What is The GRE?

To find the question - Why do you need to take the GRE General for graduate or business school, and what kinds of content does it contain and tests? Watch this lesson for an overview of the basics.

GRE: Graduate Record Examination

The GRE revised General Test is a standardized test that evaluates your verbal, math, and writing skills. It is generally required for students who are going to enter graduate or business school. It's just similar to a scaled-up version of the standardized tests you took to apply to college for admission. In this lesson, you'll learn what the GRE evaluates, who is to take it, and other basic background information about the test.

GRE: The Basics

GRE is a standardized test that admissions officers look at as one part of the applicant's admission application. Many graduate schools in the United States and in many other countries require applicants to take the GRE, and it might also be required for some scholarships or fellowships, depending on your school. The GRE isn't the only thing that graduate schools consider, but it is an important part of your application evaluation for the admission.

Registering for GRE

To take the GRE, you'll have to create an account on the GRE website and sign up for a test date - this is also how you'll get your scores and send them to schools. Because the GRE is taken on a computer (CBT), GRE test dates are actually very flexible, and you have a lot of space to pick a date that suits you. You'll pick a test center near you and take your pick from a list of times available - which specific times are open depends on your test center.

GRE Content

The GRE is about 3 hours and 45 minutes long, including a 10-minute break. It tests you in three subject areas:

• Analytical Writing

  You'll only get one Analytical Writing section on the test, and it will always be first. You'll have to write two essays in this section.

• Verbal Reasoning

  it's mostly vocabulary and reading comprehension. You'll get two Verbal Reasoning sections on the test.

• Quantitative Reasoning or math

  You'll get two Quantitative Reasoning sections on the test.

Everyone who wants to take GRE has to take all the sections regardless of what you're going to grad school for. But here's the actual picture of that: you aren't expected to actually be an expert in any of those fields.

Except the vocabulary, the GRE is primarily a test of problem-solving and reasoning skills, not subject-area knowledge or memorized facts. So, the math questions are hard because they're logically difficult to think through, not because they test really high-level concepts of mathematics. If you're going to grad school in the social sciences and haven't taken math since your general education requirements, don't be panic about it - the concepts are the same ones you learned in your high school studies, and you won't have to do any fancy theoretical calculus or analytical geometry.

The same is true for the reading sections. You won't have to apply specialized literary terms or know a lot of background critical theory. So, if you're an engineer or a math person, don't panic and start cramming Proust and Keats. It's all about understanding what you see on the page, not knowing special field-specific jargon.