Changes planned for GRE

Students planning to apply to graduate school may want to schedule their Graduate Record Examination sooner rather than later ““ in November two new question formats will be added to the test, possibly making it more challenging.

Educational Testing Service, or ETS, the developer of the GRE, will be introducing one new verbal question type similar to previous “fill-in-the-blank” questions to test vocabulary, and one new math question format where test takers fill in the answer as opposed to picking from multiple choice options.

Karen Bogan, a spokeswoman for ETS, said the company has been planning major changes for the GRE for years. These planned changes were supposed to occur in a major overhaul earlier this year, but instead it was decided that changes would be unveiled gradually.

These two new question types represent the beginning of this long-term reworking of the exam.

“(The new questions) are part of ETS’s continuous effort to update the test,” Bogan said.

“We’re trying to implement content changes and security changes without majorly overhauling the test and causing an inconvenience to students,” she added.

Test takers will only see one new question on their exams and the question will not be counted in their scores until sometime in 2008, after ETS has determined that the questions are successful and should be a permanent part of the exam.

Despite Bogan’s calling these “minor” changes, some students are wary.

Julia Troche, a fourth-year Near Eastern languages and cultures student, said she had heard of the impending changes and had scheduled her test before November.

“I just didn’t want to be a guinea pig. I felt like there was going to be … a testing period where they were figuring out the last kinks, and I didn’t want to be a test subject,” she said.

Troche said she thought the changes could confuse students, especially students like herself who might want to retake the test after it has been altered, but may not know what to study or prepare for.

“That might impact me taking it another time. I don’t want to take it again if they change it,” she said.

Jennifer Kedrowski, a GRE program manager for Kaplan Testing Services, said these new question formats could be potentially more challenging for students.

“All of our students have been saying that … they’d rather not face too many new, difficult question types.” she said.

With the new math question type in particular, she said not having multiple choice may be more difficult.

“It’s potentially more challenging because you don’t have those answers there to guide you,” she said.

Because the questions are still being researched, ETS’s official test preparation material will not be updated to include the new questions until they are finalized, though students can practice them online at the company’s Web site.

Private companies that provide their own GRE test preparation materials may update at any time, Bogan said.