2008 Woodie Awards
Getting Ready for the GRE
Lori Lipkin
Issue date: 10/28/05 Section: Arts & Entertainment
Remember how just the sound or thought of the letters GRE caused you to cringe?
I have more news...
As of October 2006 the ever famous and usually dreaded GRE, Graduate Record Exam, the admissions exam required for entry to most graduate level programs, will be going through some major changes.
Not to worry - some of you will like the changes.
First off a company called ETS, Educational Testing Service, has been working over time to improve the test.
This non-profit organization that creates the GRE and GMAT, administers the exams and reports your scores to the grad schools you hope admittance to, also conducts ongoing research to continuously improve its tests.
Apparently four years of research has been in the makings along with guidance from the graduate educational community, causing the most significant overhaul in the 55 year GRE history.
As a start it is going to be doubling in length from 2 1/2 hours to at least 4.
Format wise, the regular computer adaptive test where the difficulty of the test is determined by the test taker's right or wrong answers, is changing to a linear computer test in which every student takes the same exam.
The material is being changed with additions of new complex reasoning questions and data interpretation questions.
Also, unlike the current exam, each version of the revised GRE General Test will be used only once, meaning no test takers will encounter the same questions on different dates.
The number of times the test will be administered annually will be 29 times, instead of continuous testing.
If this sounds pretty awful so far remember that you have a whole year to get prepared, begin to understand the changes so you can make important decisions regarding preparation, exam, and application time table.
So is the new test harder? According to the Princeton Review, it depends on your strengths and weaknesses. If you find essays more difficult than multiple choice tests, you might find the new test harder.
ETS believes that the changes will provide graduate schools with better information on an applicant's performance.
As it addresses security concerns and maximizes technology making better use of computer enabled questions, they expect the changes to increase the validity of the test.
David Payne, Executive Director of the GRE Program in ETS's Higher Education Division, believes the changes to the test are significant.
"The new test will emphasize complex reasoning skills that are closely aligned to graduate work."
He says the test includes more real life scenarios and data interpretation questions, and new, more focused writing questions.
Test takers will have to complete an Analytical Writing Assessment consisting of two writing tasks.
In the first, test takers will have 45 minutes to formulate an opinion on an issue of general interest and support that opinion.
In the second, test takers will have 30 minutes to discuss how convincing they find an argument's line of reasoning and the evidence supporting it.
In addition, the Verbal and Quantitative sections will have new score scales which will improve the GRE test's usefulness to students and to graduate schools.
"These changes are intended to make the GRE General Test a more accurate gauge of how qualified prospective students are to do graduate-level work," Payne continues.
"We'll also offer more interpretive information to graduate deans and faculty, including providing access to test takers' essay responses on the Analytical Writing section."
According to Kurt Landgraf, president and CEO of ETS, "High school reform has long been the most neglected part of public education which has been a disservice to our young people and to the nation as a whole.
For once those 16 year olds leave high school - uneducated, unprepared and undirected - they are no longer someone else's problem. They are our problem."
In taking on this problem Landgraf and ETS have been listening to educators, parents, and policymakers and learning from sound research, are leading the effort to achieve both informed public policy and informed educational practice."
But you'll need to be the judge of that. Here are some of the big changes in black and white:
Frankly, as a grad student in Hamilton Holt, I would like to re-take it to try and up my scores.
If only they reduced the cost too!
Changes Made to the GRE
Verbal Reasoning
- Two 40 minute sections rather than one 30 minute section.
- Greater emphasis on higher cognitive skills.
- A broader selection of reading passages.
- Expansion of computer enabled tasks.
Quantitative Reasoning
- Two 40 minute sections rather than one 45 minute section.
- Fewer geometry questions.
- More real-life scenarios and data interpretation questions.
Analytical Writing Changes
- 15 minutes shorter.
- More focused questions to ensure original analytical writing.
- 30 minute argument and issue task.
I have more news...
As of October 2006 the ever famous and usually dreaded GRE, Graduate Record Exam, the admissions exam required for entry to most graduate level programs, will be going through some major changes.
Not to worry - some of you will like the changes.
First off a company called ETS, Educational Testing Service, has been working over time to improve the test.
This non-profit organization that creates the GRE and GMAT, administers the exams and reports your scores to the grad schools you hope admittance to, also conducts ongoing research to continuously improve its tests.
Apparently four years of research has been in the makings along with guidance from the graduate educational community, causing the most significant overhaul in the 55 year GRE history.
As a start it is going to be doubling in length from 2 1/2 hours to at least 4.
Format wise, the regular computer adaptive test where the difficulty of the test is determined by the test taker's right or wrong answers, is changing to a linear computer test in which every student takes the same exam.
The material is being changed with additions of new complex reasoning questions and data interpretation questions.
Also, unlike the current exam, each version of the revised GRE General Test will be used only once, meaning no test takers will encounter the same questions on different dates.
The number of times the test will be administered annually will be 29 times, instead of continuous testing.
If this sounds pretty awful so far remember that you have a whole year to get prepared, begin to understand the changes so you can make important decisions regarding preparation, exam, and application time table.
So is the new test harder? According to the Princeton Review, it depends on your strengths and weaknesses. If you find essays more difficult than multiple choice tests, you might find the new test harder.
ETS believes that the changes will provide graduate schools with better information on an applicant's performance.
As it addresses security concerns and maximizes technology making better use of computer enabled questions, they expect the changes to increase the validity of the test.
David Payne, Executive Director of the GRE Program in ETS's Higher Education Division, believes the changes to the test are significant.
"The new test will emphasize complex reasoning skills that are closely aligned to graduate work."
He says the test includes more real life scenarios and data interpretation questions, and new, more focused writing questions.
Test takers will have to complete an Analytical Writing Assessment consisting of two writing tasks.
In the first, test takers will have 45 minutes to formulate an opinion on an issue of general interest and support that opinion.
In the second, test takers will have 30 minutes to discuss how convincing they find an argument's line of reasoning and the evidence supporting it.
In addition, the Verbal and Quantitative sections will have new score scales which will improve the GRE test's usefulness to students and to graduate schools.
"These changes are intended to make the GRE General Test a more accurate gauge of how qualified prospective students are to do graduate-level work," Payne continues.
"We'll also offer more interpretive information to graduate deans and faculty, including providing access to test takers' essay responses on the Analytical Writing section."
According to Kurt Landgraf, president and CEO of ETS, "High school reform has long been the most neglected part of public education which has been a disservice to our young people and to the nation as a whole.
For once those 16 year olds leave high school - uneducated, unprepared and undirected - they are no longer someone else's problem. They are our problem."
In taking on this problem Landgraf and ETS have been listening to educators, parents, and policymakers and learning from sound research, are leading the effort to achieve both informed public policy and informed educational practice."
But you'll need to be the judge of that. Here are some of the big changes in black and white:
Frankly, as a grad student in Hamilton Holt, I would like to re-take it to try and up my scores.
If only they reduced the cost too!
Changes Made to the GRE
Verbal Reasoning
- Two 40 minute sections rather than one 30 minute section.
- Greater emphasis on higher cognitive skills.
- A broader selection of reading passages.
- Expansion of computer enabled tasks.
Quantitative Reasoning
- Two 40 minute sections rather than one 45 minute section.
- Fewer geometry questions.
- More real-life scenarios and data interpretation questions.
Analytical Writing Changes
- 15 minutes shorter.
- More focused questions to ensure original analytical writing.
- 30 minute argument and issue task.