GRE exam pattern and syllabus (2026)
The GRE General Test now runs for just under two hours: one Analytical Writing essay, two Verbal Reasoning sections, and two Quantitative Reasoning sections. This guide lays out the current format, the exact timing, what each section tests, and how the whole thing is scored, so you know precisely what you are walking into.
What the GRE is
The GRE General Test is a standardised admissions exam used by graduate and business schools around the world. It is built and administered by ETS, and it is designed to measure the kind of verbal, quantitative, and analytical reasoning that graduate study demands, rather than knowledge of any one subject. There is also a separate family of GRE Subject Tests, but when people say "the GRE" they almost always mean the General Test, which is what this page covers.
The people who take it are typically applying to a master's, PhD, or MBA program. According to ETS, scores are accepted by thousands of institutions, including many MBA programs that take the GRE as an alternative to the GMAT. A score is generally valid for five years, so the same result can support more than one application cycle. Whether you actually need it depends entirely on your target programs, since many are now test-optional. If you are not sure, start with is the GRE required before you commit to studying.
The General Test is the same exam whatever your field. A future physicist and a future historian sit the identical Verbal and Quantitative sections; programs interpret the scores in light of their own norms. That is why a strong score reads differently from one department to the next, a point we return to in what a good GRE score is.
The current format (since the 2023 shortening)
In September 2023, ETS shortened the GRE substantially, cutting the total time to about two hours and removing one of the essays. The exam you sit today is the post-2023 version. According to ETS, the General Test now takes about 1 hour 58 minutes of testing time and contains five sections that always run in the same order: one Analytical Writing task first, then two Verbal Reasoning sections and two Quantitative Reasoning sections, which can appear in either order after the essay.
| Section | Questions / tasks | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Analytical Writing (Analyze an Issue) | 1 essay task | 30 minutes |
| Verbal Reasoning, section 1 | 12 questions | 18 minutes |
| Verbal Reasoning, section 2 | 15 questions | 23 minutes |
| Quantitative Reasoning, section 1 | 12 questions | 21 minutes |
| Quantitative Reasoning, section 2 | 15 questions | 26 minutes |
That works out to 27 scored Verbal questions and 27 scored Quantitative questions, plus the single essay, for a total testing time of roughly 1 hour 58 minutes. A few practical details matter as much as the totals. There is no scheduled break in the current format, so plan to stay seated and focused for the full duration. An on-screen calculator is provided for both Quantitative sections, which means the test rewards setting problems up correctly rather than racing through arithmetic by hand. The shorter exam also dropped the old unscored or research section that used to pad out test day, so every question you see now counts toward your score.
You can experience this exact structure and timing before test day. Our free full-length mock mirrors the section order, question counts, and clock so the real thing holds no surprises.
Section-level adaptive
The GRE is section-adaptive, and the distinction matters. It is not question-adaptive: the difficulty does not shift after every single answer the way some other computer tests work. Instead, according to ETS, the test adapts at the level of the section. Within any single Verbal or Quantitative section the questions are fixed, so you are free to skip a hard question, come back to it, change an answer, and use your time however you like across that section.
What adapts is the second section of each measure. Your performance on the first Verbal section sets the difficulty of the second Verbal section; your performance on the first Quantitative section sets the difficulty of the second Quantitative section. Do well on the first section of a measure and the second is drawn from a harder pool, which also raises the score you can reach. The two measures are independent, so a strong Verbal performance does not change your Quantitative sections, or the reverse.
The takeaway for your strategy: the first section of each measure carries real weight, because it decides the difficulty, and therefore the scoring ceiling, of the section that follows. It is worth treating those opening sections with full attention rather than saving your effort for later.
The syllabus, or what is tested
The GRE has no fixed curriculum to memorise, but the question types are well defined and stable. Knowing them is the difference between studying the test and studying everything.
Verbal Reasoninguses three question types. Reading Comprehension presents short and long passages with questions on the author's argument, meaning, and structure. Text Completion gives you a passage with one to three blanks to fill from a set of choices. Sentence Equivalence asks you to pick the two words that complete a single sentence so that both produce the same overall meaning. Vocabulary in context runs through the last two, which is why building a working vocabulary pays off. Our Verbal Reasoning guide breaks each type down with worked examples.
Quantitative Reasoning covers four content areas: arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and data analysis (which includes statistics, probability, and reading data from tables and graphs). The level is roughly high-school mathematics applied to reasoning problems. Crucially, the GRE does not test trigonometry, calculus, or formal mathematical proofs, so you can leave those off your study plan entirely. Many questions come as Quantitative Comparison, where you judge which of two quantities is larger, alongside standard multiple-choice and numeric-entry formats. See our Quantitative Reasoning guide for the full breakdown.
Analytical Writingis now a single task. You write one "Analyze an Issue" essay, in which you take a position on a general claim and support it with reasoning and examples. The older "Analyze an Argument" task was removed when the test was shortened in 2023, so there is only one essay to prepare for. Our Analytical Writing guide covers how the Issue task is scored and structured.
How it is scored
The GRE reports three separate scores, and according to ETS they are not combined into one official number. Verbal Reasoning is scored from 130 to 170, and Quantitative Reasoning is scored from 130 to 170, both in one-point increments. Analytical Writing is scored separately from 0 to 6, in half-point increments. Each score arrives on its own scale and is reported on its own line.
In practice, people often quote a combined Verbal-plus-Quant total, which ranges from 260 to 340. That total is a convenient shorthand used by applicants and many ranking discussions, but it is worth remembering that ETS itself reports Verbal and Quant separately, and admissions committees usually look at the two scores individually because the balance between them matters for different programs. The Analytical Writing score is never folded into that total; it stands on its own.
A raw number means little without context, since the same scaled score can sit at very different percentiles on Verbal versus Quant. To see what your target translates to, read what a good GRE score is, and to turn a Verbal and Quant pair into a total and a sense of where it lands, use our GRE score calculator.
Test formats and policies do change, and the details above reflect the post-2023 exam as ETS describes it. Before you register or build a final study plan, confirm the current section counts, timing, and scoring on the official ETS site at ets.org, since that is the authoritative source.