GRE is not an easy test. Students who have spent months preparing for the arduous exam and have been scoring in the 90th percentile in their mock tests feel the heat. Usually, you would sift through thousands of practice questions from various sources while preparing for the exam. And at some point, you would direly wish that at least some of those questions repeat on the exam day. Therefore, it is pretty standard that the following questions might pop-up in your mind while doing your prep:
- Is there any pattern that ETS uses while making GRE questions?
- Does ETS repeat questions from the power prep mock tests?
- Do they repeat questions from the ETS Official guides?
- Is there a question bank that ETS uses to take the GRE test?
How does ETS make test questions?
ETS has created a massive question bank that they use to develop actual GRE tests. It is hypothesized, but not proven that the question banks have over 10,000+ quant and verbal questions. ETS periodically (week on week) updates the question bank to add new and never-been-seen-before questions. Hundreds of experts work at ETS to design these questions, and then they test those questions on actual test-takers to ensure their correctness.
ETS uses a pretty unique methodology to ensure the correctness of the new questions; they give actual test-takers an unscored section called the “Experimental section.” This section throws the newly designed questions to ensure that the problems are compatible with the overall ETS style. Using big data, they analyze student performance on those questions to filter the ‘good’ ones, which are then made part of the massive question bank.
Does ETS Repeat Questions?
The answer is both a Yes and a No.
Yes! They do repeat questions from their massive question bank. What this means is that if some of your friends took their GRE a few days before you did, then it is likely that you may see a few of their questions repeat on your exam. This is because ETS uses the same question bank to generate test-day questions. However, the probability of the problems repeating is very low as the question bank is enormous, and ETS randomly pulls questions from that bank. Nevertheless, students do see questions repeat in this manner.
But if there is a month’s gap between your and your friends’ test day, then the probability of getting the same questions drops to near zero. This is because the question bank is updated with hundreds of fresh and new questions every week, and the more recent questions are more likely to appear on your test.
No, ETS does not repeat exact questions from their official GRE prep material such as the official guides and the power prep or power prep plus mock exams. But the actual day questions are styled in a very similar manner as the ETS official material questions. Therefore, you must thoroughly scrutinize the ETS official prep material before your actual exam day so that you get a familiar flavor in your exam.
Final words
If you are preparing for the GRE test, stay focused on learning concepts, and keep practicing what you know. Try to recognize the pattern of concepts and style of questions in the ETS mocks and other official prep material because the actual test will not be any different from that. So, rather than hoping to get the same questions, you should wish that similarly styled problems appear on your test.