GRE Practice test.pdf

Practice Book

This practice book contains

one full-length paper-based GRE General Test

test-taking strategies

sample verbal and quantitative questions with explanations

sample analytical writing topics, scored sample essays, and

reader commentary

Visit the GRE Web site at www.gre.org for

additional test preparation resources.

Listening.

Learning.

Leading.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: The test-taking strategies in this publication are appropriate for use at a paper-based administration and

do not pertain to the computer-based General Test. Individuals planning to take the computer-based General Test are advised

to prepare for the test using GRE POWERPREP ® software.

This book is provided FREE with test registration by the Graduate Record Examinations Board.

GRADUATE RECORD EXAMINATIONS ®

General Test

IMPORTANT

The verbal and quantitative sections in the GRE General Test in this publication contain questions

written and administered prior to 1995. For this reason, some of the material covered in the questions

may be dated. For example, a question may refer to a rapidly changing technology in a way that was

correct in the 1980s and early 1990s, but not now. In addition, Educational Testing Service ® ETS ® has

revised and updated its standards and guidelines for test questions so some questions may not meet

current standards. Questions that do not meet current ETS standards, and would not appear in GRE

tests administered today, are marked with an asterisk (see pages 35 and 44).

Note to Test Takers: Keep this practice book until you receive your score report.

The book contains important information about scoring.

EDUCATIONAL TESTING SERVICE, ETS, the ETS logos, GRADUATE RECORD EXAMINATIONS,

GRE, POWERPREP, e-rater are registered trademarks of Educational Testing Service. ScoreItNow! is a trade-

Table of Contents

Purpose of the GRE General Test ...................... 3

Structure of the GRE General Test .................... 3

Scores Reported .................................................. 4

Preparing for the GRE General Test .................. 4

Test-Taking Strategies ........................................ 5

Review of the Verbal Section

Overview ................................................................ 6

How the Verbal Section is Scored ......................... 6

Antonyms ............................................................... 6

Analogies ................................................................ 6

Sentence Completions ........................................... 7

Reading Comprehension Questions ...................... 7

Review of the Quantitative Section

Overview ................................................................ 9

How the Quantitative Section is Scored ............. 10

Quantitative Comparison Questions ................... 10

Problem Solving — Discrete

Quantitative Questions ..................................... 10

Problem Solving — Data

Interpretation Questions ................................... 11

Review of the Analytical Writing Section

Overview .............................................................. 12

How the Analytical Writing Section is Scored ... 12

Present Your Perspective on an Issue Task ........... 13

Analyze an Argument Task .................................. 20

Taking the Practice GRE General Test ............ 27

Evaluating Your Performance ........................... 27

Verbal and Quantitative Sections ........................ 27

Analytical Writing Section .................................. 27

Additional Preparation ........................................ 28

Practice GRE General Test .............................. 29

Appendices

A – Analytical Writing Scoring Guides and

Score Level Descriptions .............................. 51

B – Verbal and Quantitative

Interpretive Tables ........................................ 54

C – Analytical Writing Topics, Sample Scored

Essay Responses at Selected Score Points,

and Reader Commentary .............................. 56

Answer Sheets .................................................. 63

Purpose of the GRE

General Test

The GRE General Test is designed to help graduate

school admission committees and fellowship sponsors

assess the qualifications of applicants to their pro-

grams. It measures verbal, quantitative, and analytical

writing skills that you have acquired over a long

period of time.

Any accredited graduate or professional school, or

any department or division within a school, may

require or recommend that its applicants take the

GRE General Test. The scores can be used by admis-

sions or fellowship panels to supplement undergradu-

ate records and other qualifications for graduate

study. The scores provide common measures for

comparing the qualifications of applicants and aid in

the evaluation of grades and recommendations.

Structure of the GRE

General Test

The paper-based GRE General Test contains five

sections. In addition, one unidentified pretest section

may be included and this section can appear in any

position in the test after the analytical writing

section. Questions in the pretest section are being

pretested for possible use in future tests and answers

will not count toward your scores.

Total testing time is up to 3 3 / 4 hours. The direc-

tions at the beginning of each section specify the

total number of questions in the section and the time

allowed for the section. The analytical writing section

will always be first. The verbal and quantitative

sections may appear in any order, including an uniden-

tified verbal or quantitative pretest section. Treat each

section presented during your test as if it counts.

Typical Paper-Based GRE General Test

Sections

administrative procedures for the paper-based Gen-

eral Test online at www.gre.org , or by contacting

Educational Testing Service (see the GRE Information

and Registration Bulletin ).

Before taking the practice General Test, it is

important to become familiar with the content of

each of the sections of the test. You can become

familiar with the verbal and quantitative sections by

reading about the skills the sections measure, how the

sections are scored, reviewing the strategies for each

of the question types, and reviewing the sample

questions with explanations. Determine which

strategies work best for you. Remember—you can do

very well on the test without answering every ques-

tion in each section correctly.

Everyone—even the most practiced and confident

of writers—should spend some time preparing for the

analytical writing section before arriving at the test

center. It is important to review the skills measured,

how the section is scored, scoring guides and score

level descriptions, sample topics, scored sample essay

responses, and reader commentary.

To help you prepare for the analytical writing

section of the General Test, the GRE Program has

published the entire pool of topics from which your

test topics will be selected. You might find it helpful

to review the Issue and Argument pools. You can

view the published pools on the Web at

www.gre.org/pracmats.html or obtain a copy by

writing to GRE Program, PO Box 6000, Princeton,

NJ 08541-6000.

The topics in the analytical writing section relate

to a broad range of subjects—from the fine arts and

humanities to the social and physical sciences—but

no topic requires specific content knowledge. In fact,

each topic has been field-tested to ensure that it

possesses several important characteristics, including

the following:

• GRE test takers, regardless of their field of study

or special interests, understood the topic and

could easily discuss it.

• The topic elicited the kinds of complex thinking

and persuasive writing that university faculty

consider important for success in graduate

school.

• The responses were varied in content and in the

way the writers developed their ideas.

Section

Number of Questions

Time

Analytical Writing

1 Issue task*

45 min.

1 Argument task*

30 min.

Verbal

38 per section

30 min. per section

(2 sections)

Quantitative

30 per section

30 min. per section

(2 sections)

Pretest** Varies 30 min.

* For the Issue task, two essay topics will be presented and you will choose one. The Argument task does

not present a choice of topics; instead, one topic will be presented.

** An unidentified verbal or quantitative pretest section may be included and may appear in any order after

the analytical writing section.

Scores Reported

Three scores are reported on the General Test:

1. a verbal score reported on a 200–800 score scale,

in 10-point increments,

2. a quantitative score reported on a 200–800 score

scale, in 10-point increments, and

3. an analytical writing score reported on a 0–6

score scale, in half-point increments.

If you answer no questions at all in a section (verbal,

quantitative, or analytical writing), that section will

be reported as a No Score (NS).

Descriptions of the analytical writing abilities

characteristic of particular score levels are available

in the interpretive leaflet enclosed with your score

report, in the Guide to the Use of GRE Scores, and on

the GRE Web site at www.gre.org.

Preparing for the GRE

General Test

Preparation for the test will depend on the amount of

time you have available and your personal prefer-

ences for how to prepare. At a minimum, before you

take the GRE General Test, you should know what to

expect from the test, including the administrative

procedures, types of questions and directions, the

approximate number of questions, and the amount of

time for each section.

The administrative procedures include registra-

tion, date, time, test center location, cost, score-

reporting procedures, and availability of special

testing arrangements. You can find out about the

Test-Taking Strategies

Test, you may work only on the section the test

center supervisor designates and only for the time

allowed. You may not go back to an earlier section of

the test after the supervisor announces, “Please stop

work” for that section. The supervisor is authorized to

dismiss you from the center for doing so. All answers

must be recorded on your answer sheet. Answers

recorded in your test booklet will not be counted.

Given the time constraints, you should avoid waiting

until the last five minutes of a test administration to

record answers on your answer sheet.

Some questions on the General Test have only

four response options (A through D). All GRE

answer sheets for the paper-based test contain re-

sponse positions for five responses (A through E).

Therefore, if an E response is marked for a four-

option question, it will be ignored. An E response for

a four-option question is treated the same as no

response (omitted).

Analytical Writing Section

In the paper-based General Test, the topics in the

analytical writing section will be presented in the test

book and you will handwrite your essay responses on

the answer sheets provided. Make sure you use the

correct answer sheet for each task.

It is important to budget your time. Within the

45-minute time limit for the Issue task, you will need

to allow sufficient time to choose one of the two

topics, think about the issue you’ve chosen, plan a

response, and compose your essay. Within the 30-

minute time limit for the Argument task, you will

need to allow sufficient time to analyze the argument,

plan a critique, and compose your response. Although

GRE readers understand the time constraints under

which you write and will consider your response a

“first draft,” you still want it to be the best possible

example of your writing that you can produce under

the testing circumstances.

Save a few minutes at the end of each timed task

to check for obvious errors. Although an occasional

spelling or grammatical error will not affect your

score, severe and persistent errors will detract from

the overall effectiveness of your writing and thus

lower your score.

During the actual administration of the General

Test, you may work only on the particular writing

task the test center supervisor designates and only for

the time allowed. You may not go back to an earlier

IMPORTANT NOTE: Test-taking strategies

appropriate for the verbal and quantitative

sections of the paper-based General Test are

different from those that are appropriate for

taking the verbal and quantitative sections of the

computer-based General Test. Be sure to follow

the appropriate strategies for the testing format in

which you will be testing. Paper-based testing

strategies should not be used if you take the

computer-based test.

Verbal and Quantitative Sections

When taking a verbal or quantitative section of the

paper-based General Test, you are free, within any

section, to skip questions that you might have

difficulty answering and to come back to them later

during the time provided to work on that section.

You may also change the answer to any question you

recorded on the answer sheet by erasing it completely

and filling in the oval corresponding to your desired

answer for that question.

Each of your scores will be determined by the

number of questions for which you select the best

answer from the choices given. Questions for which

you mark no answer or more than one answer are not

counted in scoring. Nothing is subtracted from a

score if you answer a question incorrectly. Therefore,

to maximize your scores on the verbal and quantita-

tive sections of the paper-based test, it is better for

you to answer each and every question and not to

leave any questions unanswered.

Work as rapidly as you can without being careless.

This includes checking frequently to make sure you

are marking your answers in the appropriate rows on

your answer sheet. Since no question carries greater

weight than any other, do not waste time pondering

individual questions you find extremely difficult or

unfamiliar.

You may want to work through a verbal or quanti-

tative section of the General Test quite rapidly, first

answering only the questions about which you feel

confident, then going back and answering questions

that require more thought, and concluding with the

most difficult questions if there is time.

During the actual administration of the General

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