GRE General Test Guide (2026)

The GRE General Test is made by ETS (Educational Testing Service). It measures verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and analytical writing, which are the skills graduate programs expect you to bring, rather than knowledge of any one field.

You'll typically take it if you're applying to:

• master's and doctoral programs in almost any field
• business school, since many MBA and specialized business master's programs accept the GRE in place of the GMAT
• other professional programs that list the GRE as an accepted test; check each school

Requirements vary a lot. Some programs require the GRE, some make it optional, and some don't look at it at all. Check every program's admissions page before you commit months to prep. ETS also offers GRE Subject Tests in a few specific fields. This guide covers the General Test, which is what people usually mean by “the GRE.”

• Order: Analytical Writing always comes first. The Verbal and Quant sections follow and can appear in any order.
• No unscored section and no scheduled break. Every question you see counts, and you'll work straight through. Plan food, water and the restroom accordingly.
• Adaptive by section: for Verbal and for Quant, your performance on the first section determines the difficulty of the second. Individual questions don't adapt as you go.
• Freedom within a section: you can skip questions, mark them, use the review screen to jump around, and change answers until that section's time runs out.
• Calculator: Quant sections include a basic on-screen calculator. There's no formula sheet.

Analytical Writing

One “Analyze an Issue” essay: you get a short statement or recommendation plus specific instructions, and you write a reasoned argument for your position in 30 minutes. You type in a basic word processor with no spell-check. ETS publishes the pool of Issue topics that test prompts come from.

Verbal Reasoning

• Text Completion: one to three blanks. Every blank must be right for credit.
• Sentence Equivalence: pick exactly two words that give the sentence the same meaning.
• Reading Comprehension: passages of one to several paragraphs, plus short argument paragraphs. Formats include select-one, select-all-that-apply and select-a-sentence.

Full breakdown with worked examples: GRE Verbal guide.

Quantitative Reasoning

• Content: arithmetic, algebra, geometry and data analysis, at roughly high-school level. No trigonometry or calculus.
• Formats: Quantitative Comparison, multiple choice (select one, or select one or more), Numeric Entry, and data-interpretation sets built around a table or graph.

Full breakdown with worked examples: GRE Quant guide.

For Verbal and Quant, your raw score is the number of questions you answered correctly, so a wrong answer costs you nothing more than a blank. Never leave one empty. ETS then converts the raw score to the 130–170 scale through a process called equating, which accounts for small difficulty differences between test editions and for the difficulty of the second section you were routed to. That's why two people with the same number correct can get different scaled scores. ETS doesn't publish a raw-to-scaled table.

The essay is scored holistically on the 0–6 scale for how well you develop a position, support it and write clearly. Every essay also receives a score from e-rater, ETS's automated scoring engine, as part of the process.

What's a “good” score? Whatever puts you in range for your programs. Look at each program's published class profile or admissions page, and use ETS's GRE General Test Interpretive Data, which gives percentile ranks for each measure, to see how a score compares with other test takers.

Getting and sending scores: you see unofficial Verbal and Quant scores on screen as soon as you finish. Official scores, including Analytical Writing, arrive in your ETS account 8–10 days after your test date. Your fee includes four free score reports. With ETS's ScoreSelect option, you decide which scores each school gets: on test day, your most recent scores or all scores from the last five years; after test day, you can also send any combination of test dates you choose. Extra score reports cost more.

• Register online through your free ETS account, or by phone. You choose between a test center (ETS lists more than 1,000 centers in more than 160 countries) and an at-home session.
• Fee: ETS raised the standard GRE General Test fee to US$249 starting August 1, 2026 (it had been $220). Pricing differs in some places: China has its own fee, and test takers in India are directed to ETS India for pricing. Rescheduling, extra score reports and score reviews cost extra. Check ETS's GRE fees page before you book. ETS also offers fee reductions for eligible test takers, such as those with financial need or who are unemployed; see ETS for the eligibility rules.
• At home or test center: ETS says the at-home test is identical to the test-center version. It's offered everywhere the GRE is normally available, based on the country of your account address (mainland China has its own procedures), with a human proctor, and you can schedule it around the clock, seven days a week. You need a desktop or laptop running Windows or macOS (no tablets or Chromebooks), a speaker and microphone, a movable webcam, a smartphone or tablet as a second camera, a private room, and, for notes, either one small desktop whiteboard or one sheet of paper inside a transparent sheet protector, with an erasable marker. If your setup fails the rules on test day, you don't test and you don't get a refund, so run ETS's equipment check early.
• Retakes: you can test once every 21 days, up to five times in any continuous rolling 12-month period.
• Score life: scores stay reportable for five years after your test date.
• Accommodations: request them from ETS well before you plan to test. Approval takes time, so start early.

How long you need depends on the gap between where you start and where you need to be. For many people, one to three months of steady work is enough; a big gap or rusty math can mean longer. Measure first, then plan.

1. Take a diagnostic. Take ETS's free timed POWERPREP test (or our full-length practice test) under real conditions. That's your baseline.
2. Set a target. Pull recent score information from each program you're applying to. Your target is a number, not “as high as possible.”
3. Fix content gaps first. Rebuild weak math topics with ETS's Math Review, and learn the method for each question type with our Quant and Verbal guides.
4. Practice by section at real timing. Work 12- and 15-question sets on the clock. Keep an error log that records why you missed each question, not just what the answer was.
5. Write practice essays. Pick prompts from ETS's Issue pool and write for 30 minutes, typed, with no spell-check. Compare your essays with ETS's sample responses.
6. Take full-length tests. In your last two to three weeks, take whichever of our free GRE practice test and the timed POWERPREP test you didn't use as a baseline. ETS's paid POWERPREP PLUS tests add more scored official practice if you want it.
7. Handle logistics. Know your ID requirements, check your at-home setup or test-center route, and don't cram the night before.

Books can help between tests. Our best GRE prep books page starts with the official ETS titles.

ETS launched the shorter GRE on September 22, 2023. Compared with the old version:

• Length: just under 2 hours, down from nearly 4.
• Writing: the Analyze an Argument essay was dropped; only the Issue essay remains.
• Fewer questions: 27 Verbal and 27 Quant questions instead of 40 each.
• No unscored section: the old format could include an unidentified, unscored section; the shorter test doesn't.
• Same scales: Verbal and Quant are still 130–170 and Writing is still 0–6, so scores from before and after the change sit on the same scales.

This page reflects the format in effect as of September 2026. Before you book, reread ETS's test-structure page. If ETS changes anything, it announces it there first.

• POWERPREP practice tests: two free full-length official practice tests in the real test interface: one untimed (answers shown, no scores) and one timed. ETS also sells POWERPREP PLUS tests with instant scoring and explanations.
• GRE test content overview: ETS's description of what each measure tests and how.
• Quantitative Reasoning overview: what the Quant measure covers and how each question format works. ETS also offers a free Math Review that covers every Quant topic.
• Analytical Writing materials: ETS publishes the full pool of Issue topics, and the free POWERPREP tests include scored sample essays with rater commentary.
• Test structure page: the official source for current section counts and timing.

• Free full-length GRE practice test: essay, 2 Verbal and 2 Quant sections at real timing
• GRE Quant guide: topics, question formats, traps and a study plan
• GRE Verbal guide: Text Completion, Sentence Equivalence and reading, with examples
• Best GRE prep books: official guides first
• GRE vs. GMAT: which test to take for business school