Many students who are beginning to prepare for the GRE often believe that it is question-wise adaptive, similar to other standardized exams such as the GMAT. However, this is a common misconception. The GRE is section-wise adaptive, meaning it adapts to the test-takers skill level within a specific exam section. In this post, we will delve into the adaptive nature of the GRE in detail to aid students in their preparation and help them achieve a high score on the exam.

Even though a section is static, it doesn’t mean that, theoretically, it couldn’t become progressively more challenging. After all, this is what the old GRE, the paper-based 1990 GRE was like. However, there is no order of difficulty on the Revised GRE. The first question can be the hardest, and the last the easiest. Most likely, the first and last questions will be medium ones.
Do not spend 5 minutes trying to answer the question in which four circles are wedged inside some octagon (actually, that would make an interesting question – but another time!). Each question is weighted the same. So the question that gives you the circle's radius and asks for the area, which should take no more than 15 seconds, is worth the same as the one about the monstrous polygon.

The main idea of ETS is to have a mean score in the form of a bell curve.

From a mathematically standing point

How the score was calculated, please refer to Adaptive Algorithm of GRE - Explained but with the new shorter GRE something slightly changed.
Look at how the test is structured now. For a complete comparison at a glance between the old format and the new one, please refer to Comparing the Current and Shorter GRE® General Test




Notice how we do have now for two sections - both quant and verbal - a total of 27 questions. Of course, this is crucial to understand how the score for the GRE is calculated. In the old test, we had the above method in which the key part was the following ratio:

The points you can earn, by picking the questions correctly in one point of increment, OVER the # number of questions we have for both sections. In other words, \dfrac{40}{40} = 1. In the end, 1 was not influential in the calculation \times # number of questions.

Now, instead, we do have FEWER questions - # 27 - and the ratio change: it is the points you can earn - which are still the same 40 even though technically the numbers between 170 and 130 are 41 over the number of questions that are #27

\(\dfrac{41}{27} \approx 1.518518 \times \)# of questions you picked correct in both quant or verbal sections. + The bonus or the penalty

An example, suppose you got 23 questions in quant or verbal does not matter out of 27

\(1.58 \times 23 =36.34 +130 = 166.34\) + hypothetical bonus

We do know the entity of the bonus. I assume that it works like before: the first section is medium, and the second, IF it is easy or medium, you will have a penalty. IF the second one is hard, you will have a bonus point.

However, we DO NOT know how the GRE algorithm works. Other essential elements to take into account during the exam could be:

• the difficulty level of the question you pick right or wrong.
• the time to spend replying to a question.
• the number of questions.
• what kind of questions: probability or a tricky algebra question.......

GRE new exam structure

According to Saadamer11 a nice guy from Pakistan who has had an interview on the GMATClub YouTube channel for his almost perfect GRE score (old format) here, Here also his Instagram Profile





He collected feedback from students who had the new test after September 22 on the new exam pattern. In this discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/GRE/comments/1 ... lFCpc9fxf- we do know that:



It is important to notice how, at the moment, no one has reported the presence of long passages during the exam. Only short passages. This, by no means , implies that the RC portion of the test is easier than before. I would say the contrary because a short passage is even more tricky due to the lack of a canonic and standard structure.