As it turns out, the GRE has a writing section. We don’t like it but there it is. Here’s everything you need to know about it:

Structure of the Writing Section:

1. “Issue Task”: You get 45 minutes to express your view on an “issue” randomly selected from a pool of “issues.” The “issues” in question will be pretty similar to what you might remember from the SAT Writing section; probably you’ll see something like: “Do you think individuals determine their own lives, or do you think that they are influenced by society?”
2. “Argument Task”: You’ll be presented with an argument on a random topic and asked to evaluate it and suggest how its logic might be improved. This section takes 30 minutes.

The Writing Section is Scored by a Cyborg

Okay, not exactly a cyborg. Your essay will be scored by (1) a “trained grader” (probably a semi-employed grad student), and (2) a computer program. It’s scored on a scale from 0 to 6 in 0.5-point increments. If the computer and the grad student agree on your score, that’s the score you’ll get; if they disagree, it will be sent to another human for re-evaluation. Think about this for a minute: Your essay is graded in such a way that a computer can grade it. This is a pretty good indication that nuanced critical thought is not what they’re testing here.

Tips on the GRE Writing Section:

1. It’s really, really not that important. Grad schools have all sorts of ways to evaluate your writing, and they’re well aware that standardized tests aren’t a great way of doing it. Assuming you don’t freeze up and run out of the room crying, your writing score probably won’t determine whether you get into grad school. So don’t spend too much time preparing; write a couple of timed practice essays, make sure they’re not incoherent and move on.
2. Go for simple, solid argument and don’t try to be too clever! You have very little time to write these essays, so you won’t have time to come up with anything particularly good. Plus, your writing will be graded by someone who reads thirty of these things a day and probably hates her job; odds are she won’t be interested in tracing out the nuances of your argument.
3. Remember those five-paragraph essays you learned to write in high school and unlearned to write in college? Learn to write them! Read the topic, quickly choose a simple point to make about it, figure out a couple of examples, write an outline and get going. Be very clear about what you think and why. Don’t use vocabulary you’re not sure how to spell or sentence structures you’re not comfortable with; you won’t have time to edit, and you want to look as competent as possible.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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Taking the GRE is quite a bit different from taking the SAT or ACT: Instead of showing up at a high school at all hours of the morning with a zillion other people, you’ll show up at a time of your choosing in an office building with tight security and get a cubicle all to yourself. Here’s what to expect from the experience:

1. Extremely tight security. Like, CIA-level security. All your possessions will have to be placed in a locker before you enter the test room, and you may even be fingerprinted! There are a whole bunch of things you can’t bring to the GRE, notably calculators, cell phones, music players and some watches. You can get the full run-down from ETS here, and you should read it carefully. You can’t even bring your own paper into the test.
2. Your own personal televised cubicle. The test takes place on a computer in a little cubicle in a room full of other cubicles with computers. Each of these cubicles has a video camera pointed at it which monitors test-takers during the test.
3. Bizarre and infantilizing rules. You have to raise your hand in order to get permission to stand up during the test. Seriously. If you have to go to the bathroom, you have to raise your hand and wait for the proctor to let you go to the bathroom. Also, the proctor will provide you with scratch paper, but not enough scratch paper! And when you run out you’ll have to raise your hand and ask for more. I just don’t know about this.

Test Day Tips
So, how to prepare?

1. Schedule your test for the time of day you like best. One nice thing about the GRE is that you get to choose when you take it, so you won’t have to climb out of bed at all hours of the morning, chug some coffee and rush to the center. If you feel sharper in the morning, get a morning session; if you hate mornings, take it in the afternoon.
2. Get enough sleep the night before. Obviously.
3. Plan for the long haul and bring some snacks. Not counting sign-in and administrative rigmarole, the GRE will take 4.5 hours. Don’t plan on doing anything else that day, and bring snacks to eat during the breaks. According to science, sugary foods are best for a quick burst of mental energy, so bring an apple or some candy along as well.
4. Dress in layers. You know how office buildings are always freezing cold? I took the GRE freezing cold. It sucked. Don’t make my mistake: dress so that you can adjust to the temperature.
5. Scout the testing location the day before. You want to arrive at the test center on the day of the test feeling cool, calm and confident, like James Bond. No one feels like James Bond when they’ve just spent fifteen minutes stuck in traffic or cursing at their GPS. Find out exactly where the test center is and exactly how long it takes to get there; then allow half an hour extra time, just to be sure.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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The GRE is a Computer Adaptive Test, which means that the test constantly adapts to your ability level, giving you harder questions if you answer questions correctly and easier ones if you get them wrong. Why would anyone design such a test? And how should it affect your test-taking strategy?

Why the GRE is Adaptive: An Allegory

Suppose you decided to test the mathematical abilities of a bunch of 8-year-olds by giving them all a calculus test. What would happen? They would all fail, and probably one or two of them would start crying, and their parents would complain. But most importantly, they would all get the same score– zero– so you’d have no clue which of them were good at math. You’d have the same problem if you gave a bunch of physics PhDs an arithmetic test: they’d all get perfect scores, and you wouldn’t be able to tell which of them were better than others.

How does this relate to the GRE? Well, the GRE is trying to test the abilities of a group with a wide range of abilities, from math majors who know everything about math but speak in monosyllables to English majors who know all about dactyls but can’t calculate a tip without an iPhone app. If the GRE were a paper-and-pencil test, this would be a problem: if they made the math section really hard, all the humanities people would get a zero and you couldn’t tell the difference between them, but if they made it really easy, all the math people would get a perfect score and they’d all look the same.

Hence the adaptation! Basically, the GRE constantly adjusts in order to get a good measure of your mathematical ability: if it figures out early on that you kind of suck at math, it will give you easy questions to try to figure out whether you really such or just kind of suck. If you’re really good at English, it will give you tougher and tougher questions to figure out whether you’re the next poet laureate or just pretty well-read. Basically, the whole thing is pretty clever.

How does this affect my test-taking strategy?

Glad you asked! In three ways:

1. You can’t go back. Since your answer to the last question affects what the next question will be, you have to answer every question in order– no saving the tough ones for the end or avoiding topics you don’t know much about, the way you might have on the SAT. Since you’re going to have to answer every question anyway, you should learn to eliminate ridiculous answers even if you can’t figure out the right one: Just because you’re guessing doesn’t mean you have to guess randomly.
2. You can game the system a little bit by spending a bit more time on earlier questions. Broadly speaking, the test will determine your approximate score from the earlier questions, then refine its estimate on the later questions. If you answer the first ten questions right, the computer thinks to itself that it probably has a 700-level test-taker on its hands and starts trying to figure out whether you’re a 720 or a 780. This is great for you, since even if you can’t get a few of the later questions you might still end up with a 720.
3. You can’t really game the system all that much, so don’t bother trying. The GRE wasn’t designed by idiots: If you answer the first ten questions correctly but then fail the rest of the test, you’ll get bumped back down to a lower scoring bracket. So don’t go spending all your time on the first questions and none on the rest. A good rule of thumb: You have a little more than 1 minute and 30 seconds per question; spending 2 minutes each on the first ten questions and correspondingly less on the later ones isn’t a bad idea.
4. Don’t Try to Guess What the Computer is Thinking. Many students think they can figure out whether they’re doing well or poorly from the questions they’re getting: If the question they’re on is easier, they figure they must have answered the last question wrong. This is (1) inaccurate and (2) useless, so stop thinking about it. It’s inaccurate because you can’t really tell which questions the computer thinks are “hard,” and there’s a bit of random chance in which questions you get anyway; it’s useless because thinking about anything besides the question you’re on is pretty much futile. Don’t psych yourself out.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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Many people wonder why, in order to get a PhD program in Romance literature, they need to learn to factor quadratics again. Likewise, many ask themselves why, in order to pursue their passion for physics, they need to memorize the meaning of “temerity.” What is responsible for this miserable situation? And, will the schools you’re applying to even care whether you score well on a section of the GRE that has nothing to do with your chosen subject?

The short answer is: Yes they will, so study up. Why?

1. The GRE attempts to test a mythical being named “general intelligence.” If your grad school wants to figure out whether you’re any good at Romantic literature, it can read your papers on the subject. But when a school looks at your GRE scores it’s trying to figure out whether you’re an all-around bright and well-educated sort of person. Everyone knows that the only conceivable way of measuring this is to lock you in a room for three hours and have a computer quiz you on algebra and vocab. So, when schools look at your scores they’re not looking for the specific skills tested but for a more general picture of your overall intelligence. If you just don’t prepare for the section that doesn’t relate to your field, you’ll end up looking like an idiot: if you just don’t review factoring, schools may think that you’re incapable of factoring, and that won’t look good.
2. Even if you’re going to school for physics, you’ll still have to communicate with people in a “verbal” manner. Conversely, even if you’re an English PhD you’ll still need to produce and analyze logical arguments. I was talking to an MIT computer science professor recently about how he chooses his grad students; he told me that initially he hadn’t cared much about Verbal GRE scores, but with experience he had discovered that students with high verbal scores were much easier to collaborate with and ultimately more successful, since they could read and write effectively. So don’t be too quick to think your scores are irrelevant.
   That said, of course your score in your subject area are more important than your score on the other section. For some programs, an excellent score on your subject area’s section is virtually a prerequisite for admissions, while the other section is more of a bonus. This is especially true for math and the hard sciences: 11% of all test-takers get a 780 or above on the math section, so if you can’t do pretty well you’ll be facing tough competition. (Less than 1% of test-takers get 780 or above on the verbal section.) Still, you should make sure that neither your math score nor your verbal score is embarrassingly low; look at the average scores for the program you’re applying to and shoot to beat them. For many people this means spending quite a bit more time studying for the “off” section than for the “on” one.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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The GRE is changing! It is being “revised” for 2011. What has changed? And what does it mean to you?

The Dates
You won’t be able to take the new GRE until August 2011, and you won’t be able to register for it until March 15, 2011. If you need your scores before November 2011, you’ll have to take the old test. For more information, see the GRE press release here.

If you’re applying to school in 2011, you face a choice: you can take the old test before August 1, or the new test afterward. Which should you do? To find out, you’ll need to know what will change.

The Scores
Right now, each section of the GRE is scored on a scale from 200 to 800 in ten-point increments. The highest possible score is 1600. On the new GRE, each section will be scored on a scale from 130 to 170 in one-point increments, and the highest possible score will be 340.

The Revised GRE Verbal Section
Right now, the GRE verbal section consists of three basic question types: reading comprehension, sentence completion, and analogy/antonym questions. What’s going to change?

1. No more analogies and antonyms. On the current GRE, some questions simply provide you with a word out of context and ask you to choose a word which is its opposite. They will also provide you with two words and ask you to choose another two words with the same relationship. This puts a huge emphasis on knowing vocabulary out of context; an important part of studying for the current verbal GRE involves simply memorizing vocab. This question type will completely disappear in the new GRE, which means that it will emphasize vocab far less than does the current test.
2. New reading comprehension question types. There will be two new question types in the reading comprehension section of the GRE:
    
   • Sentence selection questions. You’ll be asked to highlight a sentence within the passage that does a given thing. So they’ll say “Highlight the sentence that distinguishes between consequence-based and duty-based ethical systems,” and you’ll have to look for a sentence that does that.
   • Multiple-answer questions. This is pretty much what it sounds like: You’ll be given a reading comprehension question plus three answer choices, and one, two or all three could be right. This doesn’t mean that you’ll get partial credit for selecting any one of the right answers; you’ll have to select all the right and none of the wrong answers to get credit.
3. More sentence completion questions. You’re given a blank space and you have to choose which word can fill it. These still test vocab, but provide more context than analogy and antonym questions.
4. Sentence equivalence questions. These will look like sentence completion questions: You’ll get a sentence with a blank space and six answer choices. The twist is that you’ll have to select two answer choices which give the sentence the same meaning. So you’ll have to find two answer choices which (1) fit coherently into the sentence and (2) give the sentence the same meaning. Two words that mean the same thing but don’t fit into the sentence will be wrong, and two words that both fit into the sentence but that don’t give it the same meaning will also be wrong. Again, you can’t get partial credit here: You’ll need to select both correct answers to get the question right.

The upshot: The new verbal GRE will test roughly the same skills as the old GRE, but vocab will be less important. What does this mean for you? If when you take the current GRE and you miss mainly vocab questions, you should consider waiting to take the new GRE if possible. If you do well on vocab questions but miss a lot of reading comprehension questions, you should shoot to take the current GRE.

Note for ESL Students: Many ESL students find the current GRE especially tough because it tests a lot of obscure vocab. They’re good at figuring out what a passage means overall, but individual words out of context give them trouble. For these students, the new GRE is great news. If this is you, you should wait and take the new GRE if possible!

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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The GRE is changing! See our previous post for more info, but basically, the new test is coming on August 1, 2011. If you need your scores before November, you’ll have to take the old test, but if you don’t need them until later you may want to take the new one.

What has changed on the GRE math section? Superficially, quite a bit– but really, not too much. Here’s the deal:

1. They give you a calculator! There will be a calculator on the screen when you take the test, so the GRE no longer tests whether you know your times tables! This will likely be quite significant for strategy on certain question types, since it will become much quicker and easier to test various responses.
2. Less basic math, more data interpretation and word problems. Instead of giving you an algebraic equation to solve, the GRE is now more likely to give you a word problem which cleverly disguises an algebra problem. So you’ll still have to know the math, but you’ll also need to know how to apply it.
3. Weird answer formats. The revised GRE is doing very strange things with its question types. On the new test, you’ll see multiple-answer multiple-choice questions, where more than one answer may be right. You’ll have to choose all the right answers and only those to get the question right. You’ll also see numerical entry questions, where you have to type a number in instead of choosing from among several answer choices–so educated guessing won’t help you on these questions.

What does this mean for you?

As far as we can tell, the new GRE math section will test the same skills as the old one: remembering and creatively applying the math you learned in high school. However, the changes will make the section more difficult overall; more word problems and less multiple-choice will make it a tougher test. It will likely be tougher to get a perfect score on the GRE in the future. But don’t worry– this doesn’t affect you! When you take the GRE you’re being judged relative to other test-takers; what matters is not how many questions you get right in absolute terms, but where you rank compared to everyone else who takes the test. Since the new GRE math section tests the same skills as the old one, it shouldn’t matter too much whether you take the new or the current GRE.

Read the official description of the changes here.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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Most people don’t get to choose whether to take the GRE or the GMAT: They have to take whichever test their program demands. For business school types, that usually means the GMAT; for most other people doing masters or PhD work, it’s the GRE. But an increasing number of MBA programs are accepting the GRE as well as the GMAT, which means that many MBA students now have a choice of which to take. You can find a list of MBA programs that accept the GRE here. It’s a long list and includes many big-name schools (Wharton, Stern, Harvard), and this trend is likely to continue.

So why does it matter? The GRE and the GMAT try to test almost exactly the same skills, but they do so in slightly different ways. So choosing the test which tests your strongest areas can improve your admissions standards. I’ll review the basic considerations here.

1. The GMAT has a harder math section. The GMAT asks students to apply slightly more complex math quite a bit more creatively than does the GRE. If you haven’t studied math in a long time, you may be able to cram and do reasonably well on the GRE, but attacking the GMAT will be tougher. So if math is your greatest fear, go for the GRE.
2. The GRE tests vocab way more than the GMAT. Starting in August 2011, the GRE will be revised to de-emphasize vocab, but until then, knowing a ton of vocabulary is an important part of doing well on the GRE. If your vocab is terrible, or if you’re an ESL student, you should consider taking the GMAT.
3. The GMAT tests grammar. The GMAT verbal section contains questions that present you with a grammatically incorrect sentence and ask you to correct it. If grammar isn’t your strong suit, then this is bad news! Try a few of these questions. If they give you trouble, you should consider attacking the GRE.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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You shouldn’t try to cram for the GRE! You should plan a three-month study schedule and allow plenty of time to work on improving your scores.

But, let’s say that your GRE is in, like, a week, and you haven’t studied, and you’re desperate. What do you do? Here’s a step-by-step plan:

1. Take a free practice GRE! Two are available from the GRE website, here: http://www.ets.org/gre/general/prepare . Take each of them, in timed conditions, in a single sitting. This will get you familiar with the test format and instructions, so you won’t be surprised when you show up for the test.

2. Learn and apply basic test-taking strategies. Don’t just give up on a question if you’re not sure how to answer it– try to eliminate a couple of answer choices, then guess. Practicing elimination strategies is one of the quickest ways to improve your score.

3. Focus on the math section! If you only have a few days to prepare, you probably won’t be able to pull your verbal score up that much, since it tests knowledge and skills that are either the product of a long educational development (critical reading) or very time-consuming to acquire (vocabulary). The math section is quite different: many of the skills you’ll need to succeed here are basic math techniques which you studied in high school but may need a refresher on. Once you have begun studying the math, you’ll be surprised at how much you already know and merely need to be reminded of.

4. Get enough sleep and stay calm. You’re not going to improve your score by staying up all night cramming more math skills into your head. The best way to do well is to remain calm, cool and collected so you can apply what you do know on the test.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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With the GRE, unlike other standardized tests, you can schedule a test for whenever you want. Since it’s computer-administered, you can choose a test date that fits your schedule. So how should you choose? Here are some tips.

Your first step in choosing a test date is to find out what the admissions deadlines are for the schools you’re applying to. If you don’t know, you should stop reading this post and find out immediately. These vary quite a bit, though they tend to cluster around December-February. (i.e., if you plan to matriculate in September 2012 you should plan on having applications ready around December 2011-February 2012.)

Whatever your admissions deadline turns out to be, you should shoot for a test date six months prior to the deadline. So if you’re planning to apply in December of a given year, you’ll want to take the GRE in the Spring or Summer of that year. Why so early?

1. It will help you choose schools. Knowing your GRE score will help you decide which programs you have a shot at getting admitted to. You don’t want to waste time applying if you don’t have a chance, and you don’t want to apply to several “safety schools” if you’re sure you can do better. There are many unknowns in the admissions process, but taking the GRE early will eliminate at least one of them.

2. You’ll have time to retake. If for any reason you don’t do as well as you expected to on the GRE, you’ll want to allow yourself time to retake it. You should never plan on retaking the GRE– if you prepare well once will be enough. But if for whatever reason you leave the test feeling as though you could have done better, it will be nice to know that you have plenty of time to retake it.

3. You won’t have to worry about deadlines. We have had any number of students who took the last possible test before their admissions deadline and had to lie awake at night worrying about whether their scores would come in on time. Don’t let this be you! Allow plenty of time for your exam to be scored and returned.

Another important consideration: You should plan to take the GRE at a time when you’ll have plenty of time and energy to prepare effectively. For full-time students, this generally means the summer: it’s very hard to prepare for the GRE with a full course load. Plan accordingly!

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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When the revised GRE comes out in August 2011, vocabulary will no longer be nearly as important for the test. Until then, the simplest and most boring way to improve your verbal GRE score is to memorize several thousand words’ worth of vocab. Here’s how to get to work on that.

• Buy a book with a list, and work through it steadily. Any GRE prep book worth the paper it’s printed on will have an extensive list of vocab which tends to come up on the GRE. Count how many words there are, divide that by the number of weeks you have to study, and figure out how many vocab words you should be learning a day.

• Fill your idle hours with flashcards. You can study vocab anywhere– on the train, in the doctor’s office, in the shower. Just make flashcards and quiz yourself whenever you have a moment.

• Make up sentences with the words you’re studying. You’ll never remember vocab if you don’t put it to use. If you’re memorizing ten words a day, try making up a story about your day using those ten words. It sounds hokey and boring, but it works!

• Focus on problem words and make up mnemonics for them. Everyone has a few problem words which they always seem to get wrong. Focus on those words and destroy them. Or, you know, memorize them. But intensely.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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