Overview of the GRE Test

If you are planning to pursue your masters in US, then you need to take up GRE (Graduate Record Examination). Graduate who scores high in GRE tend to have better success than those that scored lower. The test has four sections that measure critical thinking skills, quantitative reasoning, verbal reasoning and analytical writing skills. Each of these sections is designed to assess your knowledge at various levels. In order to prepare properly for the exam you need to know the purpose of each section. This article explores the various sections of GRE.

Verbal Reasoning Section: The skills measured include the test takers ability to recognize relationships between words and concepts, analyze relationships among component parts of sentence. This section mainly concentrates on your proficiency in English vocabulary, for this you are supposed to learn word lists. You can find many books made for just this purpose. Familiarize yourself with prefixes and suffixes as these will be obvious clues as to the meaning of words and allow you to instantly eliminate some of the choices given to you. This will save so much time while taking the test and it improves your confidence.

The reading comprehension questions tests your ability to understand the concept and understand the style of reading passages. Look over the entire passage first, do not skip ahead to the questions before reading the passage and more over reading the questions first will reduce your ability to focus on the passage.

Quantitative Reasoning Section: This is often referred as math section. Here skills measured include the test takers ability to understand the basic concepts arithmetic, algebra, geometry and data analysis. This is where you can score maximum, look out for mathematical shortcuts. Math problems can be solved in many different ways, try to choose the fastest and easiest method to solve the problems. You need to practice more in order to score maximum. Use the diagrams or draw your own help clarify a question, diagrams provided in the GRE quantitative section are drawn to scale and can be trusted.

Analytical Writing Section: in this section the skills measured include the test takers ability to:

• Articulate complex ideas clearly and effectively
• Support ideas with relevant reasons and examples
• Control the elements of Standard English.

Here, in this section you need to write two essays and you are supposed to write these two essays in the word processing program, designed by the company that produces the GRE. It does not have spell checker. The analytical portion of the GRE is scored on a 6-point scale, 6 is the best score a taker can receive, 0 is the lowest.

The first essay is called the “issue task”, you can choose and write any one of the two different topics given with in 45 minutes, the computer will automatically move to the next section regardless of the completion.

The second essay is called “argument task”, here you will be presented with an argument and have to write an essay that supports which side of the argument you support. You will be given 30 minutes to complete this essay.