The GRE (Graduate Record Examinations) exam is required for all students planning to pursue a master's or postgraduate course, MBA and other postgraduate programs. The GRE certificate is mandatory for admission to the United States and other countries (Switzerland, Australia, Canada - mostly English-speaking). GRE points are usually the decisive factor for enrolling a student (especially in international business schools).
Significant changes in the structure and composition of the exam took place in 2011: its adaptability has remained, but now it can be traced from stage to stage (and not from question to question, as it was before). Therefore, the results shown by the student on the first two blocks, affect the complexity of the two following (we will discuss the structure of the exam in more detail later). Common formats of tasks and blocks, the types of questions remained the same, but the scale of assessments changed: if earlier you could score 200-800 points, now the spread is only 130-170 points.
Types of GRE
Worldwide, two formats of the GRE exam are accepted:
- General
Checks the total knowledge: mathematics (school program ), English (including lexical stock), two analytical works.
- Subject Subject
Examines a student in the chosen disciplines: it can be psychology, biology, physics, mathematics, chemistry.
Most postgraduate programs at universities will require the results of only GRE General Test. The best US universities (for example, members of the Ivy League - Yale, Harvard, Columbia University, Berkeley, Stanford) require a very high level of GRE from applicants: at least 150 points on the verbal part and at least 160 points on the mathematical block.
Today the GRE test can be taken in Russia too: a computer (updated) version is available in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and "paper" tests are conducted in Yekaterinburg, Astrakhan, Volgograd, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, Krasnoyarsk and Syktyvkar. Testing is carried out quite often - up to two times weekly - but you need to make time to register for a date convenient for you: the seats are dismantled quickly enough, the exam is popular and popular. The cost of GRE according to 2016 is $ 205.
GRE structure
The total time given for the GRE tasks is 3 hours and 45 minutes; After the 3 block students have a 10-minute break. The total number of examination sections is 7: 6 basic and 1 experimental (and until the beginning of the exam you do not know which section is experimental today!).
1) The 2 first blocks of the exam are essay writing. The first composition is devoted to reasoning on a given topic, the second - to the analysis of the presented thesis or argument, to its consideration from several points of view. Here it is important for the student to show his own erudition and consciousness, to give really convincing arguments, to prove the depth of his analysis.
2) 2 following blocks - verbal part: quick analysis and understanding of the read text in English, ranking and systematization of information, definition of the main thought and the general structure. Here it is important to be confident in the breadth of your lexical stock, since the verbal structure of the text can be quite complex, include many words and idioms that are not found in everyday, everyday English speech.
3) The last two sections are math: a school-wide course and a mathematical analysis (basic positions).
Each section includes 20 tasks that need to be solved in 35 minutes.
Here you can learn about the preparation and other testing:
