Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is a standardized test to evaluate verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and critical thinking and analytical writing skills of students for admission into United States graduate schools. This test is conducted by Educational Testing Service (ETS). It is an online examination conducted at different centres across the globe. Applicants can also opt for paper-based entrance test. GRE score has different level of significance for different US universities. Some treat it as one of the important admission factors while for some universities the score is a mere formality.

Except the analytical writing section, rest three sections of GRE are multiple-choice ones. Out of the four sections there is one experimental section and has the least say in one’s GRE score. However, which section will come under the experimental category is a highly confidential one and test takers have no idea regarding it. Time allowed taking GRE test is 4 hours.

In the analytical writing section, the applicant will have to write two different essays. The score of this section is depicted in a grade of 0-6 scale. Verbal reasoning section comprises of questions related to analogies, antonyms, sentence completions, and reading comprehension passages. In the quantitative reasoning section, the applicant has to solve mathematical problems of high-school standard. The score of this section is graded on a scale of 200-800, in 10-point increments.

Experimental section of GRE aims at measuring the skills of an applicant keeping the changing nature of global educational system. ETS considers this section as measure for future use. Questions of this section can be either a verbal, quantitative, or analytical writing task.