What is GRE?
The acronym GRE stands for Graduate Records Examination, which is a standardized test, conducted by various Graduate Schools for admission in several courses in the United States and Canada. Educational Testing Service, commonly known as ETS is the owner and administrator of GRE. It is one of the leading private nonprofit educational testing and assessment institutions. This test was commenced by CFAT, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching which is the United States-based Education Policy and Research Centre. It is conducted only in the English language.
What is the Motive of Conducting this Test?
The GRE test is conducted across 1000 test centers set up by ETS in almost 160 countries with the purpose of providing admission to aspiring students in Masters or Doctorate Degree Programs in several Universities. The scores attained in this test are used to evaluate the eligibility of applicants for their further study across many different subject areas. Some institutions may ask applicants to take one of the GRE Subject Tests, while others require the General Test. The GRE score can play a vital role in admission as well as selection in various institutions or jobs.
What is the Exam Pattern?
The GRE General Test is an online mode examination that consists of six different sections. The first section in this exam is an analytical writing section which consists of two different essays ‘an issue task’ and an ‘argument task.’ The subsequent five sections include two quantitative reasoning sections, two verbal reasoning sections, and a section that may contain either an experimental or a research section. These five sections are not arranged in any specific chronology and hence can occur in any order. The experimental section is not considered as a part of the evaluation for the final result of the test but is also not differentiated from the scored sections.
GRE is a multistage test and this format permits the examinee to freely move back and forth between questions within each section, and also the testing software provides the user the benefit of ‘marking questions’ within each section for later review if the time is left. The duration of this entire test is about 3 hours and 45 minutes with a one-minute break after each section and a 10 minutes break after the third section.
Paper-based GRE General Test also consists of six sections with two sections for analytical writing, two verbal and two quantitative sections in different orders. It does not include any experimental section.
Verbal Section
The computer-based verbal section evaluates reading comprehension, critical reasoning and vocabulary usage skills, and knowledge of the applicant. In a standard GRE examination, each verbal section consists of 20 questions which are required to be attempted in 30 minutes. These 20 questions are divided into different sections where 6 questions are about text completion, 4 questions are based on sentence equivalence, and 10 critical reading questions. The verbal test is graded on a scaled score of 130–170, in 1-point increments.
Quantitative Section
Each quantitative section determines the basic high school level mathematical knowledge and reasoning skills of the candidate. In a standard GRE examination, each quantitative section constitutes 20 questions which are required to be completed in 35 minutes. There are 8 questions of quantitative comparison, 9 problem-solving questions, and 3 questions about data interpretation. The quantitative test is also scored on a scale of 130–170, in 1-point increments.
Analytic Writing Section
The analytic writing section is graded on a scale of 0-6, in half points increment. This section is further divided into two different essays namely, ‘Issue Task’ and ‘ Argument Task’. In the former one, the test taker is provided 30 minutes to write an essay on the selected topic chosen from a set of questions published by GRE. In the ‘Argument Task,’ the test taker will be provided with a series of facts and considerations leading to a conclusion and will be asked to write an essay-type logical analysis of the argument in 30 minutes. The Arguments are also selected from a pool of topics, which the GRE Program has published in its entirety. The essays are required to be written on a computer using a word processing program specifically designed by ETS which allows only basic computer functions without any advanced features.
Experimental Section
The experimental section can be either verbal or quantitative and contains new questions which ETS is considering to be used in the future. The score of the experimental section does not count for the final score of the student and is most similar to the other sections. Thus, the students are advised to focus on each and every section. Also, there is no experimental section in the paper-based GRE.
Score Range and Validity of Grades
The score range for all the different sections is stated below:-
Analytical writing: 0.0 to 6.0, in half points increment,
Verbal reasoning: 130 to 170 marks, in 1-point increments,
Quantitative reasoning: Same as Verbal Reasoning (130 to 170 marks, in 1 -point increments).
The Score of the GRE General Test is valid for 5 years.
When is the GRE Test conducted?
The online mode GRE Test is held multiple times a year depending on the availability of the test centers.
The Paper-Based GRE test is offered only 3 times a year in the months of October, November, and February.
Eligibility, Fees, and Number of Attempts allowed
There are no specific eligibility criteria for this exam. Anyone can apply for this exam irrespective of their age or educational qualification but the students are expected to have successfully completed their undergraduate studies. The GRE exam fee is $205 in all the countries except India, Turkey, China, Australia, and Nigeria. The registration fee for the GRE General Test in India was declared to be $213. On computer-based mode, this test can be taken once in every 21 days, up to five times within any continuous rolling 12-month period (365 days). In offline mode, it can be taken as often as it is conducted.
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