Graduate Record Exam undergoes changes

Starting in October, 2006, the Graduate Record Exam will almost double in length and switch to an Internet delivery format.

The GRE is required for admission to graduate schools in fields other than business, law and medicine. These include education, journalism and science. The GRE is administered by the Educational Testing Service.

"We decided to make these changes as a result of input that we've gotten from graduate deans," said David Payne, the executive director of the GRE program at ETS. "They wanted us to see if we could improve the validity of the GRE scores. Specifically, they wanted us to revise the test so that the skills that we were measuring were closer in line with the skills students need for their graduate studies."

Although the GRE has undergone minor changes in recent years, the new GRE format which will take effect in October 2006 will include many major changes.

"In terms of the magnitude, it's safe to call it the biggest change that the GRE has had ever," said Ben Baron, the vice president of graduate programs for Kaplan Test Prep. "Not only is the test being dramatically lengthened, but there are also some significant content changes."

The GRE will lengthen from two-and-a-half hours to at least four hours. Also, the new material tested will include more complex reasoning and data interpretation questions.

Payne said students have regularly asked about the significance of some questions, including analogies and antonyms, in relation to the knowledge they will need for graduate school.

"One of the things that will be very positive about the new test is that the students are going to see the direct relevance to the types of questions they are being asked to what they will be doing in their graduate programs," Payne said.

The scoring scale will also shift from the current 200 to 800 point system to a 120 to170 point system. Payne said this shift in scoring is important for the mental aspect.

"The professional standards in mental testing are that if you change the test, you should change the scoring system," Payne said.

It is appropriate to change the scale because of the lengthening of the test and dramatic change to question types, he said.

Currently, the GRE can be taken almost every day of the year. The new test format will decrease the number of times the exam is administered to 30 times a year. This is because the test will delivered to students through the Internet. Instead of going to a sponsored testing center, universities will be able to administer the test on specific days in a computer lab, Payne said.

Internet delivery allows the test to move from a computer-adaptive test to a linear computer-based test. The computer-adaptive test used today gives students questions dependent on their response to the previous question. This makes students respond to the question directly in front of them before they are able to move onto the next question, Payne said.

A student taking the linear computer-based test on a specific day will be asked the same questions as any other student taking the test that day. This format also lets students move back and forth to questions within a section. Once the changes take effect, all GRE tests administered will be delivered via the Internet as long as Internet access is available, Payne said.

The Internet delivery also allows ETS to send a student's essay responses to the graduate schools they apply to, Payne said.

"The faculty in the program that you applied to will be able to see the essays that you've written," Payne said. "The faculty will know that this is what the student wrote without the help of anyone else."

Syracuse's Graduate Enrollment Management Center said the effectiveness of the changes made to the GRE in past years, which has included the implementation of the writing section, are still in question.

"There is still a change going on with the graduate school departments getting more familiar with how to interpret the students' performance based on their writing skills," said Peter T. Englot, the director of graduate recruitment at the center.

Baron said Kaplan Test Prep is encouraging students to take the test before the changes because of the uncertainty of the new exam. He said the longer test length requires new pacing implications, as well as new skills for answering analytical questions.

"There is a lot of interest in the test changes," Baron said. "Primarily students ask, 'What does it mean for me that the test is changing?' It's still early. At Kaplan, as we get closer to the test change date, will be changing our course to adapt to the new test."

Students concerned with the recent changes to the GRE can attend a free, full-length practice session offered by Kaplan Test Prep this Saturday, Oct. 22, at noon in the Hall of Languages.