<p>Why is it so easy? An 800 is a 92th percentile? The GMAT Math is much harder than the GRE Math, and the GRE is for PhD in engineering, biology, economics?</p>
<p>Why is the GRE Math so easy? Its ridiculous.</p>
<p>Uh, West Sidee (or rayray222/california1600/West Side), what are you talking about? How can you say that it is easy? You should see that the GRE math is actually HARDER. What matters is not the score you get, but rather the percentile you get.</p>
<p>You said it yourself, only those people who want to get their graduate degrees in technical subjects take the GRE Math. Hence, there are lots of stud gunners in that group who are going to get all the GRE math questions correct. So getting an 800 on the GRE Math does not distinguish you much from the crowd - because lots of those other people will also get an 800. That is why getting an 800 only puts you at the 92nd percentile. Hence, the percentile number has nothing to do with the GRE being easy, it actually has to do with the quality of the people who are taking the GRE. An 800, by itself, means nothing. What really matters, at the end of the day, is the percentile. </p>
<p>Contrast that with the GMAT math. GMAT's are taking by business-school candidates, including a lot of people who are quite poor at math (i.e. marketing people). It's easy to beat those people at math. That is why getting a high GMAT math score puts you at a higher percentile than getting a high GRE math score. It has nothing to do with the difficulty of the exam, it has to do with the quality of the students taking it. Let's face it. Business school students are not as sharp as graduate-students in technical subjects.</p>
<p>hm.. you guys are talking about different stuff. West Sidee is taking about the actual questions in GRE Math Section and Sakky is talking about the percentile that you get after even getting 100% on GRE math. </p>
<pre><code>Both of you are correct. However according to West Sidee's definition I have to agree that GRE math IS ez. hell, four yrs of EECS they want me to compute 1+1=2 and compare which number is greater ??
</code></pre>
<p>Am I correct that you are talking about the math portion of the general GRE rather than the math GRE subject test? The general GRE is taken by all kinds of people, even those in disciplines that are not all that related to math. My recollection is that the GRE math section did not require much (if any) more than the SAT math section. But some of my friends in humanities disciplines did have some trouble because they didn't remember that stuff. </p>
<p>I don't know anything about GMAT math, so I can't really comment. But, if you really were talking about just the math section of the basic GRE, note that any department that does not find this sufficient to differentiate among applicants is always free to require the subject test, which has much harder problems, although I don't know about the scoring of that exam.</p>