Hi All

I gave my GRE on 8th of March, 2021. I took the conscious decision to give it in the exam center rather than at home. I felt that there is always an impending threat of a power-cut or the internet wavering at home (call me paranoid.) Despite a COVID-19 recrudesce in the city, I felt that it would be worth the risk to give it in the center. And I was right, since the in-center experience is really good, and conducted very well by Prometric (agency conducting the test in my country.) So if there is an option, please go for in-center, just for the convenience.

Before I begin my de-brief, I'll give a little bit of a background about myself, since it impacted my outlook towards the exam. I'm an MBA from a top-10 institute in India and have given GRE for a potential PhD entry in the US. To get into an MBA program in India, you need to be pretty good in Quant. Thus, my preparation for the Quant section was next to nothing. It was limited only to the tests I gave and the formulae I revised. I was also partially deceived by the PowerPrep 1 and 2 free tests, in which the level of quant was extremely easy. For verbal, I had to grind it out with the words. I wrote down around 1000 words I didn't know from Magoosh 1000 and Barron's 1100 and revised them everyday for about 3 months. That is enough, as I didn't encounter any words which I didn't know.

Coming to the test, I'll first address the AWA section. It was pretty straightforward. The first one was about the celerity of life, and the second one was around a survey argument. I urge all the test-takers to read up sample responses from the ETS website. It gives you an idea of the structure expected by the exam. I finished each essay 3 minutes in advance.

For my main exam, I got 3 sections of verbal and 2 sections of quant. The order was V-Q-V-Q-V.
Quant: Despite my comfort in quant, the questions were a lot more difficult than I expected! I would rate the difficulty as 4.5/5. Please do not expect the ETS free tests level. There were a couple of questions in each of the quant sections which I wasn't able to crack at all. In my second Q section, the data interpretation questions were on mean and medians, which was very confusing. I was very deflated when I was approaching my last verbal section. ETS free tests have very simple quant, and I literally solved all questions twice in the 35 minutes available. In the main exam, I could hardly complete 20 questions in the stipulated time. My advice would be to prepare for the worst. No better way to put it.

Verbal: Verbal was as expected. I did get a couple of confusing passages, but nothing out of the ordinary. Even TC and SC were decent. Exactly at the level of ETS tests. I scored 160 in my ETS free test 2 for verbal, and I would say that 161 was a fair enough score. I would suggest to solve plenty of questions on the GPC forum. It is a brilliant forum to get a wide variety of questions.

My two cents: GRE is a tough game and the scores are unexpected. I read up a lot which states that ETS is a benchmark on what you will score on the exam. I do not agree with this as difficulty and scoring varies. My advice is to go with an open mind. Give your best. Because the algorithm of scoring can never be predicted.

All the best to all of you, and hope this helped you!

Thanks.