This is an overview of the GRE General Test's structure. If you are a student preparing for the test or plan to give GRE General Test in future, this article will help you gain a better understanding of the test content, structure and question types.
There are 5 sections in the GRE test: One Analytical Writing section and two sections each of Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning. The first section is the Analytical Writing section which consists of 2 writing (typing) tasks of 30 minutes each. Section 2, 3, 4 and 5 are Verbal and Quantitative sections. There is no fixed order in which these sections are served.
GRE Test is section wise adaptive, which means that the second verbal and quant section will be harder or easier based on how you performed in the first section. This highlights a very important test strategy - You should strive hard to do the first section as best as you can. Doing good in the first section will ensure that a harder second section is served and your chances to score high significantly increase.
This section consists of two writing tasks:
Both of these tasks are writing exercises where the student has to write (type) a couple of paragraphs. The time limit is 30 minutes for each task. There is a fixed pool of topics from which the Issue and Argument topic will be chosen. Refer the Issue topics pool and the Argument topics pool to get an idea of the type of questions to expect in the Analytical Writing Section.
There are two Verbal Reasoning sections. Each section is of 30 minutes duration and has 20 questions. There are three types of Verbal Reasoning questions which are asked in different formats. The primary types of Verbal Reasoning questions and their sub-types are:
There are two Quantitative Reasoning sections. Each section is of 35 minutes duration and has 20 questions. There are three types of questions which are asked in various formats. The primary types of Quantitative Reasoning questions and their sub-types are: