What Is the GRE®? A Complete Guide

The GRE (Graduate Record Examination) is the most widely accepted standardized test for graduate school admissions. It’s about two hours long, with five sections: two Verbal Reasoning, two Quantitative Reasoning, and one Analytical Writing. Verbal and Quant are each scored on a 130–170 scale (combined range: 260–340), and the essay is scored separately on a 0–6 scale. There’s no penalty for wrong answers, and you can take it at a test center or online from home.

This article covers what’s on the GRE General Test, how it’s scored, how programs actually use those scores, and what to expect on test day.

One side note before we continue: in addition to the GRE® General Test, there are subject-specific GRE® tests that might be required for certain graduate programs. For instance, a graduate program in psychology might require a psychology-based GRE® exam in addition to, or instead of, the GRE® General Test. There are currently only three subject-specific GRE® tests: mathematics, physics, and psychology. This article deals exclusively with the GRE® General Test, which is probably what you’re looking for anyway!

The GRE® at a Glance

The General Test has five sections and takes about 1 hour and 58 minutes from the first question to the last. There’s no scheduled break.

Source: ETS GRE® General Test Structure.

The Analytical Writing section always comes first. After that, the verbal and quant sections can appear in any order. For a thorough breakdown of the test-day experience in all its glory, see How Long Is the GRE®?

To score well on the exam, you’ll need to master certain math and verbal content. You’ll also need to grasp how the GRE® is structured, how the questions are formatted, and what’s causing you to lose points. Lastly, you’ll need to develop effective test-taking strategies to perform at your best. For more on the skills measured by the GRE®, check out What Skills Does the GRE® Test Measure?

What Is the GRE® Used For?

Graduate programs use GRE® scores in three ways: to assess an applicant’s odds of success in the program, to narrow down the applicant pool to a manageable number, and to boost the program’s rankings.

The GRE® as predictor of success in graduate programs. Graduate programs want to admit candidates who are going to succeed in their programs and go on to successful careers. But how can schools know that a certain applicant has the academic chops to succeed? Undergraduate GPAs are certainly useful; the problem is, they don’t help schools compare students across institutions. After all, different university programs often have very different grading standards. As a standardized test, the GRE® allows schools to assess and compare candidates on a single, level playing field.

Using the GRE® to narrow the applicant pool. A top graduate program can attract up to 10,000 applications per year, far more than its admissions officers can possibly read carefully. As a result, many schools use the GRE® as a convenient sorting tool. In other words, if you don’t meet a minimum threshold score, the school might move on from your application without investing much time into reading it. If that happens, your unique background and fascinating work experience may not even be considered.

The GRE® and graduate program rankings. Graduate programs are in constant competition with each other. It’s simple: a higher ranking means more prestige for the institution, higher quality applicants, and better job placement for graduates. While it’s not the only factor, a school’s average GRE® score can play a significant role in this competition. Bottom line, schools will sometimes favor applicants with high GRE® scores simply because they drive up the school’s average GRE® score, and a higher average GRE® score means a higher ranking. This practice is particularly common in MBA admissions, but happens in other fields of study as well.

What Content Is on the GRE®?

Quantitative Reasoning

The GRE® quant section is rooted in fundamental math concepts that are typically taught in high school.

Here are the most common topics:

1. Arithmetic
2. Algebra
3. Geometry
4. Exponents
5. Percents
6. Ratios
7. Rates
8. Probability
9. Combinatorics
10. Statistics
11. Number Properties

Advanced math concepts such as trigonometry and calculus do not appear on the GRE® General Test.

It isn’t the content of the test that tends to surprise people most. Rather, it’s the style and format of questions. In fact, two out of the four question formats on the GRE® are unique to the GRE® exam.

Alongside standard multiple choice, you’ll see Quantitative Comparison questions, which test your math skills in an unusual way: rather than asking you to solve a math problem, they require you to compare two values or expressions, and to decide whether one is larger than the other. The test also includes multiple-choice questions with multiple correct answers, plus numeric entry questions where you type your answer into a box instead of picking from a list.

Unlike many standardized tests, you also get an on-screen calculator during both quant sections. While this removes some of the arithmetic pain, it’s not always as helpful as it might seem; generally speaking, the difficulty of the GRE® has more to do with reasoning than pure arithmetic. Our guide to GRE® quant covers the section in full, and geometry gets its own special guide, as it’s a topic many test-takers have forgotten.

Verbal Reasoning

The verbal sections include two broad question types, each of which makes up roughly half of the section.

Reading-based questions give you a passage and ask about its structure, purpose, and methods of reasoning. They are meant to test your ability to read precisely, and will never require any specialized knowledge of a particular subject. Our guide to GRE® Reading Comprehension covers the best approach to these types of questions.

Vocabulary-based questions are split between two types: Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence. Text Completion questions include a short passage with one or more blanks, and test-takers must choose a single word for each blank from a list of options. Sentence Equivalence questions are similar, but with a small twist: they include a single sentence with a single blank, and students must choose two words from a list, both of which could logically complete the sentence.

Understandably, these vocabulary questions often send test-takers straight to flashcards. However, we’d suggest reading why word lists tend not to help as much as you’d hope before you buy a deck. Spoiler alert: students often improve their verbal scores more by sharpening their approach to questions than by memorizing random lists of words.

Analytical Writing

The GRE® includes one 30-minute essay task at the beginning of the exam, scored on a 0 to 6 scale in half-point increments. Your essay is graded by both a human reader and ETS’s automated scoring engine.

Before you spend much prep time on it, read How Important Is the GRE® Analytical Writing Assessment? (spoiler: the essay is probably less important than you fear).

How Is the GRE® Scored?

The GRE® reports three separate scores:

1. Verbal Reasoning: 130 to 170, in one-point increments
2. Quantitative Reasoning: 130 to 170, in one-point increments
3. Analytical Writing: 0 to 6, in half-point increments

There’s no combined total score. Programs see your verbal and quant scores separately, and many care about one considerably more than the other: an engineering program, for example, will look hard at your quant number, while a comparative literature program may barely glance at it.

Because the two scales are calculated separately, the same number means very different things on each. A 160 on Verbal Reasoning is roughly the 82nd percentile, while a 160 on Quantitative Reasoning is about the 50th. Even a perfect score differs: 170 on verbal is the 99th percentile, but 170 on quant is the 89th, because so many test-takers cluster at the top of the quant scale.

Our full percentile chart has the figure for every score on both measures, and What’s a Good GRE® Score? covers how to turn that into a target for your own graduate school applications.

What Kind of Test Is the GRE®?

A few features shape how the exam actually feels.

It adapts between sections, not between questions. The questions on the first verbal section and the first quant section are of medium difficulty on average. How you perform on these first sections determines the difficulty of the second sections. Your score reflects both how many questions you answered correctly and how hard those questions were.

You can move around within a section. Unlike some computer-adaptive exams, the GRE® lets you skip questions within a section, come back to them, and change answers. There’s a mark-and-review tool built in for exactly this.

Every question counts. The current format has no unscored experimental section, so every answer contributes to your score.

Put together, these features favor a flexible test-taking strategy on the GRE®. For instance, if you aren’t making progress on a question, you can flag it and return later, using whatever time remains on the clock. This is a habit worth building during practice.

What Test-Taking Strategies Are Important for the GRE®?

Just knowing some math formulas and memorizing a stack of vocabulary words won’t be enough to do well on the GRE®. You’ll also have to:

• Develop a creative and flexible approach to problem solving.
• Manage your time in a way that maximizes your points.
• Refine your process so that you get easier questions right 100% of the time.

That third one tends to be underappreciated. Careless errors on easy questions cost WAY more than most test-takers realize, and they’re usually the cheapest points to win back.

For more on what it takes to achieve your best GRE® score, check out this article about the skills measured on the GRE®. If you’re wondering how difficult all of this really is, Is the GRE® Hard? is worth a read.

Lastly, when you’re ready to build a plan, start with How to Study for the GRE®.

Taking the GRE® At-Home or in a Test Center

You can currently take the GRE® either at a test center or online. The exam is exactly the same in both settings, so it’s up to you to choose the option that is best for your situation.

You might want to take the test at home if:

• It’s inconvenient to get to a test center in your area
• It’s hard to get an appointment at a test center
• You’ll be more nervous in the test center environment

You might want to take the test in a test center if:

• Your internet connection at home is unstable
• Your environment and equipment at home do not meet ETS requirements

Schools can’t tell which version you took, so this is purely a question of where you’ll perform better.

The Practical Details

A few things you should know before you register:

What it costs. The GRE® costs $249 in most of the world, with additional fees for things like rescheduling and extra score reports. Our guide to what the GRE® costs breaks down which of those extras are worth paying for.

How many times you can take it. Five times in any rolling twelve-month period, with at least 21 days between attempts. How Many Times Can You Take the GRE®? covers how to plan those attempts sensibly rather than burning through them. Aside from the above restrictions, there is currently no lifetime limit on the number of times you can take the GRE®. 

What test day looks like. The exam takes about two hours, but test day takes longer once you factor in check-in and security. What Is GRE® Test Day Like? walks through the whole thing.

What About the GRE® Subject Tests?

The GRE® Subject Tests are separate exams that measure knowledge in three specific fields: mathematics, psychology, and physics. They’re a different animal from the General Test. Scores run from 200 to 990 in 10-point increments, and only some graduate programs require or accept them.

If a program asks for one, it will say so explicitly. If it doesn’t, you almost certainly don’t need to take one. Confirm whether you need one before you start studying for it.

For more information about the Subject Tests, visit ETS’s website.