What is considered as a good score in the GRE?

For the GRE test the maximum that one can score in the verbal reasoning and the Quantitative reasoning sections is a maximum score of 170 marks each, the scale range is between 130 – 170 and the scoring is done in increments of one point. For the analytical writing section, the scoring is done on a scale of 0 – 6 with increments of 0.5. It is not possible to get a GRE score of either more than 170 or less than 130 in the Verbal & Quantitative Reasoning sections. 

GRE scores in the score range of 315 – 326 is considered a good enough score, anything above is considered a more than good score and would be acceptable for a lot of graduate programs in business schools or other graduate schools. However, the admission committee of universities around the world have different cut-off criteria for admissions through the GRE test, along with other criteria such as qualifying degree or work experience.

It is very important that the GRE test takers, as a part of their test prep, should take practice tests to get familiar with the structure and format of the GRE test, there are a lot of free GRE tests available online. The level of preparation has a direct impact on the final GRE test score or percentile score.

The two sections of the GRE test that are section-level adaptive are the Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning. This means that the computer test will select the difficulty level of the second operational measure based on how your performance was on the first section. But please note that within each section, all questions have equal weightage. The average score for the verbal and quantitative section typically falls in the range of 152 – 155, anything above that is a good score.

For each of the two measures, the number of correct answers is taken to come up with a raw score.

Through the process of equating the raw score is converted to a scaled score. The equating process is done to ensure that despite the variation in when the test was taken, in which order or which second section was selected, it moderates into the same level of performance.

For the Analytical Writing section, a six-point holistic scale is used to rate each essay. In holistic scoring, the idea is to give a score based on the overall essay and its quality. Post this the essay is then assessed by a computerized program developed by ETS called “e-rater^®”. E-Rater is capable of measuring writing efficiency of an individual for the essay.

If the manual score given and the score given by the computerized program closely match, then the average of the two is used to determine the final score. If not, then another manual score is given by a different assessor and the final score is the average of the two-manual score.

The GRE score percentiles are used to compare your scores with the other people who take the GRE. If your score is in the 90^th percentile, then that means that you did better than 90% of the people who took the test.

It should be noted that while the score on the GRE indicates your verbal, quantitative, and writing skills, its main objective is to assess your analytical and logical capabilities, a requirement for all graduate, Masters or Doctoral programmes.