IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN WHEN THE GRADUATE RECORD EXAMINATION (GRE) GETS A FACE LIFT.

"I am rushing to take the GRE next month since the exam will change in September. The new GRE will be tougher and it makes more sense for me to appear for the exam now. Luckily the GRE is valid for five years and hence my score will be valid when I apply for admissions," says Raghav Shah, a student planning to apply for admissions to graduate school.

The GRE is a computer adaptive test conducted daily across the world. The GRE is a test needed by most US graduate schools for all programs except business related programs. GRE scores are expected to tell the admission committee whether or not students will succeed in graduate school. Since the exam is conducted daily, there is the possibility of students remembering questions and sharing test questions with friends after the exam. Besides this, the GRE focuses a lot on vocabulary, which forces students to literally eat dictionaries while preparing for the GRE. ETS, the body that conducts the GRE has been plagued with complaints and concerns for the past few years now.

To increase the GRE test validity and reduce the dependency on memorization, ETS is changing the GRE from September 2007. The new GRE expects to increase the ability to predict a student's performance in graduate school. "ETS keeps changing their tests and the scores associated with these tests. This often results in confusion among students as well as schools. When a test changes, there will always be students who take the new test and students who take the old test. In such a situation it becomes difficult for us to compare such students. However, since ETS has monopoly on the GRE, we have no choice but to accept the changes proposed by ETS," says an admission officer from Michigan State University.

New GRE test changes

The New Verbal Reasoning Section
Measures the ability to:
- Understand the meanings of words, sentences, and entire texts; understand relationships among words and among concepts
- Select important points; distinguish major from minor or irrelevant points; summarise text; understand the structure of a text
- Analyse and draw conclusions from discourse; reason from incomplete data; identify author's/speaker's assumptions and/or perspective; understand multiple levels of meaning (such as literal, figurative, text's intent, etc.)

Emphasis on skills related to graduate work, such as complex reasoning Increased emphasis on inferential reasoning Increased emphasis on verbal reasoning in context Increased number of reading comprehension questions based on a greater variety of reading passages Reduced emphasis on vocabulary out of context (no Antonyms or Analogies)

Inclusion of new question formats other than traditional multiple choice (ex. highlighting a sentence in a passage that serves the function described in the question)

Two 40-minute sections

The New Quantitative Reasoning Section
Measures the ability to:
- Understand quantitative information
- Interpret and analyze quantitative data
- Solve problems in a quantitative setting
- Apply basic mathematical skills and elementary mathematical concepts of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, probability, and statistics

Quantitative reasoning skills that are similar to skills generally used in graduate school
- Increased emphasis on questions involving real-life scenarios
- Increased emphasis on data interpretation
- Reduced emphasis on Geometry
- On-screen four-function calculator with square root (reduced emphasis on computation) - Inclusion of new question formats other than multiple-choice (such as entering a numeric answer via a keyboard)
- Two 40-minute sections

The New Critical Thinking and Analytical Writing Section
A new name to more accurately reflect the skills being measured
A performance-based measure that integrates the assessment of critical thinking and analytical writing
Measures the ability to:
- Articulate complex ideas clearly and effectively
- Examine claims and accompanying evidence
- Support ideas with relevant reasons and examples
- Sustain a well-focused, coherent discussion
- Control the elements of standard written English

New, more focused prompts
Requires a more specific response from the test taker
Will reduce the possibility of reliance on memorized materials
The Issue and Argument tasks are each 30 minutes in length
Essay responses will be made available electronically to institutional score recipients.

OLD VERSUS NEW
Changes in the new GRE which will benefit students include: going back to an answer to change it, better division of time among all the questions and fixed testing dates. Besides this, the GRE will no longer be computer adaptive. Previously the questions in the GRE were presented in a changing order of difficulty. In the new GRE, all candidates will get the same order of questions. In the current GRE students get scores ranging from 400 to 1600 in the Verbal and Quantitative sections and a score ranging from 0 to 6 on the Analytical Writing section. In the new GRE, the analytical writing score range will stay the same. However, the new score range is expected to between 130 and 170 in one point increments. The relationship between the old GRE scores and the new GRE scores has not yet been released by ETS but will be available in the future at www.ets.org/gre

After carefully going through the new GRE test pattern as well as the sample questions available on the official GRE website, you will realize that the new GRE is certainly not more difficult than the current GRE. The new GRE is being launched to provide you with a better test taking experience. The new GRE also helps the admission committee better evaluate your application and ability to do well in graduate school. You should certainly not rush taking the current GRE just to avoid confrontation with the new GRE. Remember, don't panic and read the new GRE contents carefully before deciding which GRE to opt for.