If you’re just beginning your GRE prep journey, knowing what’s on the test—and what each section expects—is essential. This guide will walk you through the full GRE syllabus, breaking down the topics, question types, and strategies you’ll need to succeed on each part of the exam.
The GRE General Test is made up of three main sections: Verbal Reasoning , Quantitative Reasoning , and Analytical Writing . Each section tests a unique set of skills, from understanding complex written material to solving math problems to constructing well-reasoned essays.
Let’s take a look at each in detail!
This table summarizes each GRE section’s format and the key skills tested:
The Verbal Reasoning section of the GRE tests how well you understand written material, analyze arguments, and recognize relationships between words and ideas. You’ll be asked to interpret the meaning of passages, fill in missing words, and choose sentences that best maintain meaning and tone.
Here’s what the GRE is really looking for when it comes to verbal skills:
The Verbal section is made up of three main types of questions :
Each of these types of questions types assess different aspects of your verbal reasoning abilities, and mastering them means building both strong reading habits and a solid vocabulary base.
Reading Comprehension (RC) questions make up about half of the Verbal Reasoning section. They’re designed to assess your ability to understand, analyze, and apply information from written passages—skills that are crucial for graduate-level work.
The passages come from a variety of disciplines, including:
Don’t worry—you’re not expected to have background knowledge of these topics. The GRE is testing your reasoning skills, not your expertise.
Reading Comprehension questions cover a range of abilities, including:
RC questions typically appear in three formats:
💡 Tip: While it’s tempting to skim passages quickly, effective GRE readers learn to read actively . That means looking for structure, argument flow, and signal words (like “however,” “for example,” or “in contrast”) that reveal how ideas are connected.
Text Completion (TC) questions test your ability to understand the logic and flow of short passages. Each question pertains to a short passage (generally 1 to a few sentences) with one to three blanks. Your task is to choose the word (or words) that best complete the passage in a way that makes sense as a whole.
These questions aren’t just about knowing advanced vocabulary words; they’re about making sense of how ideas fit together.
You must answer all the blanks correctly to receive points. There is no partial credit.
💡 Tip: Thankfully, you don’t need to know every obscure word in the dictionary. But a strong working vocabulary— especially for words that frequently appear on the GRE —can give you a major edge.
Sentence Equivalence (SE) questions test your ability to recognize when two words (or phrases) complete a sentence with similar meanings and maintain its overall logic and tone. Each SE question presents a single sentence with one blank and six answer choices, and you must choose two correct answers.
What makes these tricky is that several individual answer choices might seem plausible at first. But only two will create sentences that are both logically equivalent in meaning.
In other words, this isn’t just a synonym test; it’s a context and coherence test, too.
💡 Tip: SE questions are not just a test of synonyms. Often the correct answers will be synonyms , but that’s not always the case. Don’t just pick a pair of words with similar meanings as your answers; instead, make sure they fit the overall context of the sentence.
While the GRE doesn’t test grammar directly with rules-based questions (like identifying subject-verb agreement errors), a strong grasp of grammar and sentence structure is essential—especially for Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence questions. Understanding how sentences are built helps you choose the right words and make sense of complex constructions.
Here are the grammar and usage concepts most helpful for success on the Verbal section:
What they are : Words or phrases that describe or qualify other parts of the sentence.
Why they matter : You need to correctly identify what’s being modified. Misunderstanding what is being modified can lead you to select a trap answer, especially in multi-blank TC questions.
What they are : Phrases set off by commas, em dashes, or parentheses that add information or clarification.
Why they matter : Parentheticals can interrupt the main flow of a sentence, so it’s crucial to identify where the core sentence lies. This can help you understand the intended meaning more quickly.
What they are : Words or phrases that signal relationships between ideas (e.g., contrast, cause, example, addition).
Why they matter : Transitions help you decode the logical structure of a sentence or passage, which is especially important when selecting between answer choices with different tones or meanings.
Common transitions to know :
Recognizing these can help you anticipate the direction of a sentence , making it easier to select the correct answer choice even when the vocabulary is tough.
The Quantitative Reasoning (QR) section of the GRE assesses your ability to reason with numbers, solve problems, and interpret data—all within real-world and abstract contexts. While the math content is roughly at the high school level, the GRE tests your critical thinking and problem-solving skills more than rote calculation.
You don’t need advanced math like calculus or trigonometry, but you do need to be comfortable with algebra, geometry, and basic statistics.
The Quantitative Reasoning section evaluates:
You’ll encounter four types of questions:
The GRE doesn’t test every math topic under the sun; it doesn’t even test everything you learned in high school. Instead, it focuses on a core set of high school-level topics that are applied in tricky and often layered ways.
Here’s a breakdown of the major content areas you’ll see on the Quant section:
This is the foundation of GRE math. Expect questions involving:
💡 Tip: The GRE loves to test your knowledge of sequential percent changes —and the common trap that many fall for.
Algebra questions test your ability to manipulate variables and solve equations. Topics include:
💡 Tip: A key part of algebra—and success on the GRE—involves being able to correctly translate words into math equations .
GRE geometry focuses more on conceptual understanding than just memorizing a set of formulas. Topics you’ll encounter include:
💡 Tip: Remember, diagrams on the GRE are not necessarily drawn to scale , unless specifically stated.
This section blends math and logic with data interpretation. Expect to see:
💡 Tip: GRE data interpretation questions often reward your ability to extract insights rather than just calculate. If you can estimate effectively, you can save time and avoid doing unnecessary calculations.
Data Interpretation (DI) sets are grouped questions based on a shared visual—usually a table, graph, or chart. These test your ability to read, analyze, and draw conclusions from data presented in a structured format.
Sometimes the visuals are straightforward, and sometimes you need to pay close attention to the labels and surrounding context to interpret them.
💡 Tip: Always read the title and labels carefully. Spending time discerning the setup—what the axes represents, what the units are, etc.—will help you prevent careless mistakes.
The Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) is always the first section you’ll encounter on the GRE. You’ll have 30 minutes to complete a single essay task called “Analyze an Issue.”
You’ll be presented with a statement—usually a general claim or recommendation—and asked to take a position and defend it with reasoning and examples.
This isn’t about agreeing or disagreeing in an absolute sense. Instead, the GRE wants to see how well you can evaluate a topic, choose a perspective, and argue your case in a clear, logical, and organized way.
This section doesn’t test how creative you are or how much you know about a particular subject. Instead, it evaluates your ability to:
💡 Tip: You can (and should!) view the full list of possible Issue Essay prompts ahead of time since ETS makes them public.
The AWA is designed to assess your:
30 minutes is not a lot of time to craft and write an essay! Here’s where you’ll want to focus your efforts:
💡 Tip: Don’t skip the prewriting phase! Spend the first 3–5 minutes brainstorming .
The GRE covers a lot of ground! The math, verbal, and writing sections all test you on a wide variety of skills and topics, as evidenced by our comprehensive list of lessons .
The good news? All these topics can be learned, and all these skills can be improved with smart, focused preparation. With that in mind, check out a Magoosh GRE Premium plan . The GRE is a challenge, but with the right prep, it’s absolutely one you can conquer.
After graduating from CU Boulder with degrees in Literature and Women’s Studies, Linnea stumbled into the world of test prep and admissions consulting and never looked back. Over the years, she has worked with students in the U.S. and abroad, trained new teachers for the classroom, and written curricula for various test types. Her experience includes teaching the GRE, ACT, SAT, LSAT, and GMAT for The Princeton Review and working as the Director of Instruction Management for The Princeton Review Taipei. Looking for a way to help more students, especially those who were unable to afford access to expensive test prep programs, Linnea joined Magoosh in 2019. She is a content creator who connects with students as a blog contributor and through various lessons and practice on the Magoosh platform.