About:
The Graduate Record Examination test also known as GRE is an examination which is attempted by students for applying to masters and doctoral degree programs in most of the universities of the US, UK, Germany, and Canada. The exams are developed, administered and conducted by Educational Testing Services (ETS).
GRE is the most popular exam which is written to pursue MS courses abroad by Indian students.
According to the Educational Testing Services, this examination intends to measure the analytical, quantitative, verbal, and critical thinking skills of the applicants.
Broadly speaking, the GRE questions are based on concepts from the basic Maths, verbal logic, and vocabulary. This Examination is mainly written by aspirants who want to study a Masters course abroad.
PREREQUISITES and ELIGIBILITY:
There are no official prerequisites held for taking this exam and it is intended for undergraduate students and bachelor’s degree graduated students. It is offered almost everywhere in the world.
This examination is offered in only the English language. It is offered all around the year as a computer-based test which can be taken once in 21 days with a restriction of maximum of 5 times a year. If multiple attempts are given, the best score is considered. Once taken, the score is valid for 5 years. GRE is also offered as a paper-based test 3 times a year where the computer-based facility isn’t available. However, most of the people go for a computer-based test.
What’s the cost for the GRE Exam?
The cost of applying to GRE is 205 US Dollars which is approximately 13,500 to 14,000 INR.
ETS has also been offering financial aid to students who can prove their economic hardships or troubles.
GRE consists of:
Quantitative–
- Use the substitution method and check possibilities to ascertain the correct choice. They will save you more time than if you actually try to solve.
- Tricky questions are hard to handle especially with geometry; it is preferable that you make your own diagrams.
- Just because the Calculator is available doesn’t mean you start calculating. Many questions are completely logic based and can be solved with the right approach. Just see if the answer you are looking for is an odd number, a prime number, a multiple of a number, etc. and you can save the calculation time.
- Usually, it is the silly mistakes that make us lose marks. Recheck answers once or even maybe twice to avoid simple mistakes.
Verbal Test–
- Use etymology to guess the meanings of words that you’re not confident about.
- Critical reasoning is a small percent of the syllabus; do not spend more time solving it. They are more time consuming and it is basically not suggested to start the section with it.
- Do not try to attempt all Reading comprehension in one go. You may lose track of the time and monotonous passages will lag your time.
- Look out for antonyms in the option sets. They will help you eliminate the incorrect options.
- Compensate for the extra time in Reading Comprehension questions by Sentence Equivalence (synonyms) which can be solved in less than a minute.
Analytical Writing–
- Familiarise yourself with a pool of 300 topics suggested by ETS over a period of time. Since your exam starts with the essay writing section, you don’t want to come across a topic which you don’t understand. The panic will then set in and have a domino effect, affecting the rest of the sections.
- In issue essays always take a stand. The idea is to judge how well you are able to defend the stand you take
- In argumentative essays always try to find fault in the logic.
- It is important to have a proper structure in place in both the essays with a proper introduction and a conclusion which reiterates and justifies your stand
- A good essay should be around 350-500 words.
