How does the GRE® General Test work?
It's time to size it up – all about GRE General Test scores.
The good news about the GRE® General Test: you don't pass or fail it like your usual college tests. Basically, you'll get a score for each section of the test.
- The three scores reported are:
- a Verbal Reasoning score reported on a 200-800 score scale, in
10-point increments
- a Quantitative Reasoning score reported on a 200-800 score scale, in 10-point increments
- an Analytical Writing score reported on a 0-6 score scale, in half-point increments
Any section in which you answer no questions at all will be reported as a No Score (NS).
What you may not know about the GRE General Test.
Getting a high score on the GRE General Test gives you a better chance of getting into graduate or business school because it's one of many criteria schools use for admission. But all schools have different requirements — which means they use the GRE General Test in different ways. So if you're wondering what scores your schools are looking for, contact their admissions department and ask them directly.
Ready to Register? Start Now >
How Scores are Determined
Computer-Based Test
- Verbal and Quantitative Sections:
- Your Verbal and Quantitative scores will depend on your performance on the questions given and on the number of questions answered in the time allotted.
- The computer selects questions based on your performance on preceding questions, the required variety of question types and appropriate coverage of content.
- Analytical Writing Section:
- The primary emphasis is on your critical thinking and analytical writing skills, rather than on grammar and mechanics.
- Each essay receives a score from at least one trained reader, using a six-point holistic scale. In holistic scoring, readers are trained to assign scores on the basis of the overall quality of an essay in response to the assigned task. The essay score is then reviewed by e-rater®, a computerized program developed by ETS, which is being used to monitor the human reader. If the e-rater evaluation and the human score agree, the human score is used as the final score. If they disagree by a certain amount, a second human score is obtained, and the final score is the average of the two human scores.
- The final scores on the two essays are then averaged and rounded up to the nearest half-point interval. A single score is reported for the Analytical Writing section.
Try some GRE General Test sample questions.
How does a GRE Subject Test work? If you're majoring in any of the Sciences, Math, Computers, Physics or English Lit,
find out now.
How does a GRE Subject Test work? If you're majoring in any of the Sciences, Math, Computers, Physics or English Lit,
find out now.