GRE is for those seeking graduate school entry in US and other English speaking countries. Each year, more than 600,000 prospective graduate school applicants from approximately 230 countries take the GRE General Test. Applicants come from varying educational backgrounds and countries, and the GRE General Test provides the only common measure for comparing their qualifications. GRE is a test format that is required by the graduate schools to check the applicant's verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking, and analytical writing skills.
Test Structure
Measure |
Number of Questions |
Alloted Time |
Analytical Writing(One section with seperately timed tasks)
Verbal Reasoning(Two sections) |
One "Analyze an issue" task and one "Analyze an Argument" task
Approximately 20 Questions per sections |
30 Minutes per task
30 Minutes per sections |
Quantitative Reasoning(Two Sections) |
Approximately 20 questions per section |
30 Minutes per section |
Unscored |
Varies |
Varies |
Research(Unscored) |
Varies |
Varies |
The GRE test has three parts - Quantitative, Verbal and Analytical Writing Assessment. The test is scored on a maximum of 340. The following is the GRE test structure
Verbal section
The verbal section mainly has 3 Types of questions such as text completion, reading comprehension passages and sentence equivalence. Multiple-choice response sections are graded on a scale of 130-170, in 1-point increment. This section primarily tests vocabulary, and average scores in this section are substantially lower than those in the quantitative section. In a typical examination, there are 2 sections, 20 Questions in each and 30 minutes are allotted for each section.
Quantitative section
The quantitative section, the other multiple-choice section, consists of problem solving and quantitative comparison questions that test high-school level mathematics. Multiple-choice response sections are graded on a scale of 130-170, in 1-point increment. In a typical examination, there are 2 sections consisting of 20 Questions per section and 35 minutes are allotted for each of them.
Analytical writing section
The Analytical Writing measure tests your critical thinking and analytical writing skills It consists of two different essays, an "issue task" and an "argument task". The writing section is graded on a scale of 0-6, in half-point increments. The essays are written on a computer using a word processing program specifically designed by ETS. The program allows only basic
Issue task
The test taker will be able to choose between two topics upon which to write an essay. The time allowed for this essay is 30 minutes. Issue topics are selected from a pool of questions.
Argument task
The test taker will be given an "argument" and will be asked to write an essay that critiques the argument. Test takers are asked to consider the argument's logic and to make suggestions about how to improve the logic of the argument. The time allotted for this essay is 30 minutes. Arguments are selected from a pool of topics.