<p>From the posts on this board, I'm getting the sinking suspicion that while it's possible for a math major to take the non-math portions of the GRE and do fairly well, the opposite is significantly more difficult. Isn't this a little bit biased? I could be totally wrong, but it seems that standardized testing punishes people who aren't mathematically minded, and that anyone who can read at a college level can do fairly well on non-math portions. I guess I could get into a whole male bias thing here, but that would take more than one post.</p>
<p>A few points:</p>
<p>(1) For English, or languages, art history, history, or similar fuzzy humanities fields... I'm pretty sure even the top departments couldn't care less how well you do on the General Math part of the GRE.</p>
<p>(2) Social science fields like economics, sociology, psychology actually require a solid understanding of statistics and data analysis... and the top programs tend to care a little bit more about quantitative aspects of their fields...</p>
<p>(3) The GRE Math general test requires no math beyond high-school algebra & geometry, and reading/understanding tables, charts, graphs.</p>
<p>Finally, if you are considering the torture known as graduate school, you have to be able and willing to put up with a whole lot of useless and tedious hoops that have nothing to do with what you're studying... think of the GRE as your initiation into useless hoop-jumping... believe me, if this bothers you, you will never make it through grad school.</p>
<p>The GRE Math is no harder than the SAT Math.</p>
<p>The skinny on the GRE, as given to me by a friend who just finished applying to philosophy Ph.D programs, and who will be attending oxford next year as a Rhodes Scholar:</p>
<p>"The GRE is just like the SAT, except you get a lower score." =)</p>
<p>Math majors take two differenet GREs: the General Test (which pretty much everyone applying to graduate school takes), and the Subject Test (which is only for math majors). Many of the posts here about the "math GRE" are referring to the subject test. So be careful not to think that someone talking about the Subject Test is talking about the General Test. That said, the other posters are correct in saying that the GRE math is just like the SAT math, only maybe a bit more difficult, but not much.</p>
<p>The Princeton Review says that the math part of the GRE is actually at a lower level than the SAT. No trig, precalc, minimal algebra even. The problem types are pretty standard and if you know how to manipulate and analyze numbers (i.e. exponents, fractions, very basic algebra) and analyze a few charts you should be fine.</p>
<p>Also, the programs you are applying to will take in to account the fact that you've had little math and if would likely not need anymore in your field they won't weigh it very heavy. Just as the science and engineering schools place much less emphasis on the verbal scores. (I read the average of some Group I math school for verbal GRE was around 550).</p>
<p>I'm actually considering applying to the Monterey Institute for grad school, so hopefully I will never again have to go through the torture that is feeling like a moron in a math class. It's not that I CAN'T do it, I just don't care.</p>