Students concerned by revised GRE test

The Graduate Record Examination is undergoing its biggest
overhaul in its 55-year history, affecting what the Educational
Testing Service estimates to be 500,000 future graduate
students.

Starting October 2006, the GRE will change its content, format
and scoring method. The test will also nearly double in length,
from two and a half hours to over four hours, and the number of
times the exam is offered will decrease from almost daily to 30
times a year.

These changes, fueled by four years of research, are meant to
enhance security measures, make better use of available technology,
and increase the test’s validity, according to ETS.

Students expressed dismay as to the near doubling of the length
of the exam.

“The physical toll of a four-hour exam is daunting,”
said Brandon Kim, a third-year philosophy student, who says it is
likely he will take the exam in the future.

College students applying to most graduate-level programs are
required to take the GRE General Test, which measures critical
thinking, quantitative and verbal reasoning, and analytical
writing.

Most graduate programs at UCLA require or recommend that
applicants take the GRE General Test, according to the graduate
admissions Web site.

Students entering certain programs are also required to take GRE
Subject Tests to prove competency in specific subjects, including
sciences, English literature, mathematics, physics and
psychology.

The exam is administered by ETS, which also administers the SAT
and Advanced Placement subject exams.

As far as content, each section of the exam will be longer, and
portions will focus on more specific types of questions that
research has indicated are most relevant to graduate study.

When discussing the changes to the GRE, several students said
that when compared to all-day exams like the eight-hour MCAT, a
four-hour test doesn’t seem so bad.

Some even said the benefits of making the exam more
comprehensive and a better indicator of readiness may outweigh the
negatives of taking a longer, more difficult exam.

Ensuring graduate students are fully qualified for their program
of study is especially important at schools like UCLA, where
graduate student teaching assistants have a direct influence on the
quality of undergraduate education, said Quy Tran, a third-year
biophysics student.

“If you want to (go to) grad school (there should be) no
easy way out,” Tran said.

Compared to the current GRE, the verbal reasoning section of the
exam will feature more reading passages, emphasize higher cognition
and complex reading skills, and rely less on vocabulary.

The quantitative reasoning section will have fewer geometry
questions and more “real-life” scenarios, which are
designed to replicate the ways students will utilize quantitative
reasoning in their studies.

The analytical writing section will have more focused prompts to
reduce the possibility of reliance on previously memorized
materials, according to ETS.

After the recent announcement that the MCAT would be phasing out
its paper-based test over the next year, students voiced their
concerns with being unable to write in the test booklet and
highlight or underline passages. They were also concerned that
their concentration would have to jump from the scratch work to the
computer screen.

The new GRE will incorporate even more computer usage than
before, with an on-screen calculator for the quantitative reasoning
portion of the exam.

The scoring system for the revised exam will change from the 200
to 800 point range used now to a 120 to 170 point range.

ETS began a field test of the new exam last week. Final
revisions will be based upon results and feedback from the field
test, which is scheduled to conclude Nov. 4.

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