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News

Revised GRE pushed back to 2007

New exam results would be 'valid and reflective;' test prep officials urge students to take it soon 

by JESSICA ROBERTSON
Senior Staff Writer

The launch of the redesigned Graduate Record Examinations General Test set for October has been delayed until Fall 2007. 

The new test will feature some of the most significant changes in the GRE's 55-year history, including revised content and an Internet-based format.

The Educational Testing Service, which administers the GRE, wants to run more field testing before implementing the changes, said David Payne, executive director of the GRE Program in ETS' Higher Education Division.

"We want to be absolutely certain when we launch the test that it comes without any glitches," Payne said. "We could have delayed the launch for just a few months, but September and October are the periods of the largest volume of test-takers, so in order to effectively launch the revised GRE to a large enough group, we need to push it back a year."

Officials at the Princeton Review, a company that provides in-person and online test preparation courses, who have criticized ETS' motives for changing the GRE, said the delay was to be expected.

"We're not surprised at all by the delay," said Liz Wands, national director of graduate programs at the Princeton Review. "We think their field testing hasn't been as successful as they would have liked, and they haven't been able to get the testing centers they need."

Because the GRE will only be offered 30 times a year once it is changed, testing centers will have to accommodate a larger number of students on fewer dates, Wands said.

Both the quantitative and verbal reasoning sections of the test will be expanded to two 40-minute sections from one 30-minute section. The writing portion will be shortened 15 minutes and focus more on analytical writing.

The test's time limit will increase to more than four hours from two and a half hours. 

The traditional GRE point scale of 200 to 800 on each section will be replaced with a scale of 40 to 50 points and a median somewhere between 120 and 179.

Payne said the new GRE would be more valid and reflective of graduate course work. 

The rest of the academic community is divided on the benefits of the revamped exam. The changes in format and availability of the test are motivated by money, Wands said. 

"I haven't heard those criticisms," Payne said. "We've invested $20 million plus in this ... and we haven't even announced what the new (test) fee will be, so I don't see how anyone can say it's about money." The revamped test will likely debut in September or October 2007, Payne said. Wands said the first round of test takers would be at a disadvantage.

"Not only will they be guinea pigs for ETS, but they will likely hold back scores of people who take (the revised GRE) in the first couple of runs ... because they need to develop a scoring scale that makes sense," she said. "It might take six weeks to get the scores, and graduate schools aren't going to know what to do with these scores because the scale is so different."

The Princeton Review is advising students who plan to apply to graduate schools in the next two years to take the GRE before it is changed, Wands said. 

Both ETS and the Princeton Review are developing preparatory materials for the new test.

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