GRADUATE RECORD EXAMINATIONS

                                        Purpose of the GRE

General Test The GRE General Test is designed to help graduate school admission committees and fellowship sponsors assess the qualifications of applicants to their programs. It measures verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing skills that you have acquired over a long period of time. Any accredited graduate or professional school, or any department or division within a school, may require or recommend that its applicants take the GRE General Test. The scores can be used by admissions or fellowship panels to supplement undergraduate records and other qualifications for graduate study. The scores provide common measures for comparing the qualifications of applicants and aid in the evaluation of grades and recommendations.


Structure of the GRE


General Test The paper-based GRE General Test contains five sections. In addition, one unidentified pretest section may be included and this section can appear in any position in the test after the analytical writing section. Questions in the pretest section are being pretested for possible use in future tests and answers will not count toward your scores. Total testing time is up to 33/4 hours. The directions at the beginning of each section specify the total number of questions in the section and the time allowed for the section. The analytical writing section will always be first. The verbal and quantitative sections may appear in any order, including an unidentified verbal or quantitative pretest section. Treat each section presented during your test as if it counts.

Typical Paper-Based GRE General Test Sections



Scores Reported

Three scores are reported on the General Test:

1. a verbal score reported on a 200–800 score scale, in 10-point increments,
2. a quantitative score reported on a 200–800 score scale, in 10-point increments, and
3. an analytical writing score reported on a 0–6 score scale, in half-point increments.

If you answer no questions at all in a section (verbal, quantitative, or analytical writing), that section will be reported as a No Score (NS). Descriptions of the analytical writing abilities characteristic of particular score levels are available in the interpretive leaflet enclosed with your score report, in the Guide to the Use of GRE Scores, and on the GRE Web site at www.gre.org.
                                                
Preparing for the GRE General Test

Preparation for the test will depend on the amount of time you have available and your personal preferences for how to prepare. At a minimum, before you take the GRE General Test, you should know what to expect from the test, including the administrative procedures, types of questions and directions, the approximate number of questions, and the amount of time for each section. The administrative procedures include registration, date, time, test center location, cost, scorereporting procedures, and availability of special testing arrangements. You can find out about the administrative procedures for the paper-based General Test online at www.gre.org, or by contacting Educational Testing Service (see the GRE Information and Registration Bulletin). Before taking the practice General Test, it is important to become familiar with the content of each of the sections of the test. You can become familiar with the verbal and quantitative sections by reading about the skills the sections measure, how the sections are scored, reviewing the strategies for each of the question types, and reviewing the sample questions with explanations. Determine which strategies work best for you. Remember—you can do very well on the test without answering every question in each section correctly. Everyone—even the most practiced and confident of writers—should spend some time preparing for the analytical writing section before arriving at the test center. It is important to review the skills measured, how the section is scored, scoring guides and score level descriptions, sample topics, scored sample essay responses, and reader commentary. To help you prepare for the analytical writing section of the General Test, the GRE Program has published the entire pool of topics from which your test topics will be selected. You might find it helpful to review the Issue and Argument pools. You can view the published pools on the Web at www.gre.org/pracmats.html or obtain a copy by writing to GRE Program, PO Box 6000, Princeton,
NJ 08541-6000.The topics in the analytical writing section relate to a broad range of subjects—from the fine arts and humanities to the social and physical sciences—but no topic requires specific content knowledge. In fact, each topic has been field-tested to ensure that it possesses several important characteristics, including the following:
                                                              
• GRE test takers, regardless of their field of study or special interests, understood the topic and could easily discuss it.
• The topic elicited the kinds of complex thinking and persuasive writing that university faculty consider important for success in graduate school.
• The responses were varied in content and in the way the writers developed their ideas.

Test-Taking Strategies

IMPORTANT NOTE: Test-taking strategies appropriate for the verbal and quantitative sections of the paper-based General Test are different from those that are appropriate for taking the verbal and quantitative sections of the computer-based General Test. Be sure to follow the appropriate strategies for the testing format in which you will be testing. Paper-based testing strategies should not be used if you take the computer-based test.

Verbal and Quantitative Sections


When taking a verbal or quantitative section of the paper-based General Test, you are free, within any section, to skip questions that you might have difficulty answering and to come back to them later during the time provided to work on that section. You may also change the answer to any question you recorded on the answer sheet by erasing it completely and filling in the oval corresponding to your desired answer for that question.


Each of your scores will be determined by the number of questions for which you select the best answer from the choices given. Questions for which you mark no answer or more than one answer are not counted in scoring. Nothing is subtracted from a score if you answer a question incorrectly. Therefore, to maximize your scores on the verbal and quantitative sections of the paper-based test, it is better for you to answer each and every question and not to leave any questions unanswered. Work as rapidly as you can without being careless.This includes checking frequently to make sure you are marking your answers in the appropriate rows on your answer sheet. Since no question carries greater weight than any other, do not waste time pondering individual questions you find extremely difficult or unfamiliar. You may want to work through a verbal or quantitative section of the General Test quite rapidly, first answering only the questions about which you feel confident, then going back and answering questions that require more thought, and concluding with the most difficult questions if there is time.


During the actual administration of the General Test, you may work only on the section the test center supervisor designates and only for the time allowed. You may not go back to an earlier section of the test after the supervisor announces, “Please stop work” for that section. The supervisor is authorized to dismiss you from the center for doing so. All answers must be recorded on your answer sheet. Answers recorded in your test booklet will not be counted. Given the time constraints, you should avoid waiting until the last five minutes of a test administration to record answers on your answer sheet. Some questions on the General Test have only four response options (A through D).

All GRE answer sheets for the paper-based test contain response positions for five responses (A through E). Therefore, if an E response is marked for a fouroption question, it will be ignored. An E response for a four-option question is treated the same as no response (omitted).
                                                         
Analytical Writing Section


In the paper-based General Test, the topics in the analytical writing section will be presented in the test book and you will handwrite your essay responses on the answer sheets provided. Make sure you use the correct answer sheet for each task. It is important to budget your time. Within the 45-minute time limit for the Issue task, you will need to allow sufficient time to choose one of the two topics, think about the issue you’ve chosen, plan a response, and compose your essay. Within the 30- minute time limit for the Argument task, you will need to allow sufficient time to analyze the argument, plan a critique, and compose your response. Although GRE readers understand the time constraints under which you write and will consider your response a


“first draft,” you still want it to be the best possible example of your writing that you can produce under the testing circumstances. Save a few minutes at the end of each timed task to check for obvious errors. Although an occasional spelling or grammatical error will not affect your score, severe and persistent errors will detract from the overall effectiveness of your writing and thus lower your score. During the actual administration of the General Test, you may work only on the particular writing task the test center supervisor designates and only for the time allowed. You may not go back to an earlier section of the test after the supervisor announces, “Please stop work,” for that task. The supervisor is authorized to dismiss you from the center for doing so. Following the analytical writing section, you will have the opportunity to take a 10-minute break.