The Graduate Record Examinations, or GRE, is a competitive test for admission to grad school, mostly in the United States and other countries as well.
It is a computer-based MCQ exam which capitalises on critical thinking, solving problems and writing skills with a different set of questions like: basic arithmetic, algebra, geometry, data analysis, vocabulary, reading skills, etc.
In May 2023, Educational Testing Service, better known as ETS, which administers the GRE exam, announced that, from 22 September 2023, the GRE will be taken in a shorter format that will replace the old three to four-hour GRE with the exam lasting only one hour and 58 minutes.
Before we get to know about the shorter GRE, let us get a quick look at some major changes in the shorter GRE
- Time is reduced to less than two hours.
- There is no unscored/experimental section like the old GRE version.
- There is no scheduled break.
- Reduced the number of questions across the Quant and Verbal sections from 40 to 27
Here’s a quick look at the question distribution of each segment of the GRE:
The Analytical Writing section will always be first. The Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning sections may appear in any order after the Analytical Writing section.
Now, let us have a detailed look at each section of the GRE under the shorter version:
Analytical Writing: It is the first segment of the GRE exam. It assesses critical thinking and analytical writing skills by evaluating the ability to:
- Articulate and support complex ideas
- Construct arguments
- Sustain a focused and coherent discussion.
It’s a 30-minute test where a topic is given to evaluate an issue, consider its complexities and develop an argument with reasons and examples to support the views.
In this section, you would have access to word processors that have insert text, delete text, cut-and-paste and undo the previous action options; however, tools such as a spellchecker and grammar checker are not available here.
Verbal Reasoning: The verbal reasoning part of the GRE judges the ability to analyse and evaluate written material and sort out information, figure out the relationships between the components of sentences, and determine the relationships between words and concepts.
There are two sections in the verbal reasoning: Section one has 12 questions with an 18-minute timeframe, and section two has 15 questions with a 23-minute timeframe.
The verbal reasoning has three types of questions, such as:
- Reading Comprehension (RC)
- Text Completion (TC)
- Sentence Equivalence (SE)
Reading Comprehension (RC): It is designed to understand a wide range of abilities required to read and understand such topics that are faced in grad school. The passages from this section are mostly one paragraph or several paragraphs long.
The comprehension passages may be drawn from topics like physical, biological, and social sciences; business; and everyday topics.
In RC there are three question types like:
- Select a single answer
- Select multiple correct answers
- Select a sentence from a passage
Text Completion (TC): This part of the GRE tests the ability to omit words from passages and use them as a basis to fill in the blanks and create a meaningful, coherent whole.
If we look into the question setup, each passage has one to five sentences with:
- One blank question
- Double blank question
- Triple blank question
Sentence Equivalence (SE): Sentence Equivalence questions test the ability to create a conclusion from partial sentences. It is a single question type with a single blank that has:
- Each question consists of a single sentence with one blank and six answer choices.
- Select two of the answer choices.
- There is no credit for partially correct answers.
As a matter of fact, in this verbal reasoning segment, one of the most important things to master is tonnes of vocabulary. Yes, it is hard to remember all thousand types of vocabulary, but constant practice can be worthwhile for remembering the vocabulary to master for exam prep.
For more details check this link: https://www.ets.org/gre/test-takers/general-test/prepare/content/verbal-reasoning.html
Quantitative Reasoning: This section of the GRE visualises basic mathematical skills like arithmetic topics, algebra topics, geometry topics, elementary mathematical concepts and data analysis ability to reason quantitatively to solve problems with a quantitative approach.
Question Pattern: Quantitative Reasoning has four types of questions:
- Quantitative Comparison Questions
- Multiple-choice Questions — Select One Answer Choice
- Multiple-choice Questions — Select One or More Answer Choices
- Numeric Entry Questions
The questions here are set up in this manner:
- Section: Quant-01: Questions: 12, Time: 21 Minutes
- 4 quantitative comparison (QC) questions
- 5 single choice questions
- 3 data interpretation questions
Topic-wise breakdown for section 1:
- Arithmetic: 2 questions
- Algebra: 3 questions
- Geometry: 3 questions
- Data analysis: 4 questions.
- Section: Quant-02:Questions: 15, Time: 26 Minutes
- 1 or 2 numerical entry questions
- 1 or 2 multiple choice questions
- 5 quantitative comparison (QC) questions
- 7 single-choice questions.
Topic-wise breakdown for section 2:
- Arithmetic: 4 questions
- Algebra: 4 questions
- Geometry: 3 questions
- Data analysis: 4 questions
For the calculation of this part, there would be an on-screen calculator for calculation.
For more details check this link: https://www.ets.org/gre/test-takers/general-test/prepare/content/quantitative-reasoning.html
So wrapping up, the GRE might be tough for someone, but working on your key strengths and weaknesses for each segment would be the game changer for getting a good mark in this exam.