difficulty of the GRE

[amethyst23]

This may be a strange question but can any of you who have taken the GRE compare it to the SAT or ACT in terms of difficulty?  personally I thought the SAT was more difficult not just because of the guessing penalty but the content seemed more challenging.,  

[nadimishka]

The GRE is more like the SAT without a guessing penalty, but honestly there's no comparison. The GRE is a monster within itself. IMO, the GRE tests how good you are at taking the GRE, not your math or verbal skills. Majority of questions are logic-based. Basically you need to get a Kaplan, Magoosh, Princeton, whatever review book and practice the tricks they give for solving the problems. They also give you good tips to avoid traps, i.e. on the quantitative comparison questions, if you have an equation that doesn't specify whether the numbers involved are positive or negative, then your answer will always be D (not enough information) because the answer could be positive or negative and would change the column values.

The GRE is a tricky little beast, and the more practice tests you take the better. Figuring out how to avoid traps and answer everything in the time constraints is harder than the actual material.

[I Have No Idea]

I'm not from the US so I can't cf to the SATS but I've sat the GRE and I'd basically say that it was...idiosyncratic. Generally I'm surprised at multiple choice questions beyond the age of 12 but, ok. The content itself wasn't bad, I feel that the quant section was fairer since some of the wording in the written stuff was a bit ambiguous. Overall the content wasn't very difficult, definitely sub GCSE. 

 

In addition getting a good book, like the Princeton one, will help immensely. The difficulty is the test itself...its lengthy and boring and you need discipline. At uni you might be taking 3/4 hour exams but (since you're applying to grad school) I'm guessing you found them very fun and engaging. The GRE is mind numbing bro.

[finalrez]

I thought it was much more similar to the SAT than to the ACT.  I'm a bit older though, so when I took the SAT it was the version on the 1600 scale.

[amethyst23]

ok, thanks everyone! i'm definitely going to take advantage of every resource available

[Flandre Scarlet]

I think the difficulty is about the same.  If you did well on the SAT and you kept those test taking skills, you will do well on the GRE as well.