The GRE General Test is an exam taken by students who wish to continue their studies in graduate school. Most graduate schools and individual department programs require "passing" or average GRE scores. A common threshold for admission is a composite score of 1100 or 1200. Sometimes GRE scores are used in deciding which new students are eligible for merit based financial aid. In general, high GRE scores will help you get into more competitive programs, but for less competitive schools, one needs just average scores.
Programs in writing, arts, or humanities may set minimum score requirements for the Verbal section of the GRE, while math and science programs may set minimum requirements for the Quantitative Section.
GRE Content and Structure
The GRE has 3 scored sections:
Analytical Writing: This section consists of two essays called the Issue Essay (45 minutes), and the Argument Essay (30 minutes). For the GRE Issue Essay, you must present your view on an issue topic that is chosen for you. You can use examples from your personal experience, research, or general knowledge. For the Argument Essay, you must analyze the logical flaws in a short argument or proposal. The given proposal will contain several flaws in reasoning, such as incorrect or unverifiable assumptions, vague language that can be misinterpreted, or oversimplifications. The Analytical Writing section is always first, and followed by a short break. The average Analytical Writing Score is about 4.5
Verbal Reasoning: This section contains 30 multiple choice questions (5 answer choices per questions) that must be completed in 30 minutes. The 4 question types are Antonyms, Analogies, Sentence Completion, and Reading Comprehension. The average GRE Verbal score is about 490
Quantitative Reasoning: This section of the GRE contains 28 questions to be answered in 45 minutes. About half the questions are typical problem solving questions with 5 answer choices, and the other half are comparison questions with 4 possible choices. You can learn more about GRE Math and find sample questions on the GRE Math Blog. The average GRE Quantitative score is about 600.
GRE Computer Adaptive Structure
In the US and Canada, the GRE General Test is only given in computer adaptive format. This means that the tests adapts to your performance by giving you harder questions when you answer questions correctly, and giving you easier questions when you answer questions incorrectly. On a computer adaptive GRE, you cannot skip questions, change your answers, or go back to previous questions. You have to select an answer to the current question before you are presented with the next question.
If you are not prepared for the odd format of the GRE, it can be stressful the first time you take it. Therefore, before you take the real exam, you should practice with some real computer adaptive practice tests.
GRE Scoring
Your raw score depends on the number and difficulty level of questions that you answer correctly. Questions that are incorrectly do not count against your GRE raw score, no matter their level of difficulty or easyness. For both the verbal and math sections, your raw GRE score is converted to a scaled score that ranges from 200 to 800 with 10 point increments. The total range of composite scores is thus 400 to 1600.
Each essay is scored separately on a scale of 0 to 6. The Analytical Writing section score is the average of your two essay scores, and thus the writing section scores range from 0 to 6 with half point increments.
The Top 4 GRE Study Guides:
- Cracking the GRE, 2010 Edition
- GRE General Test, 10th Edition
- Barron's GRE with CD-ROM
- Kaplan GRE Exam 2010: Strategies, Practice, and Review
