GREGraduate Record Examinations (GRE General Test)

The GRE General Test is the standard admissions test for master's and doctoral programmes, especially in the USA, and is also accepted by most business schools as an alternative to the GMAT and by a growing set of law schools. Since its 2023 revamp the test runs about 1 hour 58 minutes: a single Analytical Writing task followed by two Verbal and two Quantitative sections in any order. The design is section-level adaptive — a strong first Verbal or Quantitative section routes you to a harder (and higher-scoring-potential) second section — and, unusually among admissions tests, it allows skipping, revisiting and changing answers within a section.

Verbal and Quantitative scores each sit on a 130–170 scale, quoted together as a 260–340 total, with Analytical Writing reported separately on 0–6. There is no negative marking. Programmes differ widely in how much weight they give the GRE — many US engineering and science departments have made it optional — so candidates should verify each department's current policy and target the score profile (often Quant-heavy for STEM) that their programme actually reads.