Thinking about graduate school? Here’s what to expect from GRE Math. (1st of 3 parts)

The college grads that I talk to in the field of education have plans to go on to graduate school.  A few that still have to take the GRE yet are nervous, “by far”, they say, about the math.    What will be on it?  How out of practice am I???

The range of topics on the GRE math includes the categories of arithmetic (do you know how to work with fractions?), algebra (can you solve an inequality?),geometry (do you know how to work with similar figures?), and data analysis(can you interepret a distribution chart?).  The two thirty-five minute math sections, (aka “quantitative reasoning”), have twenty questions each.  (This doesn’t include the unscored section which may or may not be math.)  The paper-based test has five more questions and five more minutes per math section.

Here are some question samples from the ETS Official Guide.

1.  A student made a conjecture that for any integer “n”, the integer 4n +3 is a prime number.  Which of the following values of “n” could be used to disprove the student’s conjecture?  (Select all answers that apply.)

A. 1

B. 3

C. 4

D. 6

E. 7

In this case, the answers are “B” and “D” because when either 3 or 6 substitute for “n”, the result is not a prime number.  (Reminder: a prime number is only divisible by 1 and itself, so if you had put 3 in for “n”, you would have had 15, which is not prime since it can be divided by 3 and 5.)

There is also a comparative section.  One must compare the quantities expressed for Quantities A and B, then decide if one is greater than the other, or if they are equal, or if not enough info is given.

Here’s an example:

1.  Quantity A           (3 raised to exponent -1) divided by (4 raised to exponent -1)

Quantity B            4 divided by 3

The answer would be that the quantities are equal since after you calculate 3 raised to the -1 and 4 raised to the -1, you have the reciprocals.  1/3 divided 1/4 can be rewritten as 1/3 multiplied by 4.  That equals 4/3.

Those two examples represent problems in arithmetic.  In a future post I’ll share some examples of other math problems.