Planned changes to Graduate Record Exam underway

Elysia Glover Guest Writer

Students planning to take the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) this fall may see something a little more familiar than they had originally expected.

After a joint decision by the Educational Testing Services (ETS) and the GRE Executive Advisory Board, the release of a fully-revised, computer-based GRE was halted this past April as a result of concerns over the accessibility of an Internet-based examination. According to a press release on the ETS Web site, officials believed that the potential complications arising from an online format “outweighed the benefits of immediately moving to the new format.”

According to the ETS press release, the original plan for the revised examinations called for administering the exam through use of a new global network of 3,200 Internet-based testing centers.
Despite efforts to expand the network, it became clear in the final three months of expansion that the centers, currently testing sites for the Test of English as a Foreign Language exam, would not be suited to accommodate GRE test takers by Fall 2007. ETS decided to cancel the planned launch of the revised GRE, stating that “the new format would have limited the convenience and flexibility that students enjoy now with the current test.”

The first phase of GRE restructuring, as announced on July 20, is scheduled to take effect for the upcoming November 2007 examination and will reflect the Board’s move toward a more comprehensive examination of critical thinking skills. Excluding the paper-based GRE and split administration of the GRE General Test administered in China (including Hong Kong), Korea and Taiwan, all other test takers can expect to see the changes this fall.

In spite of talk about increased testing times and alterations in scoring, students opening their exams this November may find themselves mildly shocked by the familiar format.

In line with the first scheduled phase of the exam alterations, test takers may be met with one of the new critical thinking-based questions in either the verbal or quantitative sections of the exam. As stated on the ETS Web site, “The new verbal question type is a text completion question that requires the test taker to fill in two or three blanks within a passage from separate multiple-choice lists.”

This new format moves away from the current question format that requires the fill-in of a single blank within a passage from a single multiple-choice list. Students given the new quantitative question type will be required to give their answer as a number in a box (or in two boxes, in the case of a fraction).

The format and timing of the GRE sections is not scheduled to change. Both the verbal and quantitative reasoning sections will continue to be scored on a 200-800 scale in 10-point increments, while the analytical writing section will remain on a 0-6 score scale in half-point increments.

According to ETS, no test taker will receive more than one of the new questions on an exam. Citing the need to first collect sufficient data regarding the operational testing environment, ETS has also stated that the new question types will not impact test takers scores. However, they did state that this policy may change and advised test-takers to “treat [the question] as if it counts.” No dates were given regarding the change in scoring policy.

Associate Director of the Office of Career Development Stacy Bingham said, “I have always advised students that—with the exception of the algebra and geometry in the math section—the GRE measures information you have learned over the course of your lifetime, and is a test of your critical reading, writing and thinking skills. And these are areas where Vassar students tend to excel.”

Students wishing to register for the GRE can go to ets.org/gre for test sites and dates. The nearest testing site to Vassar is at 1 Civic Center Plaza, in downtown Poughkeepsie.