GRE

The GRE General Test has sections in Analytical Writing, Quantitative Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning, with questions designed to reflect the skills and thinking styles you will need to establish and develop in the demanding graduate school programmes, predominantly in the Business and Law subjects.

Analytical Writing: The Analytical Writing section is centred around the candidate’s ability to provide reasoned responses to specified tasks, reflecting your capability in meeting the standards of a given task. This is measured through your ability to provide examples of clear and concise ideas that are complex and reasoned, alongside evidence of supported ideas, backed up with relevant contextual knowledge and examples. You will be asked to analyse examples of texts that include specified claims alongside evidence, demonstrating your ability to maintain a focused and clear discussion.

Quantitative Reasoning: The Quantitative Reasoning section of the test requires candidates to demonstrate their ability to effectively discern information from quantitative data, analysing and interpreting meaning from the contextual resources. The section also tests candidate’s strengths in relation to using mathematical skills to solve problems, with the mathematical skills spanning arithmetic, geometry, data analysis and algebra. The Quantitative Reasoning section has an online calculator for candidates use, meaning revising with a calculator is a useful practice. The Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning questions consist of variants of previously used and published questions, meaning revising using past examples of the GRE test will put you in an advantageous place. It is important to apply specific attention when reading the questions in this section as some questions can appear very similar to a previous question; re-reading questions where this is the case is imperative in avoiding a missed mark.

Verbal Reasoning: The Verbal Reasoning section of the test is designed to challenge the candidates ability to analyse bodies of text appropriately, applying specific attention to detail when concerning drawing conclusions from discourse, identifying author’s assumptions and intent, irrelevant points and summarisations in text and the definitions of certain words and texts. Effectively, the Verbal Reasoning section of the GRE test is a challenge of a candidate’s language skills, particularly concerning hidden meanings, biases, assumptions and various levels of meaning across individual words, sentences and whole texts.

The GRE General Test is accepted by thousands of postgraduate programmes worldwide, spanning a far broader range of subjects than many applicants expect. Business, law, medicine, engineering, the social sciences, and the humanities all have programmes that accept or require the GRE, making it one of the most widely recognised graduate admissions tests available.

In the United States, most research-based master’s and doctoral programmes consider GRE scores as a standard part of the application. Many MBA programmes now accept the GRE alongside the GMAT, giving candidates greater flexibility. In the UK and Europe, its use is more selective, but a growing number of competitive programmes at institutions such as the London Business School and IE Business School will accept GRE scores for postgraduate entry.