What About The GRE?

Once you've proven yourself worthy of that college degree and you really like the academic environment, you may wish to consider pursuit of a degree in an accredited graduate school. In this case, you're going to have to take the GRE test, or Graduate Record Examination. Like the SAT, this is an aptitude test, or intelligence test, which measures a student's breadth of knowledge acquired over the given time period. Basically, how smart are you now that you call yourself a college graduate? In addition to your overall GPA, the GRE exam offers any grad-school admission committee another standardized form of assessment to determine whether you'd make a good grad-school student.

The GRE test is divided into three separate sections: "Verbal", which is worth 200 to 800 points, "Quantitative", which counts for 200 to 800 points, and an "Analytical Writing Assessment", scored on a 0 to 6-point scale.

The Verbal section of the GRE test has sentence completion questions, analogies, antonyms and reading comprehension questions. GRE test takers are given 30 minutes to answer 30 questions for this section - usually 7 or 8 of each type of question are divided up into this portion. Practice tests are really good for this section as they allow you to understand the method behind the GRE test madness and learn how to answer these questions with true confidence.

The Quantitative portion of the GRE exam is an assessment of subjects like basic math, mathematical concepts, and quantitative reasoning. Algebra, geometry, and data analysis provide the framework for this section, where you will be given 45 minutes to answer 28 questions. Most students seek tutoring test preparation to get an accurate and predictable score on this rather difficult portion of the GRE test. Any test preparation is better than none, for sure.

The last section, the Analytical Writing test, is a little more difficult to plan for when it comes to GRE test preparation. Students receive 75 minutes to formulate responses to complex ideas and issues in two separate sections. This is considered a highly valued skill for performing graduate-level coursework and is really scrutinized when considering your GRE test score. The first section allows 45 minutes to conceive a well thought-out stance on a broad issue. The second half of the Analytical Writing section of the GRE exam asks you to analyze and critique different aspects of a written argument within a 30-minute timeframe. This section is a real indicator of grad-level writing aptitude, or ability.

It's a good idea to do some GRE preparation by taking some GRE practice tests, and make sure you're registered well in advance so you can get in a seat. You can register for the GRE test at www.gre.org. Other than that, good luck and happy GRE test taking!