Graduate Record Examination orGRE is a commercially-run standardized test that is an admissions requirement for many graduate schools principally in the United States, but also in other English speaking countries. Created and administered by Educational Testing Service (or ETS), the exam is primarily focused on testing abstract thinking skills in the areas of mathematics, vocabulary, and analytical writing. The GRE is typically a computer-based exam that is administered by select qualified testing centers; however, paper-based exams are offered in areas of the world that lack the technological requirements. (Don’t marvel on the English…this part is an extract from Wiki)
GRE basically consists of 3 parts of testing-Analytical, Quantitative and Verbal.
Analytical Testing-This is the portion where your writing skills are tested and graded on a scale of 6. You will be asked to write two essays. One is an issue task where you are needed to present your perspective on an issue. Eg: "It is dangerous to trust only intelligence."The other one is an Argumentative task. This section is similar to that of a debate. You have to analyze the topic and present the pluses and minuses. Eg: questions for this section are usually presented in paragraphs.
Good grammar and writing skills are needed to excel this section.
Quantitative-This is the exciting portion of the GRE. Very elementary questions are asked here. One may think after writing, whether the questions were taken from a LKG maths book. People attending GRE will try to boost their overall scores through this area. Most do it good. Some get unfortunate due to nervousness. Nervousness of both types can be seen, “Aha! I know everything” and “Oh God! I have to be careful I am attending GRE!!” But, in most low score cases it’s the first type of nervousness that make the harm. Slow and steady is the mantra to succeed here.
Verbal- This section is real deal in this exam. Vocabulary building of minimum 2000 words is necessary to get a good score. 30 questions (6 analogies, 7 sentence completions, 9 antonyms and 8reading comprehension) 30 minutes. The first three question types can be answered in 20 or 30 seconds if the preparation is good. In comprehension you can be given 1 reading passage and asked 8 questions from it or 2 different reading passages & 4 Q’s from each or 3 passages & 3,3,2 Q’s from each or 4 passages. The minimum number of Q’s each passage can have is 2. Note that you have only 30 minutes for the whole section, if you are given 4 passages then its hell for you. You’ll be spending most of your time in comprehensions and leave out the other. Good knowledge, pace is very important to score in this section. Only practice gives you this.
Both quantitative and verbal are graded separately on a scale of 800. The good thing is, whether you attend or not you’ll be getting a minimum of 200 marks for both sections. Great system by ETS! You can save your ass from humiliation from people, who don’t know about GRE, by saying you scored a 400! Instead of saying you scored a Zero!
It’s generally said a score above1200 and a writing score above 3 is good (Not Conclusive). 4 or 5 months preparation with Nova or Barron’s book and 3 or 4 model exams is good enough for this exam. Going for private coaching is a total waste of money and time.
However on the day of the exam,no matter how well prepared you are, the only thing that can make the difference is HOW COOL YOU ARE!!