GRE Exam Major Finer Details

The GRE consists of three main sections:

• Verbal
• Quantitative
• Analytical Writing

The GRE Test is structured to have an easier mathematical section compared to the verbal section.Why is this? Most of the students who write the GRE are people who have an undergraduate degree and have a basic level of proficiency in mathematics ,and since they wish to purse a master’s or a doctoral course in an English speaking country ,their verbal/English proficiency tests are tested thoroughly.Hence ,while preparing for the GRE Exam, a slight shift in priority towards the English section is preferred.

The Verbal and Quantitative Scores in GRE are out of a scale of 200-800 each,so the least you can come of the exam centre with is 400. The Analytical Writing section is of a maximum of six points. The most important thing is the test is Computer Adaptive, which means the next question that appears onscreen depends on whether the previous question has been answered correctly or not.

The Analytical Writing section tests your critical thinking and writing skills. It assesses your ability to articulate and support complex ideas, analyse an argument, and sustain a focused and coherent discussion. It does not assess specific content knowledge.

The Verbal section measures your ability to analyse and evaluate written material and synthesize information obtained from it, to analyse relationships among component parts of sentences, to recognize relationships between words and concepts, and to reason with words in solving problems. There is a balance of passages across different subject matter areas: humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

The Quantitative section measures your basic mathematical skills, your understanding of elementary mathematical concepts, and your ability to reason quantitatively and solve problems in a quantitative setting. There is a balance of questions requiring arithmetic, algebra, geometry and data analysis.

• For the Issue task, two essay topics will be presented and you will choose one. The Argument task does not present a choice of topics; instead one topic will be presented.
• An unidentified verbal or quantitative pre-test section may be included and may appear in any order after the analytical writing section. It is not counted as part of your score.
• An identified research section that is not scored may be included and will always be at the end of the test.

There may be an experimental section -- which could be Quantitative or English -- that is actually not evaluated. As you will not be aware of what the experimental section is, you will have to attempt both sections with equal seriousness. You will get scores for the Verbal and Quantitative sections immediately, but the Analytical Writing scores will reach you in one to two weeks.
Also remember that, during the GRE, you could mention the names of some colleges where you want the scores to be sent. Keep four to five relevant colleges or university names at hand, other than MIT,CORNELL,STANDFORD and the likes.