Serendipity

After two false starts, the GRE will be revamped and slightly lengthened in 2011 and graded on a new scale of 130 to 170.

The Educational Testing Service, …call(ed) the changes “the largest revisions” in the history of the test.

New content would be introduced and the sequence of questions scrambled every two hours. The new test will be three and a half hours.

The G.R.E. is a “computer adaptive” test, and a correct answer to one question leads to a more difficult subsequent question, while a wrong answer leads to a simpler one. Computer adaptivity will no longer be question by question but section by section, so that, within a section, students can skip a question and return to it.

The new verbal section, for example, will eliminate questions on antonyms and analogies. On the quantitative section, the biggest change will be the addition of an online calculator.

- As reported in the New York Times

ETS boasts of a 116 percent increase since 2006 in the number of European institutions (most of them business schools) that accept the GRE, and this year has seen a 68 percent increase in the percentage of exam scores sent to French institutions and a 62 percent increase to Spanish institutions.

- From Inside Higher Ed

“The changes were made to make a better prediction of student success in the graduate program,” said Jonathan Cumming, assistant vice president for graduate education at West Virginia University.

The Educational Testing Service changed the verbal section to be more logical-reasoning based than memorization, Cumming said.”

- as reported here

“Previously, students could not go back to answer questions they skipped.”

- as reported here

“The most significant change was an alteration of the test’s scoring system, Mitchell said. The scoring scale has decreased from between 200-800 points, to 130-170 points.

The scoring change will group students’ scores closer together so admissions officials don’t overstate the importance of the test, said Karen Klomparens, the dean of MSU’s Graduate School.”

- as reported here

Many of the anticipated changes are leftovers of the failed attempt to overhaul the exam in 2007 – ETS was forced to drop proposed changes to the GRE just months before it was to have taken place, due to computer testing difficulties.

The cost of the exam (currently $150 in the United States) is not expected to go up because of the revisions, but ETS’s pricing review next year could result in an increase in cost before the new version is offered.”

- as reported here

“The Educational Testing Service discussed the changes for the new test at the annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools in San Francisco.

The testing service is making changes to the GRE under pressure to compete with the Graduate Management Admission Test, the exam used for entrance into many post-undergraduate businesses programs. The GRE is now being accepted by programs in more than 250 business schools, including seven of the top 10 global master’s programs, said the Educational Testing Service Web site.

The GRE is taken by 600,000 prospective graduate students each year in 230 countries and is accepted by 3,200 graduate schools, according to the GRE Web site. It is administered in paper form or online, and includes a registration fee of $150.”

- as reported here

The GRE is required for admission into many graduate programs across the nation, including most of Princeton’s degree-granting graduate programs. (The graduate program in finance also accepts the Graduate Management Admission Test as an alternative.)

- as reported at The Daily Princetonian

“Students who are applying for graduate school may feel more pressure after 2011, when the Educational Testing Service will revitalize the old Graduate Record Exam with the largest update in 59 years.

Data interpretation and critical thinking skills will also be emphasized over geometric skills because the GRE is becoming increasingly popular as a replacement test offered instead of the Graduate Management Admission Test for business schools.

“[Kaplan] surveyed 260 schools this summer, and we found that one-quarter of business schools are accepting the GRE,” Mitchell said. “The nature of math questions will change and focus more on higher-level skills. It’s going to make this test harder.”

- As reported at badgerherald.com

New writing section will have more “focused” prompts to avoid memorized answers.

- according to this blogpost at columbiaspectator

In addition, the changes in the exam questions are part of a plan to replicate the same kind of work that students do in graduate school. Also, replacing geometry questions with data analysis questions makes the GRE look more appealing to business schools for use in administration decision-making, Payne said.

- as reported in the daily49er

Tags: AWA, GRE, GRE news, Quant, Revised GRE, Verbal

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