GRE General Test explained
The GRE (Graduate Record Examination) General Test, often referred to as “GRE”, is a standardized test. There is a subject GRE also, but most students can manage their graduate admission process with the General Test score. This post is about the GRE General Test. The test has two formats – paper based and computer based. The paper based test is offered in a very few countries, on two specific dates every year. A Computer based test can be scheduled anytime during the year. The computer based GRE is adaptive.
Adaptive means the test adapts according to the correct or wrong response to previous answers. If you are doing great and getting answers correct, the subsequent question would be of greater difficulty level. A difficult question carries more weight. GRE has 3 sections – verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and analytical writing. The possible range of score in each of Verbal and Quant section is between 200 to 800. If you score 431 in verbal and 591 in quant, you did better than half of the of test takers in each section, but for admission to a good university you should do better than that. Interpreting your score.
Different Universities have different rules about more than one GRE scores of the same candidate. Some take an average; some consider the most recent and so on. It is in the best academic and financial interest of an applicant to prepare well so that a need of a second shot at GRE does not arise.
One should know that it costs a significant amount of money to report your GRE score to each University that you are applying to. However on the test day, you can supply the names of 4 Universities and the score to those Universities is reported by ETS free of cost. GRE score is one of many aspects of an applicant’s academic profile.
A great GRE score does not guarantee admission to a top University and at the same time all is not lost if the GRE score is not so great.
More information about GRE General Test, see the official GRE website
