Host: What types of questions appear on the math section of the GRE?

Bernadette Chimner: There are three major categories of math questions in the GRE. There is the traditional problem solving question which appears on just about every major standardized test that tests math and that just gives you your typical question, two trains coming at each other, when are they going to collide and so that gives you a set of answers after you work the problem to choose from just five basic multiple choice questions.

The second major category is the quantitative comparison questions and if you ever took the SAT, these are also on your SAT, they give you two columns. They will give you a column A and a column B. For example, column A will have x and column B will have x squared and the question is going to be which of these columns is greater. You will pick A if the quantity in column A will always be bigger regardless of what numbers are chosen and you will choose B if the quantity in column B is greater regardless of what numbers are chosen for x and you will choose C if the two quantities must always be equal regardless of what numbers you choose. Of course, there is always a fourth option that's D and D is chosen if there is not enough information to know which column is bigger or if the columns could -- if column A could be bigger in some situations and column B could be bigger in other situations, then your answer will be D. You can't tell.

The third major category is data analysis and data analysis questions give you chart or a graph on half of your screen and a question that goes with that chart or graph on the other half of your screen and usually it's going to go through a couple of different questions that go with that same chart and graph. They are just going to ask you to interpret information from that chart and answer basic math questions based on it.