• In preparing to take the General Test you should become thoroughly familiar with the directions provided in the practice General Test sections in the booklet.

• Research suggests that practicing unfamiliar question types results in improved performance and decreases the likelihood of inaccurately low scores. You should still read the directions for each group of questions carefully during the actual test administration.

Paper-and-Pencil Strategies

• During an actual test, you may work only on the section the supervisor designates and only for the time allowed. You may not go back to an earlier section of the test after the supervisor announces "Please stop work" for that section. The supervisor may dismiss you from the center if you continue to record answers.

• When taking the paper-and-pencil General Test, skip difficult questions within any section and come back to them later during the time allotted for that section.

• All questions are of equal value; do not waste time pondering individual questions you find extremely difficult or unfamiliar.

• If you decide to change an answer, make sure you completely erase it and fill in the oval corresponding to your desired answer.

• To maximize your scores on the paper-and-pencil test, it is better to guess at an answer than not to respond at all. Nothing is subtracted from your score if you answer a question incorrectly.

• Questions for which you mark no answer or more than one answer are not counted in scoring.

• Work as rapidly as you can without being careless. Check frequently to make sure you are marking your answers in the appropriate rows on your answer sheet.

• Work rapidly through a section of the General Test a first time, stopping only to answer those questions of which you are confident, then go back and answer questions that require greater thought, concluding with the very difficult questions, if you have time.

• Record all answers on your answer sheet. Answers recorded in your test book will not be counted.

• Do not wait until the last five minutes of a testing session to record answers on your answer sheet.

• Some sections of the General Test contain test questions with only four response options (A through D) or with only two response options (A and B). All GRE answer sheets for the paper-and-pencil test contain response positions for five responses (A through E). Therefore, if an E response is marked for a four-option question, it will be ignored. An E response for a four-option question is treated the same as no response (omitted).