How hard is the GRE?

Answer 1

It's not that bad as long as you prepare yourself. Just use, for example, Kaplan or Barron GRE prep books and utilize it. The more vocablulary words and math principles you know, the better you'll be. They tell you how you score as soon as you finish your last question.

Answer 2

As long as your vocabulary and math skills are up to speed (in other words -- College Level plus) you should be able to do quite well on the GRE -- I just took the test and got an excellent score the first time I took it. But ... for me ... I already was working as a Financial Manager, had to deal with math all day long, and write detailed audit reports -- so the skills were being used in the real world as well.

Answer 3

Trust me - it is hard. I just took it a few weeks ago. I have a 3.9 college GPA but only scored in the 50% of the test.

The test is not a good measure of aptitude. That's why many grad schools are starting to make it optional for admissions.

The vocabulary section is ridiculous. Unless you have been studying a dictionary every night for the last 3 years, it will be nearly impossible to know the words. The math section is a little bit easier. Most of it was just basic college algebra with some geometry added in. The writing section is okay - just make sure to write in complete sentences that are grammatically correct. As long as your argument makes sense, you should do fine on that part.

Answer 4

If you have taken other exams like the SAT or ACT, the GRE is not a lot different. If you do well on most tests, the GRE shouldn't be difficult for you.

Answer 5

I felt that it was a really straight forward exam. I have also read that there is a fairly good statistical correlation between SAT scores and GRE scores. I know in my case there was. I took the SAT twice: earned a score on my first sitting, earned that score +20 on the second sitting, earned the average of my two SATs on the GRE.

So, how'd you do on the SAT?