The GRE General Test covers three areas: Analytical Writing, Verbal Reasoning, and Quantitative Reasoning. The entire exam takes about 1 hour and 58 minutes and contains five sections. Since September 2023, ETS has used a shorter format that cut roughly an hour off the previous version while keeping the same score scales and question types.
Test Structure at a Glance
The five sections break down like this:
- Analytical Writing: 1 section, 1 essay task, 30 minutes
- Verbal Reasoning: 2 sections, 27 questions total (12 in the first section at 18 minutes, 15 in the second at 23 minutes)
- Quantitative Reasoning: 2 sections, 27 questions total (12 in the first section at 21 minutes, 15 in the second at 26 minutes)
The test is section-level adaptive, meaning your performance on the first section of Verbal or Quantitative Reasoning determines the difficulty of the second section in that same area. A stronger first section leads to a harder, higher-ceiling second section.
Analytical Writing
The writing portion gives you a single task called “Analyze an Issue.” You’ll see a brief statement presenting an opinion on a general topic, along with specific instructions on how to respond. Your job is to evaluate the claim, consider its complexities, and build an argument supported by reasons and examples. You have 30 minutes.
You type your essay in a basic word processor provided by ETS. It lets you insert, delete, cut, paste, and undo, but there’s no spell-checker or grammar checker. The essay is scored on how clearly you articulate ideas, how well you construct and support an argument, and whether you sustain a focused, coherent discussion. Scores range from 0 to 6 in half-point increments.
Verbal Reasoning
Verbal Reasoning tests your ability to analyze written material, evaluate arguments, and understand relationships among words and concepts. It does not test obscure vocabulary in isolation. Instead, vocabulary knowledge shows up naturally through three question types.
Reading Comprehension
You’ll read passages ranging from a single paragraph to several paragraphs and answer questions about them. Three formats appear here. Traditional multiple-choice questions give you five answer choices and ask you to pick one. “Select one or more” questions present three answer choices and require you to identify every correct answer (you get no partial credit for picking only some of them). “Select-in-passage” questions ask you to click on the specific sentence in the passage that meets a given description.
Text Completion
These questions present a short passage of one to five sentences with one to three blanks. For a single blank, you choose from five options. For two or three blanks, each blank has three options, and you must get every blank right to earn credit. The goal is to find the words that create a coherent, meaningful passage.
Sentence Equivalence
Each question is a single sentence with one blank and six answer choices. You pick two answers that both complete the sentence in a way that produces equivalent meaning. This tests your ability to recognize how different words can create the same overall message.
Quantitative Reasoning
The math section covers content you’d typically encounter through a high school curriculum, roughly up to Algebra II and introductory statistics. No advanced calculus or trigonometry. Questions appear in four formats: multiple-choice with one correct answer, multiple-choice where you select one or more answers, quantitative comparison (where you compare two quantities and decide which is greater, or whether they’re equal, or whether the relationship can’t be determined), and numeric entry where you type a number directly.
An on-screen calculator is provided, so the test is less about raw computation and more about reasoning through problems.
Arithmetic
Expect questions on properties of integers (divisibility, prime numbers, remainders, odd and even), exponents, roots, estimation, percents, ratios, rates, absolute value, number lines, decimal representation, and number sequences.
Algebra
Topics include simplifying and factoring algebraic expressions, solving linear and quadratic equations and inequalities, working with simultaneous equations, setting up equations from word problems, and coordinate geometry (graphs of functions, intercepts, slopes of lines).
Geometry
You’ll need to work with parallel and perpendicular lines, triangles (including special types like 30-60-90 and equilateral), circles, quadrilaterals, other polygons, congruent and similar figures, three-dimensional figures, and the Pythagorean theorem. Questions often involve calculating area, perimeter, volume, or angle measures.
Data Analysis
This category covers descriptive statistics (mean, median, mode, range, standard deviation, quartiles, percentiles), reading and interpreting tables and graphs (bar charts, line graphs, scatterplots, boxplots, frequency distributions), elementary probability (including compound and independent events, conditional probability), normal distributions, and counting methods like combinations and permutations.
How Scoring Works
Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning are each scored on a scale of 130 to 170 in one-point increments. Analytical Writing is scored separately on a scale of 0 to 6 in half-point increments. Your Verbal and Quantitative scores combine your performance across both sections in each area into a single score, so the adaptive difficulty of the second section is factored in.
You’ll see unofficial Verbal and Quantitative scores immediately after finishing the test. Official scores, including the Analytical Writing score, arrive in your ETS account within 8 to 10 days.
What to Prioritize When Preparing
Because the test is adaptive, your first section in each area sets the ceiling for your score. Performing well on those initial 12 questions in Verbal and Quantitative matters more than rushing through them. The time pressure is real: you have roughly 90 seconds per Verbal question and about 1 minute 45 seconds per Quantitative question, so practicing under timed conditions is essential.
For Verbal, building vocabulary through reading in context is more useful than memorizing word lists, since Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence reward understanding of how words function in sentences. For Quantitative, focus on problem-solving strategies over memorizing formulas. The on-screen calculator handles computation, but you need to know which calculation to set up. For Analytical Writing, practice planning and drafting a complete argument in under 30 minutes, since you won’t have tools to catch spelling or grammar mistakes.