It’s easy to calculate your score on the GRE. Within each section of the GRE, each question counts exactly the same toward your score. An easy question is worth exactly the same as a hard question. Because you can move back and forth within each section, a good strategy is to skip around and answer all the easy questions first; then go back and work the hard questions. Quite simply, in each section, the more questions you get right, the higher your score for that section.
If you complete a practice test from GRE For Dummies, 8th Edition (Wiley), you can easily estimate your Math and Verbal scores. For the Math score, count the math questions you answered correctly and then add 130 to that number. Because the GRE has 40 math questions (two sections with 20 questions each), this method gives you an approximate score from 130 to 170. You can find your Verbal score the exact same way, because the GRE also has 40 Verbal questions.
The way that the computer version of the GRE calculates your scores is slightly more complicated. It takes into account the difficulty levels of the second Math and Verbal sections, weighing the scores accordingly. For example, if you do very well on the first Math section, the second Math section will be more difficult. In this second section, you may not answer as many questions correctly, but you’ll have a higher score, because the GRE accounts for the increased difficulty level. However, within any section, each question counts exactly the same toward your score.
The exams in GRE For Dummies, 8th Edition, however, have no such adaptive mechanism, so for these, you can approximate your score by counting the correct answers.