| The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is a commercially run standardized test that is an admission requirement for many graduate schools in the United States and in other English-speaking countries. The exam measures verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking, and analytical writing skills that have been acquired over a long period of time and that are not related to any specific field of study. The GRE General Test is offered as a computer-based exam. The Ivy Key program is designed to teach students core math concepts and logical reasoning strategies. Students learn The Ivy Key’s patented methods for maximizing their score on the GRE. |
The Test
The exam consists of four sections. The first section is a writing section, while the other three are multiple-choice style. One of the multiple choice style exams will test verbal skills, another will test quantitative skills and a third exam will be an experimental section that is not included in the reported score. The entire test procedure takes about 4 hours.
Verbal section
The verbal section consists of analogies, completions, and reading comprehension passages. This section primarily tests vocabulary, and average scores in this section are substantially lower than those in the quantitative section. This section will consist of 30 questions, and 30 minutes will be allotted for it.
Quantitative section
The quantitative section, the other multiple-choice section, consists of problem solving and quantitative comparison questions that test high-school level mathematics. Multiple-choice response sections are graded on a scale of 200-800. This section will consist of 28 questions, and test takers will be given 45 minutes to complete the section. This section typically includes 14 quantitative comparison questions, 10 discrete quantitative questions (multiple-choice) and 4 data interpretation questions.
Analytical writing section
The analytical writing section consists of two different essays, an "issue task" and an "argument task". The test taker will be able to choose between two topics upon which to write an essay. Test takers will also be given an "argument" and will be asked to write an essay that critiques the argument. The time allowed for this essay is an hour and 15 minutes. The writing section is graded on a scale of 0-6. The essays are written on a computer using a word processing program specifically designed by ETS. The program allows only basic computer functions and does not contain a spell-checker or other advanced features. Each essay is scored by at least two readers on a six-point scale.
Experimental section
The experimental section, which can be either a verbal, quantitative, or analytical writing task, contains new questions that ETS is considering for future use. Although the experimental section does not count toward the test-taker's score, it is unidentified and appears identical to the real (scored) part of the test. This section does not appear on all GRE examinations.
Scoring
The common (Verbal and Quantitative) multiple-choice portions of the exam currently use computer-adaptive testing (CAT) methods that automatically change the difficulty of questions as the test taker proceeds with the exam, depending on the number of correct or incorrect answers that are given. The test taker is not allowed to go back and change the answers to previous questions, and some type of answer must be given before the next question is presented.
An examinee can miss one or more questions on a multiple-choice section and still receive a perfect score of 800. Likewise, even if no question is answered correctly, 200 is the lowest possible. In the graduate school admissions process, the level of emphasis that is placed upon GRE scores varies widely between schools and between departments within schools.
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