3 Things You Need to Know About the New, Shorter GRE®
BREAKING NEWS: As of September 22, 2023, the GRE is very different!
Whether or not you experience test anxiety, the GRE is a uniquely challenging standardized test. Full stop. It’s not just because the GRE covers math that you probably haven’t studied in college. The GRE includes many different item types and alternate response formats (aka not just single response, multiple choice questions). To do your best on any one item, you’ll need to recognize the item type, understand the question and the response format, link it to a strategy you’ve practiced, and execute the strategy with discipline… and you need to do it in 90-105 seconds consistently or you’ll run out of time.
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The more you’ve practiced strategies based on item type, the more you’re telling your brain what “to do, ” the less room there is for test anxiety to exploit uncertainty, waste your time, and steal your points.
The first step to crush GRE test anxiety is understanding the assignment. At Test Wolf, we call it “hunting the test” or knowing the details of the format, timing, and item structure.
Here are three things you need to know about the new shorter GRE, especially if you experience test anxiety:
It’s Lean and Mean!
For a standard administration, the GRE testing time has dropped from around 4 hours to slightly less than 2 hours. For you, the shorter duration should not inspire complacency. In fact, it means you can and should find time for several full-length practice tests!
It’s Alive!
The shorter GRE is “section-level adaptive.” There are two verbal reasoning sections and two quantitative reasoning sections. When you finish the first section, the computer instantly scores it and based on your performance decides what questions to serve up in the second section. You need to know this to prepare effective practice tests. At the same time, folks with test anxiety need to make sure this knowledge about the test isn’t subversively sabotaging your execution. Many people who experience test anxiety try to figure out HOW they’re doing WHILE they’re taking the test. The GRE is way too fast for this! You risk going slower, inviting anxiety, and even convincing yourself to panic or cancel your scores if you give attention to assessing whether the questions are getting easier or harder.
For more information on the “section-level adaptive” verbal and quantitative reasoning sections, be sure to review the info shared by the ETS. Go to the folks who actually make the test FIRST and REPEATEDLY! There will undoubtedly be a lot of terrible strategies out there based on misinformation about adaptive testing.
There are Resources!
Official GRE prep, including live virtual events, are available from ETS. Remember, they want this version of the GRE to be more user-friendly so it can take some market share from other exams like the LSAT and GMAT. As a result, there are many resources you can use to get ready for the shorter GRE. If you experience test anxiety, you may be frustrated. Maybe you’re beating yourself up for not passing before the format changed. Fret not. Instead, get after it! Whatever studying you’ve done is still relevant. Now you need to remember your brain is a muscle and the shorter GRE is an outright sprint!
Preparing for the new Shorter GRE?
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