by Lana Khawaja
News Reporter
As graduation time nears, many seniors are busy deciding what to do with their lives now that they will not have to attend classes every day.
Some will go directly into the work force, while others will continue their education in graduate school.
However, there is one little obstacle in the way of immediately moving forward to graduate school - the entrance exam.
Four different graduate school entrance exams can be taken, depending on the student's major. The GMAT is for business majors, the LSAT is for law majors, the MCAT is for aspiring doctors and the GRE is for all other majors.
The GRE General Test is required by graduate and professional schools, and the test results, along with undergraduate transcripts, are considered very important criteria as part of the graduate school admission process.
"Admission into graduate school differs depending on the major," said Victoria Dama, a customer service representative in the University of Houston admissions office. "Each college looks at the GPA even though there are different criteria for each major."
The GRE consists of three sections: verbal ability, quantitative ability and analytical ability.
The verbal ability section contains two 38-question sections containing analogies, antonyms, sentence completions and reading comprehension questions.
The second section, quantitative ability, consists of two 30-question sections containing arithmetic, algebra, geometry, quantitative comparison and data interpretation questions.
"The math only goes up to the 10th-grade level, but many find it difficult because they haven't done it in such a long time," said Rob Levy, the director of the graduate-test seminar program at Stanley Kaplan.
The analytical section includes two 25-question sections containing analytical and logical reasoning questions.
The exam consists entirely of multiple-choice questions contained in seven timed sections. Each question presents five answer choices, except for the quantitative comparison section, which presents only four choices.
Since 1992, students have been able to take the GRE by computer instead of the traditional pencil-and-paper method.
"The tests have the same format and questions (for paper and computer tests), but there are pros and cons in each instance," Levy said.
"By taking the exam on the computer, there is no wait," Levy said. "It is given several times throughout the semester, whereas the paper-and-pencil exam is administered only once or twice a year."
Also, with the computer exam, scores are tallied up right away instead of having to wait four to six weeks for the pencil-and-paper results.
Registration for the computerized test can be done over the telephone instead of in person, which is the only way to register for the pencil-and-paper exam.
However, Levy said the computer method can have its disadvantages. "The downside is that, if a student finds a problem difficult, skipping around is not possible on the computer exam like it is on the pencil and paper," Levy said.
And according to Wendy Voelkle, high school director at the Princeton Review, the computer method costs more than the paper exam. "The fee for the GRE exam is $96 for the computer and $80 for the pencil and paper," Voelkle said.
Students who are looking into taking the other exams will find they have slight differences from the GRE.
"The other exams also contain multiple-choice questions, but all three contain at least one or two essay questions," Voelkle said.
"The GMAT is $84, the LSAT is $81 and the MCAT is a whopping $155," Voelkle said.
A fee waiver is possible if the student is eligible. Eligibility is determined by the institution's undergraduate financial aid office.
The student must meet GRE Board financial-need guidelines, have U.S. citizenship and senior classification and be a financial aid recipient.
In order to find out the dates the exams are given, stop by the Counseling and Testing office, located on the second floor of the Student Service Center.
There are also several books at the UH Bookstore designed to help students pass the exams. They go into detail about what the contents of each test consists and the best way to study for them.
Additionally, the books provide past exams and answers for students to use for practice. These study guides cost from $10 to $20.