GRE Overview

What is the GRE? 

‘GRE’ stands for Graduate Record Examination. It is a test administered by ETS (Educational Testing Services), the same company that administers the SATs. The exam is used to assess students’ aptitude for graduate programs in the sciences, social sciences and humanities, and is required for admission to many graduate programs. In the U.S., the test is generally administered using Computer-Adaptive Testing (CAT), as opposed to a paper-and-pencil test. There are many features of CAT that are different from paper-and-pencil testing, but the test is calibrated so that test-takers should receive approximately the same score using CAT as they would taking the paper-and-pencil test.

Overview of the GRE 

The GRE is composed of three sections: Analytical Writing (AW), Verbal, and Quantitative (math). The AW section is always first, followed by one Verbal section and one Quantitative section. After this, there is an additional Verbal or Quantitative section. This means that any given test will either have two Verbal sections and one Quantitative section, or two Quantitative sections and one Verbal section. One of these sections will not count towards your score; it is included for research purposes (you will not be able to identify it, so don’t even try). For example, if your test has two Quantitative sections, only one will count. After the test is over, you may have to complete another research section. This one, at least, will be identified. And yes, you have to stay to complete it if you are asked to! 

The Analytical Writing Section 

The AW section was developed a few years ago to replace the old Analytical section, which used logic games and other question types to test analytical aptitude. The advantage of the AW section, to those who are evaluating your scores, is that it tests a real skill that will be used in your graduate studies – writing. The schools that receive your scores have the option to see the actual essays that you write, although they must request them. Your essays will each receive a score of between 0 and 6 depending on the strength of your argument and the quality of your written English. The scores will be averaged together to produce your final score.

The AW section is composed of two essays. The first one is called the “Present Your Perspective on an Issue” task, for which you are given 45 minutes. You will be given two prompts and you will choose one of them to respond to. The prompts are declarative statements, such as “Happiness should be the most important factor in choosing a career,” with which you may agree or disagree in whole or in part. You will be expected to construct a well-written essay with a clear point of view, using specific and relevant examples to back up the points you make. Spelling does count, as do grammar and other aspects of writing mechanics. Your essay will receive a score of between 0 and 6 depending on the strength of your argument and the quality of your written English.

The second essay is the “Analyze an Argument” task, for which you will be given 30 minutes, and it is basically the opposite of the previous task. Instead of constructing an argument, you will need to deconstruct an argument that you are given as a prompt. You won’t have a choice of prompts for this one. The prompt will be a short paragraph which draws certain conclusions from stated premises. Your task is to identify the errors of logic and reasoning in the paragraph. Every prompt will have many errors. You may also want to bring up ways in which the argument could be strengthened, or to discuss assumptions underlying the argument which lead to its logical flaws. Your essay will be scored based on the skill with which you analyze the argument given in the prompt, as well as your command of English.

For many graduate programs, the AW score may not be weighted as heavily the Verbal and Quantitative scores. For one thing, it is a new section, and universities may still be getting familiar with interpreting scores on the AW. The scoring system is also far less precise than that of the other two sections: there are 13 possible scores on the AW section (6.0, 5.5 etc.) as opposed to 60 possible scores on the other sections (the Verbal and Quantitative sections are scored between 200 and 800 in units of 10). Most people will score in the middle range on the AW. Your score is more likely to receive extra attention if it is unusually high (a 5.5 or a 6.0) or unusually low (below a 4). Whether or not the programs to which you are applying consider the AW score to be as important as your Verbal and Quantitative scores, it is best to be well-prepared. It’s the first section on the test, you must take it, and if you are prepared to write the essays, this section will not be too stressful and you will feel all the more confident when it comes time to start the other sections. If you are concerned about this section, ETS offers a service whereby you can write a sample essay and have it graded (for a fee) by an actual GRE grader. You may also look at the pool of prompts for the essays at the ETS website (www.gre.org).

The Verbal Section 

The Verbal section of the GRE is 30 minutes long and consists of 30 questions. There are four question types: Antonyms, Analogies, Reading Comprehension, and Sentence Completion. Although you have an average of one minute to answer each question, each question type requires a different approach, and you will spend far longer on Reading Comprehension questions than on the other question types – meaning you must plan to answer Antonyms, Analogies and Sentence Completions in less than one minute. Remember, you will also be using test time to read the passages on which the Reading Comprehension passages are based. 

Antonyms are the most basic question type on the Verbal section. You will be presented with a stimulus word in capital letters, such as RAPTUROUS. You will then be given five answer choices, which are words or phrases. Your task is to pick the word or phrase that most nearly opposes the meaning of the stimulus. The correct answer choice for the stimulus RAPTUROUS might be “sorrowful,” for example. These questions are a direct test of your vocabulary, as you have no context within which to place the stimulus or the answer choices. Difficult and unusual words are par for the course. There will be an average of 9 Antonyms per Verbal section. 

Analogies require you to understand the relationship between pairs of words. You will be presented with a stem pair such as JOCKEY:HORSE:: (read as: Jockey is to horse as…”). Your answer choices will consist of five pairs of words or phrases. The task is to select the answer choice in which the words have the same relationship to each other that the stem pair words do. For example, a horse is controlled by a jockey. Thus, the correct answer choice might be something like PILOT:AIRPLANE. An airplane is controlled by a pilot in the same way that a horse is controlled by a jockey. You may have 8 or 9 Analogies in a typical Verbal section. Expect difficult vocabulary on these questions as well. 

Reading Comprehension questions present you with a passage of between 20 and 60 lines in length, which could be selected from any discipline – the sciences, social sciences, or humanities. You will then be asked questions about the text. Some questions will be global in nature, requiring you to understand the meaning of the passage as a whole. Other questions will require you to go back to the passage and find specific details in the passage in order to answer correctly. It is important not to skim while reading the passage, but to read at a healthy pace. You will have to return to the passage to answer the questions – you will not be able to memorize the passage. You may have 3 to 8 Reading Comprehension questions in a Verbal section, with the questions being divided between two or three passages. 

Sentence Completion questions present you with a sentence that has one or two blanks. Your answer choices are the words that “fill in the blanks.” You will use your understanding of the structure and tone of the sentence to pick the answer choice that best completes the sentence both logically and stylistically. You do have some context to work with in Sentence Completion questions, but there is no question that vocabulary is still important. Your understanding of the meaning conveyed by punctuation is also crucial. You will have 5 to 7 Sentence Completion questions in a typical Verbal section. 

One thing to note is that there is no particular order to the questions that you will be asked. Just as an example, you may start with two Analogies, followed by three Antonyms and then three Reading Comprehension questions and then some more Analogies and then a few Sentence Completions…continuing in this way until the section is completed. Due to the Computer-Adaptive format of the GRE, no two tests will look exactly the same. Before the first question in a section from any given question type, the directions for that question type will appear on the screen. Don’t waste your test time reading them – click right through. If you have completed the PowerScore course, you will not need to be reminded of the directions, and you should use every second answering questions. 

The Quantitative Section 

The Quantitative Section is 45 minutes long, with 28 questions. This gives you approximately a minute and a half to answer each question. All questions are designed to be answered in about a minute and a half, but many should be answered more quickly, and you may find that you need to spend more than a minute and a half on some questions. However, you should not persist too long with any one question, as you do not want to run out of time at the end. There are two basic Quantitative question types, Problem Solving and Quantitative Comparison. Within these two basic types, a variety of mathematical topics may be covered from arithmetic, algebra, geometry and word problems. Some questions also test “data interpretation” and require you to analyze information presented in a graph. None of the problems require more than a high-school level of algebra and geometry, but that does not mean that the test should be easy if you have studied mathematics at a higher level. The GRE is testing your ability to reason and to solve problems efficiently more than it is testing your knowledge of any particular area of math. For this reason, it is crucial not only to review the content that might be tested on the Quantitative Section, but to do enough practice problems that you become familiar with the kind of logic used to construct the problems and the most effective ways to quickly assess them and find the correct answer. 

Problem Solving problems present a problem and require you to select the correct answer from among five choices. The problem could be as straightforward as an equation, where you need to solve for x. It could be a word problem, or a geometry problem with a diagram that you may need to copy on your scratch paper. Solving the problem may involve doing simple computation (Of course, you don’t get to use a calculator, so brush up on your arithmetic skills!). You are expected to be proficient with such concepts as exponents, square roots, fractions and decimals, etc. as well as algebra (linear and quadratic equations) and geometry (for speed purposes you must memorize basic formulas which will be crucial to solving problems). One thing to keep in mind is that, unlike on your high school math tests, the correct answer to each question is already on the screen. You won’t be graded on “showing your work,” so getting to the answer quickly is much more important than getting to the answer using a particular method. You can often use the answer choices to help you. About half of the 28 questions on a given Quantitative section will be Problem Solving questions. 

Quantitative Comparison questions are quite different from Problem Solving questions.  In a QC question, you will be presented with two columns, Column A and Column B, and there may be additional information centered above the two columns. In each column there will be a quantity – either numerical (for example: 35 or the square root of 11) or variable (for example: x + 6, or ab/2). The quantity in a column could also refer to an accompanying diagram or to the information that is centered above the two columns (for example: the length of segment BC or the number of miles that John travels). Your task is to compare column A to column B. You are not asked to “solve a problem” – you are asked to decide whether a) the quantity in Column A is larger than that in Column B; b) the quantity in Column B is larger than that in Column A; c) the two quantities are equal; or d) the relationship between the two columns varies, or cannot be determined from the information provided. You will notice that there are only four possible answer choices, as opposed to five choices for Problem Solving questions. Approximately half of the questions in a Quantitative section will be of this type. 

As in the Verbal section, the directions for each question type will pop up during the test. Click through them! You will already know what they say, and you don’t want to waste precious test time reading them again. 

For both the Verbal and Quantitative sections, it is important to keep in mind that the test is Computer-Adaptive. This means that every test will be different, and your performance on one question will determine the level of difficulty of the next question. Don’t try to analyze this process as you are taking the test. There’s no way to figure out “how you are doing”. Simply take each question as it comes, do your best, and let go of it when it is over. You may have to take a guess at some questions, and this is OK. Your PowerScore Weekend GRE Course will give you the tools you need to most efficiently deal with the problems, so that even when you have to guess, you will guess intelligently. Every question is a fresh start, so keep your focus on the question on the screen and you will move through the test with purpose and confidence!