GRE will change in length, price and content

In September 2007, the Graduate Record Exam -- the entrance exam for graduate school -- will increase in length, price and, for the half-million students who take the test each year, work, said Susan Kaplan, director of graduate programs for the Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions. \nThe Educational Testing Service determines all changes to the test, Kaplan said, and it wants the GRE to be "a more accurate predictor of success."\nSecurity and cheating issues have prompted the change from a test that often shares questions from test to test, to one that will not repeat questions and will only be offered on 30 dates, Kaplan said. Because no questions will be repeated from test to test, students who have already taken the test will not be able to post questions on the Internet, she said.\n"The reason they're not going to reuse questions is to address that security issue," she said.\nThe test, currently 2 1/2 hours long, will extend to more than four hours, Kaplan said, requiring much more stamina from test-takers.\nCurrently, the test is computer-adaptive, which means the computer changes the question difficulty based on how a student does on previous questions, but the new test will not have the adaptive format, she said. Instead, it will ask questions at a variety of levels, hence the reason for the longer time of the exam.\n"The content is, of course, focusing on high cognitive and reasoning skills," Kaplan said. "Many people are going to find that to be more difficult."\nGraduate and Professional Student Organization moderator Paul Rohwer said the test could make students look more appealing when trying to get in to grad school.\n"If you're taking a more difficult test and you do well on it, it makes you stand out that much more," Rohwer said.\nThe new test will also focus less on vocabulary and geometry and more on critical reading, sentence completion and data interpretation, Kaplan said. The scoring scale will also be adjusted to 130-170, instead of the current range of 200-800, she said, but a scoring table will help schools compare the two scales.\nThe writing portion of the exam will experience a change as well, she said. The essays a test-taker writes will be available for graduate schools to read, whereas now they can only see the student's score.\n"It gives schools another area they can evaluate students on, so students will need to make sure they're prepared for that section as well," she said.\nAlthough Kaplan said ETS hasn't determined the new price, the current price of taking the exam is $130 and will increase, she said.\nRohwer said he thought the test would be harder with the changes but said students could benefit by taking both the old and new tests.\n"Right now, I would tell people they should take both tests," Rohwer said. "Then you can submit whichever one you do better at."\nKaplan's best advice is to take the test early and take practice tests at any of the Kaplan centers around the country.\n"It's really extensive, and it really does impact every aspect of the exam," Kaplan said.\nBecause of the changes, Kaplan suggests students try to take the exam before the upcoming changes, even if they aren't expecting to go to graduate school in the near future.\n"Scores are good for five years," Kaplan said. "If someone is thinking of going in a few years, take it before it changes"