January 30, 2006

New GRE set to go live this October

The new GRE grows ever closer:

According to the ETS Web site, the changes will better gauge students' preparation for graduate school by measuring general academic skills with more precision than in the past. A single 30-minute verbal section will be changed to two 40-minute sections. Sections on analogies and antonyms will be removed, while new sentence equivalence questions will be introduced and critical reading sections will be expanded. Quantitative reasoning -- lengthened from one 45-minute section to two 40-minute sections -- will include less geometry and more data interpretation and word problems. The test will be graded on a scale of 120-179, as opposed to the current 200-800 scale.

Some students resent the newer, longer length:

...Sam Penziner '07, who is also planning to attend graduate school, said he thinks the longer exam will measure test-taking stamina rather than skill. "Making the test longer emphasizes factors like endurance and stress that affect performance," Penziner said.

And graduate school doesn't require endurance and good stress-coping strategies?

Posted by kswygert at January 30, 2006 09:48 AM
Sitemeter