S2021S wrote:
Very off-topic since this is a GMAT forum but I took the GRE the previous Wednesday (Sep 1st), 3.5 days after the GMAT. Was curious about the GRE and spent the day after the GMAT reading opinions about it - the consensus seemed to be that it was much easier than the GMAT, so I decided to book an exam for the earliest available slot. Didn't have the time to do any mock exams but, in hindsight, they were not required anyway.
The math sections must have been the easiest math I've done since I was ~11-12 years old (otoh, GMAT math is genuinely interesting and non-trivial) and had 12 to 16 minutes left on the clock on each of the three math sections (GRE gives the option to 'review' your answers in case you want to change any - I rechecked the answers a couple of times, then got bored and clicked on 'Next').
Didn't quite manage a perfect score on the Verbal (ran out of time on one of the two sections and had to blindly click on some answer choice for the last two questions - pretty sure these were the only two I got wrong in the whole exam; was going at the GMAT pace of ~ 1.75 minutes per question - GRE needs 1.5 min/Q on Verbal- and didn't realize that I was running out of time, else would have sped up on some of the earlier questions instead of checking twice or thrice that I've got the correct answer!), but felt it was slightly easier than or around the same level of toughness as the GMAT Verbal. GRE Verbal does require one to know fairly obscure words (I'm comfortable with these - I would back myself to know the meaning of >90-95% of the more complicated words from a standard dictionary - but even if a student isn't aware of these words from prior exposure, I guess he/she can, given sufficient preparation time, easily memorize these?) but is otherwise quite similar to GMAT Verbal.
Interestingly, they have two 30-minute essays on the GRE - one is very GMAT-like (where they ask you to find faults with the reasoning of someone, usually something like "company A is trying to increase its profits, the CEO has proposal X and it is based on Y") and the other one on a more general topic, one that involves expressing shades of political and/or philosophical opinion (I love these topics, because I have strong views on these, and because these topics allow one to draw on real-world examples). Got a 5.5, which is slightly better than my GMAT essay score - pretty sure this is down to the latter essay.
Interesting experiment,
S2021S. Since you encountered three Quant sections, you can be confident that one of them was entirely experimental—which one is your best guess. That is the way ETS weaves in experimental questions on the GRE®, unlike the way GMAC™ tosses in randomized per-quarter experimental questions on the GMAT™. Yes, Quant is not as challenging in comparison (for most test-takers), although certain niche topics (such as intersections and unions of sets) are tested in ways that do not come up on the GMAT™.
The Verbal section is vocabulary-dependent, although I like to say that it is more important to be a good reader than it is to be a wordsmith. Understanding the type of word that fits the context of a Sentence Equivalence or Text Completion question is vital to success. That said, many upper-level test-takers spend weeks or even months memorizing lists of arcane words to mitigate the chance of seeing something unfamiliar and hitting the panic button. I am guessing that if you missed just two questions, you walked away with no less than a 168, a phenomenal raw score if so.
Regarding the essays, as long as you remember to leave yourself out of one of them and voice your own views in the other, you can approach them in pretty much the same way. A 5.5 is a great result for an unpracticed effort, and, as is the case with the GMAT™, no admissions committee holds the AWA score in high regard anyway (not that you have ever indicated any intention of applying to business schools).
The big question: Do you plan on taking the GRE® again? Would you prepare for it if so? How about the GMAT™?
Once again, I wish you good luck in your pursuits.
- Andrew
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10 Sep 2021, 06:10
. Btw, is the Hard-Medium-Easy a GMAT official classification or is it the case that they use, say, 5 levels of difficulty and since they won't publish the algorithm, Hard-Medium-Easy is used by us (students, tutors, prep providers, etc.) as a useful and mostly accurate proxy?
), hope to prepare a little bit and do the remaining 3 mocks and see if I can get 800 consistently before jumping on to a real exam. 
