GRE Practice Tests

GRE is a highly recommended standardized test taken by students after their undergraduate level if they prefer to go for higher studies. Conducted by the ETS, this exam focuses on skills pertaining to Verbal Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning and Analytical Writing which are the three different sections of the GRE General Test.

Since the exam focuses not just on the language proficiency of the student like TOEFL or IELTS, students have to often prepare for months before the test date in order to receive a decent score worth applying with to colleges and universities of their choice.

GRE General Test Structure

The three sections in the GRE General Test are Verbal Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning, and Analytical Writing each of which has 2 sub-sections making a total of six sections in all. The syllabus pertaining to each of these sections is mostly content taken from high school with an additional emphasis on vocabulary and language that has been academically obtained by students in their undergraduate courses.

The Verbal Section and the Quantitative Section of the test are of relative difficulties depending on the performance of the student in the first half of the section. If the student is able to crack the moderately difficult questions in the first half, they will be given questions of increasing difficulty in the next section. On the other hand, if the student has performed weakly in the first half, they will be given relatively easier questions in the second half of the test. This disparity in testing is evened out during the scoring process by scaling the grades.

The Analytical Writing section of the test has two tasks of 30 minutes each where the student will have to follow instructions and write an essay for each task within the given time frame. Students will have to critically analyze a text and also create a text from scratch based on an idea or statement provided for the two tasks provided.

Verbal Reasoning Section of GRE

GRE Verbal Test is the most difficult and requires the maximum amount of preparation considering the other parts of the test. Vocabulary is a key component in the GRE Verbal section. There are a lot of questions in the GRE Practice tests mentioned here that can aid the students in their endeavor to clear the exam. Each time one begins to take the GRE Test crawler for GRE vocabulary, they will get new questions taken randomly from a pool of hundred questions. The question format of this section is as follows-

• Reading Comprehensionquestions will provide the candidate with passages that have more than one paragraph in them and questions for which the answers will be available in the text. Candidates are supposed to read and comprehend the passages in time to answer the questions given.
• Text Completion questions have sentences with crucial words omitted from short passages and requiring the test-taker to use the remaining information in the passage as a basis for selecting words or short phrases to fill in the blanks and create a coherent, meaningful whole.
• Sentence Equivalence questions consist of a single sentence with just one blank. The candidate will have to find two choices that lead to a complete, coherent sentence while producing sentences that mean the same thing.

Quantitative Reasoning Section of GRE

The Quantitative section of GRE focuses mainly on mathematics and the basic information students have learned in high school. They believe that exams can be tough without having to ask advanced level math questions since students often miss to revise the basic concepts of math that are relevant for any advanced application of the same.

The question types offered in this section are

• Quantitative Comparison questions contain figures or other related information with which students will have to compare the data provided. Often the information provided may seem to not suffice but the questions are created in such a way to assess the basic mathematical abilities of the student.
• Multiple-choice questions with ONE answer choice and MULTIPLE answer choices. It has to be understood that partially marking the right answer will not award the student any points. While attempting the latter kind of questions, students must ensure that they have marked all the right answers in the options provided.
• Numeric Entry questions require students to write the final answer after calculating it by themselves since there will be no options provided. These problems will generally be provided in the format of a word problem.

Analytical Writing Section of GRE

The Analytical Section is the only section requiring students to write essays for the topics provided. There are 2 tasks in this section with 30 minutes provided for each task. The essays are written will have to be grammatically accurate, written with apt vocabulary, and coherent. It should also be strictly focused on the topic and should answer every question asked. The two tasks are complementary in nature considering how one task requires the student to critically analyze an author’s work by checking the strength of the bond between the examples provided and the perspective stated whereas the other task requires the student to create a text by choosing a perspective and providing examples with proper justification for the choice. The tasks are-

• Issue Essay is the essay the student has to write based on the statement or short paragraph given in the question. Students will have to discuss in detail the perspective they have chosen from the two opposing views provided in the statement and move on to justify the same with as many examples as possible.
• Argument Essay is the essay where the student will have to critically analyze the text provided and focus on the language and perspective chosen by the author either by criticizing it or by appreciating it with proper examples from the text. One must refrain from offering personal opinions and stick to the text provided in this task for a higher score.

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Some Facts on GRE *

• The mean scores for Quantitative Reasoning is 153, Verbal Reasoning is 150 and the Analytical Writing section is 3.6.
• Non-US Citizens have a higher mean score in the quantitative section with an approximate 158 score while they have a lower verbal score with an approximate 147 as their mean scores.
• Test Takers from China have a mean GRE Quantitative score of 164 and Australian takers get an average score of 158 in the verbal section.
• The GRE score report expires in 5 years but can still be used to furnish one's resume while applying for jobs.
• GRE does not have a passing score and so any score received will not account for a failure. The scores obtained will just not suffice in getting an admission though students will still be able to get admission with an excellent application form and GPA even if they have poor GRE scores.
• Students will be able to view their Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning scores right after the test while selecting the score they want to send to colleges. The AWA score will be uploaded online and can be accessed along with the overall score on the ETS account of the student.