Kaplan will change the GRE format to prohibit cheaters and make the test a better predictor of student success in graduate school.
BRITNEY MALONEY
Staff Writer
Juniors and seniors thinking about taking the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) should consider taking it soon, according to officials at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions. Starting in October 2006, there will be significant changes in the examination, said Ben Baron, vice president of graduate programs at Kaplan.
The changes are going to be considerable and students should take it before next October because the entire format of the test will be altered, according to Baron.
One of the most obvious changes that will occur is the test’s length. It will go from being two-and-a-half hours to four hours long.
“Due to its length,” Baron said, “it will become an endurance test.”
There are two primary reasons for the changes. The first is that ETS, the makers of the test, have been striving to create an exam that is simply better and will better predict how students will do in graduate school, according to Baron.
The second reason is that there have been numerous episodes of cheating on the current test. The existing test is computer adaptive, which means that the questions are recycled to different students on different days. Some students would take the test and later proceed to post the test questions on the Internet for other students to view. To avoid that, the new test will be a linear computer-based examination. In other words, there will be certain questions that are used on only one day. The next test’s problems will be taken from an entirely new pool of questions.
In addition to the test being longer and changing in format, its content will also be modified. First, Educational Testing Services is altering the questions so that there will be more critical thinking and less memorization. For example, in the math section, there will be fewer geometry questions and more data interpretations, which require more reasoning. In the verbal section there will be fewer analogies and antonyms but more questions like sentence equivalency, which are questions that require the test taker to identify the best paraphrase for a particular passage.
Graduate student Ryan Bien said he thinks that the test’s changes mark an improvement.
“It is good that the focus of the exam is shifting toward critical thinking,” he said. “That’s a better way to gauge aptitude, and critical thinking is what gets you through grad school.”
Bien, a second-year graduate student in Pepperdine’s Religion department said that the GRE seemed largely extraneous before.
“When I took the GRE, I had to memorize a lot of words that people never use in speech or writing,” he said. “It seemed irrelevant to the graduate program I was applying for.”
Another change that will occur in the linear test is the point system. The exam is changing from a scale of 200 to 800 to a scale of 120 to 170. This adjustment is very similar to that of the SATs, when it switched from 1,600 points to 2,400. The result of this change will mean more work for admissions counselors, as they will be reviewing students who have taken both types of tests.
To help students review for the test, there will be a free graduate seminar at the Kaplan Center in Encino at 6 p.m tonight.
Dr. Rodney Reynolds, director of the Communications graduate program, said he thinks that an improved GRE still remains only one minor predictor of graduate student success.
“I think that the upcoming changes in the GRE are probably solid improvements. The changes should improve the validity of the exam,” he wrote in an e-mail this week. “On the other hand, we need to keep in mind that the GRE will remain only one predictor (and a relatively weak predictor) of graduate student success. Graduate admission committees are much more interested in specific evidence of achievement, persistence, inspiration and honor.”
10-31-2005