This GRE Psychology cheat sheet distills the whole undergraduate psychology curriculum ETS tests into a printable rundown of the facts that show up most. It's a premium cheat sheet built by Capital Prep — the one premium prep we trust — and it's yours free. Reinforce it with the rest of your free GRE Psychology toolkit: the practice test, study guide, and flashcards.
GRE Psychology exam at a glance
- Questions: About 144 single-best-answer multiple-choice questions
- Time: About 2 hours (roughly 170 minutes), self-paced
- Score scale: Total 200–990 in 10-point increments, plus six 0–100 subscores
- Result: No passing score — scaled score and percentile are read against grad-school applicants
- Cost: Approximately $150 (verify the current fee at ets.org)
- Administered by: ETS (Educational Testing Service)
What’s on the GRE Psychology cheat sheet
- Biological (~21%) — neurons and neurotransmitters, brain structures, sensation and perception, and the principles of learning and conditioning — the largest category.
- Cognitive (~20%) — memory and attention, thinking and problem-solving, decision-making heuristics and biases, language, and intelligence.
- Measurement / Methodology / Other (~17%) — research design, reliability vs. validity, statistics and significance, and the history and major figures of psychology.
- Clinical (~16%) — psychological disorders and the DSM-5-TR, the major therapies, and theories of personality and abnormality.
- Social (~13%) — attribution, attitudes and persuasion, conformity and obedience, group behavior, and the landmark social experiments.
- Developmental (~13%) — cognitive development (Piaget and Vygotsky), attachment, moral development, and nature vs. nurture across the lifespan.
How to use it in your final week
- Lock in the two biggest categories first — Biological (~21%) and Cognitive (~20%) together are about 40% of the test, so master those facts before anything else.
- Run the theorist-to-idea pairings until they're automatic: Piaget's stages, Pavlov vs. Skinner, Asch/Milgram/Zimbardo, Freud's structure, and the Big Five (OCEAN).
- Drill the methods rules — reliability vs. validity, Type I vs. Type II error, when to use a t-test vs. ANOVA — because they're finite, fast points.
- Read the sheet the morning of the test for a final pass, then answer every question on the exam since there is no guessing penalty.
The cheat sheet is your review layer — your GRE Psychology practice test drives the exam-readiness ring at the top of this page. Download it, review, then take a full practice exam (or drill with the study guide and flashcards) to see where you stand.
GRE Psychology cheat sheet FAQ
Yes — the GRE Psychology cheat sheet downloads as a PDF with no sign-up and no account. It sits alongside the rest of Career Employer's free GRE Psychology toolkit: the practice test, study guide, and flashcards.
It condenses the highest-yield facts from all six ETS content categories — Biological, Cognitive, Social, Developmental, Clinical, and Measurement/Methodology/Other — into a fast quick-reference of the theorists, terms, brain structures, and research rules the test samples most.
There is no passing score. You get one total scaled score from 200 to 990 in 10-point increments, plus six 0–100 percent-correct subscores, and each is reported with a percentile rank. Admissions committees read your scaled score and percentile against their applicant pool rather than a fixed cut line.
Set a target by percentile at the specific programs you're applying to, since competitive psychology programs generally expect scores well above the median. The cheat sheet helps you cover every category efficiently so no low subscore drags your total down.
Click the download button or the preview card at the top of this page to open the PDF instantly. Bookmark the page so you can pull the sheet back up during your final week before test day.
References
- 1.ETS. “GRE Psychology Test Content — Subject Tests.” ets.org, 2026. ↑
- 2.ETS. “About the GRE Subject Tests.” ets.org, 2026. ↑
- 3.ETS. “GRE Subject Tests — Scores.” ets.org, 2026. ↑
- 4.ETS. “GRE Psychology Test Practice Book.” ets.org, 2026. ↑
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