GRE

GRE stands for Graduate Record Examinations. It is a standardized aptitude exam. It is one of the most widely accepted admissions tests for graduate and business school programs, and is used for admission decisions for MBA, specialized master's in business and doctoral programs.

The GRE is a multiple-choice multi-stage test that measures verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking and analytical writing skills. It has been designed in a way so as to assess a student's intellectual, logical abilities, and reasoning abilities. The test allows its takers to skip questions within a section, go back and change answers and to also have the flexibility to choose which questions within a section they want to answer first.

The GRE question types are designed to closely reflect the kind of analysis and thinking that students will be expected to do in graduate or business school and are based upon the following skills:

Verbal Reasoning - This section measures a student's ability to analyze and evaluate written material and to combine parts of data obtained from it into a coherent whole. It measures the ability to analyze relationships among constituents of sentences and recognize relationships among concepts and words.

Quantitative Reasoning - This section measures a student's problem-solving ability and focuses on basic concepts of algebra, arithmetic, data analysis and geometry.

Analytical Writing - This section measures analytical writing skills and critical thinking. It specifically measure's a student's ability to be eloquent, and to support ideas that are complex in nature both clearly and effectively.

The Analytical Writing section will always precede all other test sections. The Verbal Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning and Experimental Section (the latter of which is not scored but which can be either Verbal or Quantitative) may appear in any order. An identified Research Section that is not scored may also be included in the test, but will always appear at the end.

The first sections of the Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning parts range from the levels of 'Easy' to 'Difficult'. Each subsequent section is administered based on the student's overall performance in the preceding section. A score of 130 - 170 per section is generated for the Verbal and Quantitative sections. Both scores are then added to give a total score of 260 - 340.

• The GRE selects questions in groups, or stages meaning that it is critical to perform well section by section rather than question by question.
• The difficulty of questions is governed by performance in the preceding ones. Difficulty levels therefore alter in accordance with the student's answers as they progress through the test.
• The first section is reflective of an 'average' difficulty level.
• The student has the provision to skip, navigate and return, and change their responses within a section. However, once they finish with a section, they cannot return to it.
• There is a 'mark and review' feature to mark questions the student may want to review later.
• The student will be scored on the basis of the number of questions answered, the number of correct answers and the difficulty level of the sections.
• The GRE can be taken once every 21 days, up to five times within any continuous 12-month period (365 days)
• Scores are valid for five years after the testing year in which a student was tested.
• There is an on-screen calculator for use in the Quantitative Reasoning section to reduce the emphasis on computation and to ensure that the student focuses more attention on reasoning skills.
• There is emphasis within the test on the student's knowledge of vocabulary through reading.

The cost to take the GRE is US$ 195

To reschedule, test-takers need to pay an additional $50. Re-scheduling can be done up to seven days prior to the test day.

The GRE score can be reported to four schools of the applicant's choice for free.