Taking the GRE can be stressful, and the first step towards your preparation should be getting yourself familiarized with the GRE exam pattern and syllabus for 2024 There are two types of GRE – GRE General test and Subject test.
What is GRE exam pattern(General Test)?
The GRE General Test is a computer-delivered test. It measures your verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking and analytical writing skills. Its test-taker friendly design lets you skip questions within a section, go back and change answers and have the flexibility to choose which questions within a section you want to answer first. Here is the GRE exam pattern for the General test in 2024:
| GRE Exam Pattern 2024 | Computer-based |
| Total duration | 1 hours 58 Minutes |
| Total no. of sections | 5 (Verbal -2 , Quant- 2, Analytical Writing -1) |
| Total no. of questions | 55 |
GRE exam pattern – Subject test
The GRE subject test is also administered in computer-delivered format. Total testing time is 2 hours and 50 minutes for the Mathematics Test and 2 hours for the Physics and Psychology Tests. There are no separately timed sections.
Take a look at the syllabus for the GRE subject test here.
In this article, we highlight the GRE Exam pattern for general and subject tests in 2024.
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GRE Exam Pattern for General Test 2024
The GRE General Test mirrors the type of critical thinking required in today’s rigorous graduate programs, including business and law. GRE syllabus is generally divided into three main sections: Analytical Writing, Quantitative Reasoning, and Verbal Reasoning.
Here is the GRE exam pattern for 2024.
| Computer-based | No. of sections | Total duration | No. of questions |
| Verbal Reasoning | 2 | 41 minutes Section 1: 18 min. Section 2: 23 min. | 27 Section 1: 12 ques Section 2: 15 ques |
| Quantitative Reasoning | 2 | 47 minutes Section 1: 21 min. Section 2: 26 min. | 27 Section 1: 12 ques. Section 2: 15 ques. |
| Analytical Writing | 1 | 30 minutes | 1 |
| Total | 5 | 1 hours 58 Minutes | 55 |
The Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning sections are section-level adaptive. The first section of each measure (i.e., Verbal and Quantitative) is of average difficulty. The difficulty level of the second section of each of the measures depends on your overall performance on the first section.
The Analytical Writing section will always be first. The Verbal Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning and unidentified/unscored sections may appear in any order; therefore, you should treat each section as if it counts toward your score.
Test design features
The advanced adaptive design of the GRE General Test allows you to move forward and backward throughout an entire section. Specific features include:
- preview and review capabilities within a section
- “Mark” and “Review” features to tag questions, so you can skip them and return later if you have time remaining in the section
- the ability to change/edit answers within a section
- an on-screen calculator for the Quantitative Reasoning section
Now that you know the GRE exam pattern let us have a look at the types of questions in each section with an example.
Learn the difference between GMAT and GRE:
GRE Exam Pattern – Types of Questions with Example
The GRE syllabus is broadly divided into three sections – Analytical Writing, Quantitative reasoning, and Verbal Reasoning.
Here is a brief overview of the types of questions asked on the GRE Exam:
Let us look into the types of questions in each section with an example.
GRE Verbal Reasoning – Type of Questions | GRE Exam
The verbal reasoning questions appear in several formats. Half of them require you to read passages and answer questions on those passages. The other half requires you to read, interpret, and complete existing sentences, paragraphs, or groups of sentences.
The verbal reasoning section has three sub-sections: Reading Comprehension, Sentence Equivalence, and Text Completion.
Reading Comprehension
This section includes three types of questions –
- Traditional multiple-choice, where out of the five answer choices you must select one
- Multiple choice where you must choose all the correct answers
- Select-in-passage questions where you choose the sentence in the passage that meets a specific description.
Here is an example of the GRE reading comprehension question. The sample question is from the Official GRE site.
Answer Key: Question 1- (E), Question 2- (A) and (C), and Question 3- (the last sentence of the passage)
Sentence Equivalence
The sentence equivalence questions consist of a single sentence, one blank, and six answer choices. You need to select two answer choices that fit the meaning of the sentence. No marks are given if only one of the two chosen answers is correct.
Here is an example of the GRE Sentence Equivalence question. The sample question is from the Official GRE site.
Answer Key: Choice D and F
Text Completion | GRE Exam Pattern
The passage in this section will consist of one to five sentences, with one to three blanks and three answer choices per blank. Also, selecting one answer choice for one blank does not affect what answer choice you can choose for another blank.
Here is an example of the GRE Text completion question with three blanks and three answer choices to choose from. The sample question is from the Official GRE site.
Answer Key: Option A (i), Option E (ii), and Option I (iii).
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GRE Quantitative Reasoning – Types of Questions
The GRE Quantitative Reasoning section contains four types of questions:
- Quantitative Comparison Questions
- Multiple choice questions where you select one answer choice
- Multiple choice questions where you select one or more answer choices
- Numeric entry questions
The GRE questions mentioned above appear either independently or as a set of questions called data interpretation. The data interpretation questions are based on the same data presented in graphs, tables, or other forms.
Quantitative Comparison Questions
Here is an example of the GRE Quantitative Comparison question. The sample question is from the Official GRE site.
Answer: Option D.
Multiple-choice questions
The multiple-choice questions are in two formats:
- Select only one correct answer
- Select Multiple Answer
Here is an example of the GRE Multiple choice questions. The sample question is from the Official GRE site.
Answer: Option C ($30).
Answer: Option C, D, and F. The above question is taken from GRE Official site.
Numeric entry questions
In this type of question, you need to enter your answer in the given box. This pattern of answering the question is only applicable to the computer-based test. For paper GRE you will be asked to enter the number by filling the circle grid.
GRE Analytical Writing – Types of questions
The analytical writing section consists of one type of task
- An Analyse an Issue Task
Analyze an Issue Task
In this type of question, you need to think critically about a topic and then clearly express your thoughts about it in writing. The test taker will be given an issue statement followed by a set of specific instructions to answer.
The set of instructions can be in various forms. One of the examples is given below:
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GRE Exam Pattern for Subject Test 2024
Beginning in September 2023 the GRE Subject Tests will be administered in a computer-delivered format. Total testing time is 2 hours and 50 minutes for the Mathematics Test and 2 hours for the Physics and Psychology Tests. There are no separately timed sections. Here is the exam pattern for the three disciplines:
Mathematics Test
There are approx. 66 multiple-choice questions drawn from courses offered at the undergraduate level. 50% of the questions involve calculus and its applications, and 25% of questions in the test are in linear algebra, abstract algebra, elementary algebra, and number theory. The rest of the questions deal with other aspects of mathematics.
Physics Test
There are approx. 100 five-choice questions. The test aims to determine your grasp of fundamental principles and the ability to apply principles in the problem’s solution. Most test questions can be answered based on a mastery of the first three years of undergraduate physics.
The International System (SI) of units is used in the test. A table of information representing various physical constants and a few conversion factors among SI units is presented in the test book.
Psychology Test
There are approx. 205 multiple-choice questions. Each question in the test has five options from which the test taker is to select the one option that is the correct or best answer to the question.
Stimulus materials, such as a graph or a description of an experiment, may serve as the basis for several problems. The questions are drawn from the core of knowledge most commonly encountered in courses offered at the undergraduate level within the broadly defined psychology field.
A question may require recalling information, analyzing relationships, applying principles, drawing conclusions from data, and evaluating a research design.
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FAQs – GRE Exam Pattern
GRE stands for graduate record examination and is conducted by ETS (Educational Testing Services). There are two types of GRE exam:
1. GRE General Test
2. GRE Subject Tests
Know more about the GRE Exam.
The GRE General exam starts with Analytical writing always, followed by Verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and un/scored sections in any order.
In total, the GRE General test consists of 5 sections. Check out the section-wise syllabus here.
The GRE verbal reasoning section tests your ability to understand the meaning of entire texts, sentences, and words. Some of the topics covered in this section are:
Verb tense
Pronoun agreement
Subject-verb agreement
Nouns, pronouns, adjectives
