GRE
The following has been adapted, with permission from the author, from the upcoming book: Breaking Business School: A Military Veteran's Ten Step Guide to MBA Success
The GRE is administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and you can register for it on the website www.ets.org for a fee of $205 that can be reimbursed one-time for active-duty military personnel. The test can be taken once every 21 days, up to five times within any continuous rolling 12-month period even if scores were canceled.
The test consists of six sections. The first section is always the Analytical Writing section consisting of two separate essays. The next five sections consist of two Verbal sections, two Quantitative sections, and an experimental section. The experimental section does not count towards the final score but is not distinguished from the scored sections. The five sections may occur in any order. Unlike the GMAT, individual questions are not computer adaptive, but, rather, your performance on the first verbal or quantitative section will determine the difficulty of the subsequent one. Also, unlike the GMAT, you are able to flag questions in a particular section and return to them. The sections are scored separately in single-point increments with Verbal and Quantitative scores between 130 and 170, and Analytical Writing on a six-point scale. Based on the performance of two-million people who took the test between 2015 and 2018, the mean and standard deviation of the verbal section were 150.24 and 8.44. Whereas, the mean and standard deviation for the quantitative section were 153.07 and 9.24. Analytical writing had a mean of 3.55 with a standard deviation of 0.86. At the end of the test, you will be given the option to report (view) or cancel your scores. Once you view your scores, you cannot cancel them. You cannot cancel your score for one section of the test and have the scores for the remaining sections reported.
Analytical Writing (AW)
The analytical writing section consists of two different essays, an "issue task" and an "argument task". The writing section is graded on a scale of 0–6, in half-point increments. The essays are written on a computer using a word processing program specifically designed by ETS. Each essay is scored by at least two readers on a six-point holistic scale. If the two scores are within one point, the average of the scores is taken. If the two scores differ by more than a point, a third reader examines the response. The issue task is an essay on a particular topic, while the argument task analyzes the logic of a particular argument. A test-taker has 30 minutes for each essay.
Quantitative
Each quantitative section consists of approximately 8 quantitative comparisons, 9 problem-solving items, and 3 data interpretation questions covering basic high school level mathematical knowledge and reasoning skills. A test-taker has 30 minutes for each quantitative section.
Verbal
Each verbal section consists of about 6 text completion, 4 sentence equivalence, and 10 critical reading questions that cover reading comprehension, critical reasoning, and vocabulary usage. A test-taker has 30 minutes to complete each verbal section.
Useful Links
Last updated