What Is GRE Testing And How Does It Affect College Admission?

If you are applying for admission to a graduate school for a degree such as a master's, MBA, or a Ph. D, you will more than likely be asked to submit to GRE Testing, otherwise known as the Graduate Record Examination. This exam is a measurement of your reasoning skills, both verbal and quantitative. It also examines skills such as critical thinking and analytical writing.

Schools use these exam scores in a number of ways. The scores can be used for general admission purposes or to select individuals from a group. For instance, in a group of prospective math students it would be expected that math scores would be high. The school can then look at secondary subject scores to further narrow down their choices. For a student applying for a liberal arts degree, the school may look closely at the verbal scores, while while math and science scores may not be as important.

There is a fee for the test and the exam records are kept for only five years. The general part of the exam consists of both writing and multiple choice exercises.

The verbal section has you doing some reading comprehension and analogy exercises. In the quantitative section you'll be testing your problem solving skills using high school level math. The analytical writing section requires you to write two essays, while the experimental section can be set up identical as any of the three just explained. You will not know which is the experimental part, since it appears just as the other parts do. It consists of questions that are being considered for future exams.

Besides the general exam, there are also specialized parts that can be taken. At this time there are eight different subjects available, these areas follows; English Literature, Chemistry, Biology, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Psychology, Computer Science, and Physics. In the past, more subjects were available but several have been discontinued.

Some multiple choice segments of the test are taken on the computer, using CAT, or Computer Adaptive Testing. This innovative way of testing works in a different way than most testing one would be familiar with. As the applicant moves along on the test, the questions and answers adapt to be more difficult according to the students skill level.

An Internet search will provide you with a variety of resources for preparing for the GRE testing. And when you register you will be provided with software that contains two tests for practicing on. These tests contain both active and retired questions. The software also contains review material that will be helpful to you in your preparation.  The first place to start is to make sure you know when the GRE test dates are.