The Educational Testing Service announced Monday that it had cancelled plans to implement a revised Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test.
The decision was made after deliberations on the part of ETS with consultation from the Executive Committee of the GRE Board, which oversees GRE tests, services and research, according to a press release.
The GRE General Test is used in graduate school admissions and tests a student’s verbal ability and analytical writing, as well as quantitative reasoning.
The revised GRE would have made substantial changes to the content and structure of the original GRE, said Tom Ewing, a spokesman for ETS.
Some of the changes included increasing the length of the test from 3 hours to approximately 4 hours and 20 minutes.
The biggest change, however, would have been reformatting the test to eliminate analogies and antonyms and to include new question types, as opposed to the traditional multiple choice questions.
The revised GRE also would have reduced the number of tests offered, from six per week to approximately 35 times per year. Officials say this change would have reduced the ability of those taking the test to access the test.
In a press release, ETS cited test-taker access as the main concern that convinced them to change their mind about the revisions.
“After much debate and evaluation, it became clear that the current format (of the GRE) offers students more convenient and flexible opportunities to test when and where they choose,” said David Payne, executive director of the GRE program at ETS, in a statement.
“(It does this) while still providing score users with valid predictors of test-takers’ preparedness for graduate school study,”.
Though the changes to the GRE will not be made for the 2007-2008 test, in the future, some revisions could be made.
But any future revisions to the GRE will be made gradually, rather than all at once, as the cancelled revisions would have been, said Ewing.
For Taleen Dersaroian, a third-year French student who is planning on taking the GRE, the announcement to revise or not revise the test would not affect her decision regarding whether or not to take the test.
“Either way (with or without the changes), you have to take the GRE for graduate school. When I take it and which format I take it in doesn’t matter,” Dersaroian said.
However, for some students, the testing service’s plan to change the GRE was a major factor in deciding when and under which format to take the test.
“There was definitely a lot of student interest in registering for test prep courses because of the proposed changes,” said Russell Schaffer, senior communications manager for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions.
But due to the decision not to revise the test in the foreseeable future, “a lot of students might be breathing a sigh of relief,” Schaffer said.