All about the GRE General Test
The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is a standardized test conducted by Educational Testing Service, ETS, US. The scores of these tests are used as one of the most important parameters by US Universities, colleges while selecting students to their graduate program of study.
The GRE General Test aims to assess a student's Analytical writing ability, verbal skills and quantitative skills. As this is a General Test, the test does not relate to any specific field of study. This new format of the GRE has been in practice since October 2002. As a result of this change, the analytical section which used to be a part of the GRE is no more a part of the GRE General Test.
The analytical writing section comprises two writing tasks. The first one, "Present Your Perspective on an Issue", is for a duration of 45 minutes and the second task, "Analyze an Argument" task is for a duration of 30 minutes. Though these two tasks have some similarities, they differ in what they measure. The first task requires you to construct a personal argument about an issue, and the second requires you to critique someone else's argument by assessing its claims.
Your essays are scored on a scale of 0 to 6 in half point increments.
Multiple Choice Questions - Verbal and Quantitative Sections
The analytical writing section is followed by the Verbal and Quantitative multiple choice question sections. In both the Verbal as well as the quantiative section of the GRE General Test, each of the questions will be followed by multiple choices and you are expected to choose the best alternative from amongst the different choices.
Your performance in the verbal and quantitative sections are scored on a scale of 200 to 800.
Structure of the Mutiple Choice Sections
The structure of the multiple choice sections in the GRE tests varies from the Computer Based Computer Adapted administration and the Paper Based GRE Test. Refer to the respective sections to know the structure of the multiple choice question sections of the GRE Test.
Fees for taking the GRE General Test
Depending upon the location from which you plan to take the GRE Test, the fees for the General test could vary significantly.
While the fees for taking the GRE Test in US, US Territories and Puerto Rico is USD 115, it will set you back by USD 175 if take the test from China, Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan. Other parts of the world have a uniform rate of USD 140.
The details of fee structure can be accessed at the following location in the Offical GRE Site.
The computer-based GRE General Test contains four sections, one of which is an unidentified pretest section. This unidentified pretest section can appear in any position in the test after the analytical writing section.
The test may include an identified Research Section that usually appears as the last section of the test. However, your performance in the identified Research Section is not scored.
Total testing time without including the Research Section is about 3 hours and 15 minutes.
The paper-based GRE General Test contains five sections. In addition to these five sections, one unidentified pretest section may be included and this section can appear in any position in the test after the analytical writing section. Your performance in the pretest section will not count toward your scores.
Total testing time of the paper based GRE General Test is about 3 hours and 45 minutes.
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