Beginning in the fall of 2011, Education Testing Services will unveil a new edition of the [info:'gre-exam' GRE], with a few notable changes to both test content and structure, that according to ETS more accurately reflect how students will perform in grad school.
Here are the most notable changes:
- Test takers using the computer version of the test will be able to move around among questions within sections, skipping a question and coming back later to revising an answer before finishing a section. In the current version, a test taker must give a final answer to a question before getting the next question.
- The scoring system for the verbal and quantitative sections of the test will be revised to be on scales of 130-170, with score increments of one point, replacing the current scale of 200-800, with score increments of 10 points.
- The section of [info:'gre-antonyms' antonyms] and [info:'gre-analogies' analogies] in the verbal section will be removed, with more reading comprehension added.
- The geometry section in the quantitative section will shrink, and additional [info:'gre-data-interpretation' data analysis] questions will be added.
- A calculator will be provided so that mathematics answers will be based on test-takers’ comprehension of concepts and not their speed at basic calculations.
The time of the exam will increase to 3 hours, 45 minutes.
Duane Larick, dean of the Graduate School at North Carolina State University, says he just learned of the planned changes last week and he likes what he sees, adding that the new GRE better tests a student’s ability to think critically through a problem.
“In the quantitative reasoning part, they’re adding a calculator for the first time,” he says. “When would you have a graduate student in a lab without a calculator … It’s [been] asking the student under pressure to do something you wouldn’t normally expect.”
Larick’s one concern, however, is how schools will use the new scoring system. Admissions personnel know what it means when an applicant has a score of 600, 700 or 800, but not when an applicant scores 160. They will spend the next year reviewing the scoring procedures and planning for the change.
Read the full article: New GRE Receiving Warm Welcome from Schools
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