raw score.
For example, if a student answered 155 questions correctly, 20 questions incorrectly, and left the remaining 40 questions unanswered, we could determine her raw score on the GRE Psychology exam. In this case, her raw score would be 155 - 1/4(20) = 155 - 5 = 150.
Scaled Score
Once you have determined your raw score, you can find your scaled score. Your raw score is compared to a conversion chart to yield a scaled score between 200 and 900. Conversion charts vary slightly from test to test. The scaled score is supposed to reflect how you would perform relative to a standard distribution of test takers. Based on your scaled score, ETS also provides a percentile rank, which states what percentage of test takers scored at or below your level of performance.
In the example we looked at before, the student had a raw score of 150. Taking that score and comparing it to a conversion table would yield a scaled score of 670.
Subscores
You receive two subscores in addition to your scaled score. Subscore I corresponds to your performance in the Experimental and Natural Sciences category. Subscore II corresponds to your performance in the Social and Social Sciences category. Subscores range from 20-99. Most graduate programs focus on your scaled score rather than your subscores.
What Does My Score Mean?
The scoring information on your score report will look something like this:
MO. 11 YR. 02 TYPE N CODE 25 SCORE 670 % BELOW 84 SS1 62 SS2 59 CORRECT 155 INCORRECT 20 OMITS 40
The score report will show your total (scaled) score (in this student's case, a 670) as well as the percentile rank (84th percentile) and subscores for the two subsections. It will also indicate how many questions you answered correctly and incorrectly, as well as how many questions you did not answer at all.
The two numbers that are of most significance to you (and to the schools you are applying to) are the scaled score and percentile ranking. These scores reflect your performance relative to your fellow test takers.
To use the psychological lingo, the GRE Psychology exam is a norm-referenced test that requires a broad and general understanding of psychological figures and terms. Norm-referenced means that your score reflects your performance relative to a standard distribution of test takers. It is not a test of whether you can simply demonstrate mastery of basic psychological concepts. Rather, it is a competitive endeavor in which your performance will be measured against the performance of your fellow test takers.
So get your competitive juices flowing, and remember that preparation is the key. That's where we can help.
Copyright © 2003 by Kaplan, Inc.
