FACTS ABOUT GRADUATE RECORD EXAMINATIONS (GRE) FOR NIGERIAN STUDENTS
GRE is an acronym for the Graduate Record Examinations.
The examination is taken by many prospective graduate and business school students across the world. Â
It is an official test approved and accepted by thousands of universities in the world.
The GRE General Test features different types of questions. The question closely show the kind of discerning ability you’ll be required to succeed in a graduate or business school.
It is believed that your ability to think appropriately and give the required answers will increase your chances of being successful in your studies.
Of course, no school wants a student that ends up performing woefully after several investments and training.
The Graduate Record Examinations comprises three different components:
Analytical writing
This is the aspect of writing commonly referred to as academic writing.
It is used to test your ability to show relationships between pieces of information using transition words and appropriate parts of speech.
Some writing tasks require students to compare and contrast situations while some may ask you to evaluate and assess some new developments and methodologies.
Typically, the writing style uses evidence and examples from multiple sources to support and buttress assertions.
It allows you to show your arguments by making your voice louder with the right words while making connections.
You could also show some degree of judgment using evaluative language. The aim is to try to persuade your readers to agree with you.
The general approach is to have an overview that interprets the question and explain the overall structure.
Your introduction, evidence and conclusion have to be evaluated and structured in definite paragraphs using appropriate conjunctions and examples that serve as a reference.
Verbal Reasoning
This is simply the ability to reason like the name implies – verbal reasoning.
Here, your capability to analyze and examine some information given to you is tested in a bid to make you interpret it accurately.
This could be literal, figurative or it could reflect the author’s intention.Â
It is left for you to understand the context of the question or text and identify major and minor points.
It is important to take notes or summarize the question in order to know where it is headed.
You are expected to understand vocabularies, sentences, idioms, entire texts and the relationship between words and contexts.
This concept is usually used by interviewers to test how well a candidate can measure logic.
This will tell how successfully and effortlessly he or she can understand the true meaning of words presented in a complex form.
The ability for you to think accurately and constructively is a plus.
In simple terms, it is used to test your assimilation and comprehension skills. Most question types are in a True, False, can’t say format or a Yes, No, not given format.
Quantitative Reasoning
Quantitative reasoning focuses on the use of mathematical symbols and conventions.
They are multiple choice questions, select one or more, comparison questions and finally the numeric questions.
This section of the GRE will test your ability to use mathematical skills in order to solve equations.
Simply put, it is the application of basic mathematics skills (e.g. algebra, charts, geometry, graphs and table comparisons) to analyze and interpret quantitative information in order to draw out a final conclusion or get a final answer.
Why is GRE important for Nigerian students;
Firstly, it is an exam that affords students the opportunity to skip questions and start with whatever section the student chooses first.
The exam also has a ‘selectscore’ option that gives you the chance to sit for the exam more than once and choose the result you wish amidst several options you have done.
Secondly, once written, the examination result is valid for five years, unlike other exams that become invalid after one or two years.
This gives the student the opportunity to try several options of his or her career path before settling down with one final option that works.
Another reason people do GRE is that it is mostly required by business schools. If you want to achieve an MBA or something similar, your chances of being required to write the GRE exams are high.
The inclusion of an excellent GRE result also boosts your profile and increases your chances of getting a student scholarship.
There are also fee waivers students can claim when their scores are pretty impressive.
For example, Illinois state university requires a minimum GRE score of 300 for providing funding to prospective students.
Also, Andrews University offers a 50% waiver with a GRE score of above 320.
On the other hand, if your GRE scores are low, your chances of gaining admission or getting scholarship will be incredibly low.
A high score in GRE can compensate for low grades in your transcripts or a low CGPA. in general.
The admission committee will understand that your past failure may be as a result of a circumstance beyond your control and not really because you are not sound.
Read also What does the admission committee use to select international students?
In conclusion, GRE is a basic and general test and is not just going to test the pupils for any specialized ability on a specific subject.
The capabilities that are going to be verified through this exam are verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking and analytical writing.
These are skills that scholars have developed over the passage of years while going through high school and college or primary and secondary school as it is called in this part of the world.
Although the test does not measure your skill specified to the discipline you are trying to join, it will, however, gauge your aptitude and potential to succeed in the future during your graduate program.
As you see, GRE exam holds a lot of worth when getting into grad school so you shouldn’t aim at just passing them but at acing them so that you are positioned among the other top candidates.
