Testing Company Certifies New GRE
2 min readBy MOLLY HODGES
Many University of Mary Washington upperclassmen applying to graduate or business school will take the revamped Graduate Record Examination (GRE), which is intended to be more user-friendly and include new types of questions.
In August 2011, Educational Testing Services (ETS) introduced the GRE revised general test. According to ETS, the exam is now accepted by over 800 Masters of Business Administration BA programs worldwide.
“It more closely reflects the kind of thinking you’ll do in graduate or business school and demonstrates that you are ready for graduate-level work,” according to the ETS website.
Additionally, the new “ScoreSelect” option allows applicants to select their best scores to send to chosen institutions.
The GRE revised general test is divided into three sections: verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and analytical writing.
The score scales have been modified for the verbal reasoning and quantitative reasoning portions of the exam due to the significant changes made to these sections.
The two scores for both the verbal reasoning and quantitative reasoning sections are reported in one-point increments on a 130-170 score scale.
The analytical writing score scale has remained unchanged. A score is reported in half-point increments on a 0-6 score scale.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, “The changes come following a 57 percent boom in fall enrollment in graduate, medical and law schools.”
In addition to the changes made to the content of the questions, test takers will take a longer exam.
According to U.S. News & World Report, the former test took place over the course of three hours, but the GRE revised general test will take about four hours to complete.
Senior Chelsea Mays approves of the changes designed to make the exam more student-friendly.
“This allows people to play up their strengths,” said Mays.
Senior Clara Coward said the changes could potentially be beneficial.
“It seems weird to me how ‘what is going to be useful in the real world’ is testable by standardized testing,” said Coward.
