Beginning next October, the Graduate Record Exam, the entrance exam for graduate school, will undergo changes in its length and question format. The adjustments are an effort to increase the ability of the test to determine a student's potential for success in graduate school and to ensure exam security.
According to David Payne, executive director of the GRE program at Educational Testing Service, the changes will affect each section of the general test.
"What we are really doing is changing all three sections so we can try to improve the validity of the scores," Payne said.
The current verbal section of the exam includes antonyms and analogies, which test an understanding of vocabulary but do not necessarily assess the analytical skills necessary for graduate school.
"We are dropping those item types and adding new item types that really demonstrate they understand the reading or the thesis of an argument," Payne said.
Instead of focusing on vocabulary, the new verbal reasoning section will include reading passages followed by comprehension questions. It will consist of two 40-minute sections rather than one 30-minute section.
The qualitative reasoning section will become two 40-minute sections instead of one 45-minute section. Additionally, the analytical writing section will now include two 30-minute essays instead of one 30-minute and one 45-minute essay. Overall, the test length will increase from two and half hours to four hours.
According to Payne, the changes were suggested by the GRE Board, an advising board made up of graduate school faculty from around the nation.
Linda Dykstra, a member of the GRE Board and dean of the graduate school at UNC-Chapel Hill, also stated the changes came at the request of graduate faculty.
"Most of the members of the GRE Board are deans of graduate schools and have been hearing from their programs that the information that the program needed to predict the success of students in graduate school could be improved," Dykstra said.
Payne added that the measures were an effort not only to increase the comprehensiveness of the exam, but also to increase its security.
The GRE will now be a linear test, in which each person taking the test in one day would answer the same questions. Previously, the test was computer adaptive, meaning that what questions people were asked was determined by their answers to previous questions, which demanded an incredibly large number of potential questions.
"Our plan is to use the items on one test and not on subsequent administrations of test," Payne said.
Additionally, Payne said test start times will be staggered to prevent cheating, and therefore people around the world will be taking the test at the same time. ETS had previously recognized cheating in China, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
"The new computer-based linear test will allow us to give everyone around the world the same test," Payne said.
Dykstra said she feels confident about the future success of the exam.
"I am hopeful that the new changes will provide a better predictor of success in graduate school," Dykstra said. "The changes will also provide better security of information."
Bob Rood, chair of the Astronomy Department, said although the GRE is important in making admissions decisions, he doubts the changes will do much to affect the department's application process.
The GRE "is the one constant that we have for everybody, so that is an important factor," Rood said. "I doubt that changing the GRE will make it any better for us. I am not terribly happy or unhappy with the test, but I wish predictors of good graduate students were better than they are."
Approximately 500,000 students take the GRE each year.
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