GRE adds more difficult questions
After November, getting into grad school could be more challenging.
Published Sept. 7, 2007
Students who plan to take the Graduate Record Examinations test might want to do so before November, when two new and more challenging types of questions will be introduced into the exam, said Katherine Lynne, Kaplan Test Preparation GRE program manager.
The GRE is a test that its creators claim predicts a student's performance in graduate school. It is required for admission to most graduate schools.
"Kaplan's recommendation is that students take the GRE sooner rather than later," Lynn said.
These changes come only a few months after Educational Testing Service, the administrator of the GRE, decided to scrap plans for a massive overhaul of the test.
The plan would have lengthened the test from 2 1/2 hours to 4 hours.
Part of the reason ETS decided to cancel the changes was because of the limited availability of the test, Lynn said.
It would have only been administered 30 times per year.
ETS stated in a news release that the company decided to introduce new question types and improvements gradually, rather than all at once.
"These question types have already been through extensive field trials, and the results indicate that the questions are functioning as intended," said David Payne, ETS associate vice president of higher education, in a news release.
The new test will include numeric entry problems. In the current version of the test, math questions are multiple choice.
The new problem set requires test-takers to input their answer as a number into a box on the computer.
The test will also include text completion questions. These questions require test-takers to fill in three blanks in a text using a separate list provided for each blank.
"Text completion is a longer form of sentence completion," Lynn said. "Test-takers are less likely to answer this question correctly statistically. There is no partial credit."
But some test takers in November might not have to face the new questions even after they have been released, Lynn said.
"Test-takers will see either one new verbal, one new numeric or none at all," Lynn said.
It is also a possibility that some early tests in November, including the new questions, will not count toward the final score, Payne said.
"We will begin counting these question types toward examinee scores as soon as we have an adequate sample of data from the operational testing environment," he said.
But Lynn said the testing service will not offer a warning when the new questions do begin to count.
"We are unsure when they will start to score them," Lynn said. "Treat them as if they are real."
For students who want to prepare for the new GRE questions, Kaplan Test Preparation is offering a free GRE practice test at 10 a.m. Oct. 20 at the Columbia Kaplan Center.
"Should students want to take the exam after November, we will be able to prepare them," Lynn said.
Although the new question types might worry some students, Lynn said awareness of these new types will help students to prepare for the exam.
"To what extent these changes affect scores is up to students to get ready for this new test," she said.