GRE revised General Test replaces older exam

Starting Aug. 1, 2011, the Educational Testing Service officially replaced the GRE General Test with the GRE revised General Test.

“With new questions, a new score scale and a new test-taker friendly design, the GRE revised General Test offers applicants a friendlier, more technically advanced test that provides you with even more useful results,” the ETS website states.

Most of the University’s degree-granting graduate programs require GRE scores in applications, though candidates for the graduate program in finance may instead take the Graduate Management Admission Test.

The new GRE has overhauled the content, format and scoring of the standardized test. Analogies and antonyms have been eliminated from the verbal reasoning section, replaced by more reading comprehension questions that focus on understanding vocabulary in specific contexts. Meanwhile, the quantitative section features fewer simple computation problems and instead uses data analysis and reasoning questions to test candidates’ math ability. Finally, the analytical writing section no longer provides a choice of topics for a particular task, instead issuing more specific directions “to ensure you can integrate critical thinking and analytical writing by fully addressing the tasks presented,” according to the GRE website.

Students also have greater flexibility with the format of the test, as they can now change any of their answers within one section, in any order, before moving on to the next section. Previously, the computer-based test meant that questions were determined for each individual student based on his or her success with previous questions.

In addition, the grading scale has been changed from a 200 to 800 scale in 10-point increments to a 130 to 170 scale in one-point increments, allowing for clearer emphasis of larger gaps between different scores. The test is also three-and-a-half hours long, when it previously took three hours.

“ETS has revised the test to better reflect the kind of thinking you’ll do in graduate or business school and improve your test-taking experience,” the ETS website states. “New types of questions now more closely align with the skills you need to succeed in today’s demanding graduate and business school programs.”

All GRE scores will be reported using the new scoring scale starting in November 2011.

According to the 2009-10 Career Services Annual Report, 20.2 percent and 21.4 percent of undergraduates from the classes of 2010 and 2009 respectively entered graduate or professional school after graduation. For comparison, 33.9 percent and 29.6 percent of 2010 and 2009 graduates reported that they would enter the workforce immediately.

Most students from the Class of 2010 who reported that they were entering graduate or professional school entered programs in the sciences or math, followed by medical school and graduate school in the humanities, according to the report. Columbia, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania were the graduate schools with the highest number of University students from the Class of 2010 enrolled.