What is GRE?
The Graduate Record Examination, commonly known as the GRE, is a standardized exam used to assess graduate students’ aptitude for graduate programmes. It tests abstract thinking in areas such as reading comprehension, writing, and mathematics.
The GRE offers graduate and business schools with a single standard to compare all applicants, who come from all over the world and with undoubtedly a varied diversity in academic and professional experience.
Educational Testing Service, sometimes known as ETS, is the owner and administrator of the GRE.
Why should you consider taking the GRE exam?
GRE is considered to be a standardised exam. Many graduate programmes around the world, particularly in the United States and Canada, include it as a prerequisite for entrance.
Most people take the GRE to enter graduate school or to qualify for a merit-based scholarship. For both master’s degrees (including Master of Arts, Master of Science, and even certain Master of Fine Arts programmes) and Ph.D. programmes, the GRE is frequently required for admission.
There’s a good probability that at least one of the programmes you’re applying to will need GRE results. Numerous top-ranked M.B.A. programmes are among the thousands of master’s and PhD programmes that accept GRE scores. For admission to other graduate programmes, candidates are often required to take an entirely different exam, such as the GMAT, LSAT, or MCAT.
It is important to speak with your programmes counselor directly if you are unsure whether you need to take the GRE. Remember that you won’t be able to finish your graduate school application and won’t be able to enroll in a programme if you don’t take the GRE as your scores are needed for admission.
How and when GRE is conducted? (Mode of Test)
The GRE® is an online test that is offered practically every working day of the year, giving you flexibility in scheduling your preparation.
How many times can you take the GRE test? Which GRE score, in the event of multiple attempts, is taken into account by the college?
The GRE® entrance exam is available for as many tries as you’d like.
You can choose which GRE® score you would like to provide to the graduate programme of your choosing by using the Score-select option.
Pattern of GRE Test
The GRE® test pattern underwent a significant alteration in August 2011. The General Test’s overall score was decreased from 1600 to 340.
There are two main streams for the GRE® examination: The General Test and The Subject Test.
GRE General Test: The Graduate Record Exam (GRE) assesses your understanding of topics that are relevant to all disciplines of study but independent to any one specifically. Your verbal reasoning, numeric reasoning, critical thinking, and analytical writing skills are evaluated by the test. It is a really good depiction of the kind of thinking that is needed in today’s demanding graduate programmes.
GRE® General test assesses test takers on the following:
Verbal reasoning skills
Quantitative reasoning skills
Analytical writing skills
Verbal reasoning skills: The Verbal Reasoning section of the GRE General Test evaluates your capacity to analyse, evaluate, and summarize data from written material as well as relationships between sentence components, relationships between words and concepts, and relationships between sentences.
You must read passages and respond to questions about them for around half of the tests. For the second half, you must analyse and complete already-written sentences, clause clusters, or paragraphs.
Reading Comprehension, Text Completion, and Sentence Equivalence are the three types of questions found in the Verbal Reasoning section of the test.
Reading Comprehension
The vast range of skills needed to read and comprehend the kinds of prose that are frequently seen in graduate school are tested by reading comprehension questions. Following are the skills that are required:
Recognising the meaning of words and phrases individually
Interpreting paragraphs and longer texts for their intended message
Differentiating minor from major points
Summarising a passage and making inferences from the data presented
Understanding the text’s structure in terms of how does it investigate the correlation
Evaluating a position’s pros and disadvantages but also taking other arguments into consideration
Reading and understanding a piece of text requires more than passive understanding of the words and sentences it contains. It requires active engagement with the text, such as asking questions and formulating and evaluating hypotheses.
There are three question types:
Select a single answer
Select multiple correct answers
Select a sentence from a passage
Text Completion
A skilled reader has to adopt a mindset of interpretation and evaluation, drawing conclusions from what they have read and then modifying it as they go. Text completion exercises puts this skill to the test by leaving out key words from brief sections and asking you to fill in the gaps and produce a logical, meaningful whole.
Sentence Equivalence
Sentence equivalence questions measure your ability to determine how a passage ought to be finished. They give you sentences that all imply the same thing and ask you to choose the two options that result in a complete, cohesive sentence. Although they resemble text completion tasks, the questions concentrate on the meaning of the full whole.
Quantitative Reasoning
The following is evaluated on the GRE General Test’s Quantitative Reasoning section:
Basic mathematical abilities, along with the ability to reason numerically
Model issues, and use quantitative techniques to solve them
Content areas covered
Quantitative Reasoning questions can be asked in a variety of contexts, some of which are realistic and others which are completely mathematical. Many of the questions are “word problems,” which necessitate mathematical translation and modelling.
The skills, concepts, and abilities are assessed using the four topic groups indicated below:
Arithmetic
Algebra
Geometry
Data Analysis
Arithmetic includes:
Integer characteristics and types, such as factorisation, divisibility, prime numbers, remainders, and even and odd integers
Arithmetic operations, exponents and roots
Estimate, percentage, ratio, rate, absolute value, the number line, decimal representation, and number sequences are some examples of these notions.
Algebra includes:
Operations involving exponents
Factoring and simplifying algebraic expressions
Equations, inequalities, relations, and functions
Solving inequalities and linear and quadratic equations
Simultaneous equation and inequality solving
Constructing equations to resolve word puzzles
Cartesian geometry, including line intercepts and slopes, equations and inequalities, and function graphs
Geometry includes:
Perpendicular and parallel lines
Circles
Triangles, such as isosceles, equilateral, and triangles with a 30°-60°-90° angle.
Quadrilaterals
Various polygons
Similar and consistent figures
3D figures
Mensuration
Pythagorean theorem
Measurement of angles in degrees
Data Analysis includes:
The fundamental descriptive statistics of mean, median, mode, range, standard deviation, interquartile range, quartiles, and percentiles
Interpretation of data in tables and graphs, including frequency distributions, boxplots, scatterplots, line graphs, bar graphs, and circle graphs
Elementary probability, such as the probabilities of independent and compound events
Conditional probability
Random variables, normal distributions, and other probability distributions
Using combinations, permutations, and Venn diagrams as counting techniques
GRE Subject Test: The GRE Subject Tests are made to determine how knowledgeable you are in a particular field of study. Students who have a solid foundation in one of the subjects from their undergraduate studies are the target audience for these courses. Your GRE Subject Test scores may be used by admissions or fellowship committees to assess your suitability for graduate-level study.
The GRE Subject Tests are given in a paper-and-pencil style. The total time spent testing is 2 hours and 50 minutes. There are no portions that are timed independently.
Quick comparison between GRE General Test and GRE Subject Test
Structure of the GRE® General Test
The GRE® General test has three sections. The following is the structure of each section:
Verbal Reasoning
Two sections of 20 questions each.
You get 30 minutes for each section.
The question types covered in each section are:
Sentence equivalence – 4
Text completion – 6
Reading Comprehension – 10
Score Range – 130 to 170, 1 point Increment.
Text completion
Without needing to read every word, an experienced reader can grasp the general sense that a piece conveys. This component of the GRE® verbal reasoning assesses the test taker. The assessment is based on your ability to fill in the missing words from the text supplied to you.
Passages with one to five sentences
There may be one, two, or three blanks in each passage.
For each blank, you’d be given three or five possibilities.
There is only one right answer for each blank.
The answer for each blank is unrelated to the answer for the other blanks.
Your goal is not only to choose the word that keeps the statement grammatically accurate, but also to keep the piece logical and stylistically coherent.
Sentence Equivalence
This component of the GRE® verbal reasoning test evaluates the test taker’s ability to draw conclusions from fragmentary sentences. This section includes the following items: Single sentences, each with a single blank
You must choose between two methods to finish the phrase.
In both circumstances, the meaning should be the same.
The sentence should be grammatically correct as well.
For each blank, six possibilities are offered.
For a credit, both right answers must be chosen. If only one accurate answer is chosen, no half credit is given.
Reading comprehension
The GRE® verbal reading comprehension subsection is meant to test your ability to:
Recognize the meaning of words and sentences.
Recognize the significance of longer pieces of text, such as paragraphs. Recognize the minor and major points in a passage.
Summarize a passage.
Draw conclusions from the provided text. Analyze partial data and deduce missing information.
Determine the author’s underlying assumptions.
Analyze an argument and find its advantages and disadvantages.
Create alternate explanations. Vocabulary in English
The passages section has approximately ten sections. The majority of the paragraphs are only one paragraph long. These are derived from publications, magazines, and books on the following topics:
Physical sciences
Biological sciences
Social sciences
Arts and humanities
Everyday topics in popular culture
Quantitative Reasoning
Two sections of 20 questions each.
You get 35 minutes for each section.
The question types covered in each section are:
Quantitative Comparisons – 8
Problem-Solving items – 9
Data Interpretation Questions – 3
Score Range – 130 to 170, 1 point Increment.
Score Range – 130 to 170, 1 point Increment.
The GRE® Quantitative portion of the exam is meant to assess your understanding of basic mathematical concepts and equations, as well as your ability to reason logically using quantitative tools. Most of the principles you’ll need to master the Quants segment were taught to you in school. A high Quantitative component is especially sought after for admission to most Master’s programmes because it demonstrates your command of skills that are essential in graduate school.
The following is a list of the most frequently encountered Quant subjects, in order of frequency:
Analytical Writing
This section requires you to write two essays:
Analyze an issue
Analyze an argument.
You get 30 minutes for each essay.
Score Range – 0 to 6, 0.5 point Increment.
The GRE® Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) portion, often known as the essay section, is intended to assess
Your ability to clearly and effectively explain difficult ideas
Articulate your thoughts, assess allegations and supporting evidence, and maintain a focused and coherent discussion
Think critically and write well-developed, well-structured, and well-supported ideas
This section includes 2 essays which are read by 2 different examiners and scored on the scale of 0-6.
This section requires test takers to identify an issue or problem which is followed up with an argument. While you identify an issue, it should be taken into consideration that this section asks you to explore the given issue, consider its complexities, and develop an argument for why you should take a specific stance. On the other hand, identifying an argument asks you to evaluate it by assessing its logical soundness rather than agreeing or disagreeing with it.
Experimental Section
This is not included into the GRE® score.
The paper-based test does not include this section.
How is the GRE® scored?
The GRE® General Test is an adaptive computer test.
The difficulty of the second subsection is determined by your performance in the first subsection of the verbal and quantitative parts.
The raw score in these sections is one mark for each correctly answered question.
The scaled score is computed by “equating.”
This means that if you perform exceptionally well in the first sub-section, the second sub-section will have questions of a high difficulty level, but you will also be able to achieve the greatest possible score.
If you score low in the first sub-section, the second sub-section will be easier but your potential high score will be diminished as well.
A human reader scores the Analytical Writing part on a 6-point scale with 0.5 increments.
Score Select
Allows you to send only your finest grades to graduate programmes.
On test day:
You can either choose not to send scores at all or select one of four score reports to:
Send the most recent score.
Send all the scores from the last five years.
After test day:
Additional test scores are available for a charge.
Select how to send:
The most recent score
All eligible scores
Choose to send a set of scores that you select (one or more)
Only the scores you choose are made accessible to graduate institutions to which you apply.
WHAT EXACTLY IS A GOOD GRE SCORE?
Consider the requirements—or minimums, if applicable—at the graduate or business schools to which you’re applying when determining your GRE score target. This will provide you with your score baseline. You’ll be able to calculate what GRE score will make you a competitive applicant if you can uncover the mean or average GRE score of admitted applicants. The GRE Verbal and Quant portions are graded on a scale of 130 to 170. The mean score for Quantitative Reasoning is 153, and the mean score for Verbal Reasoning is 151. The Analytical Writing Assessment is assessed in half-point increments from 0 to 6, with a mean score of 4.0. The tables below show the association between scaled scores and test taker achievement.
When is the GRE® Exam conducted?
It is available in 160 countries.
In most parts of the world, including India, computer-delivered tests are available on all working days.
In Chinese territories (Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) and South Korea, it is available up to three times every month.
In October-November and February, paper-delivered tests are offered.
There are a few important aspects that influence when you should take the GRE® test. They are as follows:
Deadlines for applying to your preferred programmes.
Enough time to retake the test if necessary.
You should plan the exam so that the results of your retest are accessible by the time your application deadlines arrive. That is, approximately four weeks before the application deadline.
FAQs about the GRE exam
Q. How long does the GRE® General Test last?
Ans. The GRE® General Test is 3 hours and 45 minutes long.
Q. Is there a break between GRE® Exam sections?
Ans. Each section is separated by a one-minute pause. After the third section, there is a 10-minute break.
Q. GRE® score is valid for how many years?
Ans. The GRE® score is acceptable for five years.
Q. What is the cost of taking the GRE?
Ans. The GRE® exam costs between US $130 and US $210, depending on the country where you take it. In India, the GRE® entrance exam costs US $205, or Rs.14,287.
Q. Is there another course that accepts GRE® test scores?
Ans. A few legal schools also accept GRE® scores.
The GRE (Graduate Record Examination) is a computer-based standardized test that consists of three sections:
Analytical Writing: This section evaluates your critical thinking and analytical writing skills. You will be required to write two essays, an issue task, and an argument task.
Verbal Reasoning: This section measures your ability to analyse and evaluate written material and synthesise information. It includes reading comprehension, text completion, and sentence equivalence questions.
Quantitative Reasoning: This section assesses your problem-solving and data analysis skills. It includes multiple-choice questions that test arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and data analysis.
The GRE test also includes an unscored research section or an unscored experimental section, which may appear at any point in the test. The total testing time for the computer-based GRE is around 3 hours and 45 minutes, including short breaks between sections.
