The GRE revised General Test (effective August 1, 2011) introduces a variety of changes to the GRE General Test (the Graduate Record Exam). This page first describes how the exam has not changed. It then describes the revised exam's refinements in the computerized testing interface, in the question types (formats), and in the scoring system.

Similarities Between the Two Exams

The basic skills tested and the overall exam structure remain essentially unchanged:

• The revised GRE measures the same basic cognitive skills as its predecessor: verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and analytical writing.

• As before, the exam includes two scored Verbal sections, two scored Quantitative sections, and two individually timed writing tasks (which come first during the exam).

• The total testing time is about the same as before (although time limits for some individual sections are adjusted).

• Most of the Verbal and Quantitative question types are the same as before, and the nature of two writing tasks are the same as before.

Refinements in the Testing Interface

The revised GRE is designed to be more user-friendly and flexible. For each separately timed Verbal and Quantitative section:

• You can review previous questions and change your answers.

• You can skip questions and return to them.

• A new mark-and-review feature allows you to tag questions you most want to return to later. (You'll review marked questions in the order they were initially presented.)

• Access to an on-screen calculator is provided for the Quantitative Reasoning sections.

NOTE: The pretest tutorial, which immediately precedes the exam's timed sections, will illustrate these features and allow you to practice using them.

Changes in the Verbal Reasoning Measure

• The Analogy and Antonym question formats, which measured vocabulary out of context, are eliminated. A new format, Sentence Equivalence, provides an in-context vocabulary measure instead.

• The Sentence Completion format is eliminated and replaced by the Text Completion format, which allows for lengthier text passages and for multiple combinations of answer choices.

• Reading Comprehension accounts for a greater percentage of Verbal questions than before. Also, the revised GRE incorporates two additional Reading Comprehension question formats:

  1. Multiple choice—one or more answers is correct

  2. Select-in-passage (you respond by highlighting a sentence in the passage)

Changes in the Quantitative Reasoning Measure

• The revised GRE provides more problems set in a real-life context (so-called "story" problems).

• The revised GRE provides a greater number of data-interpretation questions, which are based on charts, tables and graphs that display true-to-life data in graphical form.

• The revised GRE incorporates the following two new Quantitative question formats:

  1. Multiple choice—one or more answers is correct

  2. Numeric Entry (you enter a number response using the keyboard rather than selecting among multiple choices)

Changes in the Analytical Writing Measure

The Analytical Writing section of the revised GRE is not significantly changed. As before, the test taker performs two different writing tasks (Analyze and Issue and Analyze an Argument) under separate time limits in response to specific writing prompts drawn randomly from a large pool. However, the revised GRE implements the following three refinements:

• The time limit for the Issue writing task is reduced from 45 to 30 minutes. (The time limit for the Argument task remains 30 minutes.)

• The test taker can no longer choose between two Issue topics. The test will provide one and only one Issue prompt (and, as before, one and only one Argument prompt).

• The directives (specific task instructions) are more narrowly focused and vary depending on the sort of issue or argument presented. Previously, the directives were more general and were essentially the same for every test taker.

Changes in the Computer-based Exam's Adaptive Feature

Prior to August 2011, the Verbal and Quantitative sections of the computer-based GRE continually adapted to the test taker's individual ability level. Correct responses would move you up the difficulty ladder to challenging questions, for which you could earn greater credit. Conversely, incorrect responses would move you down to an easier level, where you'd earn less credit for correct responses.

The computer-based GRE revised General Test is not adaptive in this way. Instead, it is merely section adaptive. What this means is that the overall difficulty level of the second scored Verbal (or Quantitative) section depends on your performance during the first scored Verbal (or Quantitative) section, which for every test taker is average in overall difficulty. The higher your score on the first section, the more challenging the second section and hence the higher your potential score.

A New Scaled Scoring System

To account for new types of Verbal and Quantitative test questions, the GRE scaled scoring system is changed. Scores for those two measures are now reported on 130-170 scale, in single-point increments.

Under the previous system, scores were reported on a 200-800 scale, in 10-point increments. Scores under the previous system can be converted to the new scale so that they can be compared directly to scaled scores for the revised GRE.

NOTE: The scaled scoring system for the Analytical Writing measure is unchanged: the scale is 0-6, in half-point increments.