GRE Score Calculator

The GRE General Test includes three sections: Verbal Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning, and Analytical Writing. Verbal and Quant each have two sections — Section 1 has 12 questions, and Section 2 has 15 questions. The AW section consists of one essay task (Analyze an Issue). Total testing time is about 1 hour 58 minutes.

The GRE uses section-level adaptive testing. Your performance on Section 1 determines the difficulty of Section 2 — score high and you get a harder second section (which allows you to achieve higher scaled scores), score low and you get an easier one. Because the hard path offers access to higher scaled scores, the calculator adjusts your estimated score based on which difficulty path you took.

The average GRE score is roughly 150–151 for Verbal and 153–154 for Quantitative. A 'good' score depends on your target program — competitive STEM programs often expect 160+ on Quant, while top humanities programs may prioritize Verbal scores of 160+. For highly selective schools like Stanford or Harvard, combined scores of 330+ are common among admitted students.

On the hard path (Section 2), you can miss about 4–5 questions across both sections and still score around 165. On the medium path, missing 3–4 questions typically yields around 158–162. The exact conversion varies due to equating, but generally every correct answer matters more on the hard path since the ceiling is higher.

Verbal scoring is similar — on the hard path, missing 2–3 questions may result in a score around 163–166, while a perfect raw score typically yields 170. On the medium path, missing 3–4 questions across both sections might land you around 155–160. The scaled score depends heavily on the difficulty path.

Your essay is scored by a trained human rater and an automated scoring engine (e-rater). If they agree, that score stands; if they disagree significantly, a second human rater resolves the discrepancy. Scores range from 0 to 6 in half-point increments. A score of 4.0 is considered average, while 5.0+ is considered strong.

Yes. Your raw score is simply the number of questions you answered correctly (no penalty for wrong answers). ETS then converts that raw score to a scaled score between 130 and 170 using a process called equating, which accounts for slight differences in difficulty across test versions and difficulty paths. This is why two students with the same raw score on different paths may receive different scaled scores.

GRE scores are valid for five years from your test date. You can take the GRE up to five times in any continuous 12-month period, with at least 21 days between attempts. Most schools accept your best scores, and ETS's ScoreSelect option lets you choose which scores to send.