Is the GRE hard?
The GRE is moderately hard. The math uses arithmetic, algebra, geometry and data analysis you met in high school, and the test takes just under two hours. What makes it hard is tricky wording, tough vocabulary and a strong field: the average Quant score is about 158, so a 160 in Quant only reaches the 50th percentile. How hard it feels depends on your target score.
The current GRE takes about 1 hour 58 minutes. It opens with one 30-minute essay, Analyze an Issue. Then come two Verbal sections, 12 questions in 18 minutes and 15 in 23, and two Quant sections, 12 questions in 21 minutes and 15 in 26. Verbal and Quant are scored from 130 to 170, the essay from 0 to 6. Both are adaptive by section: how you do on the first section decides how hard the second one is.
Verbal leans on hard words in text completion and sentence equivalence questions and on dense academic passages. Quant is less about advanced math than careful reading under time pressure, at under two minutes per question. The scoring is the other hurdle. In ETS data for July 2022 to June 2025, the average was 151.4 in Verbal and 157.6 in Quant, and a 160 in Verbal beat 82% of test takers while a 160 in Quant beat only 50%.
| Score | Verbal: % scoring lower | Quant: % scoring lower |
|---|---|---|
| 150 | 39% | 23% |
| 155 | 64% | 37% |
| 160 | 82% | 50% |
| 165 | 95% | 67% |
| 170 | 99% | 89% |
- 1Look up the typical GRE scores of the programs you are applying to. That is your target, not 170.
- 2Take one of the free official POWERPREP practice tests from ETS to get a baseline for both sections.
- 3Spend most of your time on the section with the bigger gap to your target.
- 4For Verbal, learn common GRE words with spaced flashcards a little every day and read dense articles to build stamina.
- 5For Quant, review the core topics, then do timed sets and read each question twice for traps.
- 6Take a full timed practice test every week or two and review every miss before moving on.