Like a grad school version of the SAT or ACT, the GRE is the entrance examination used by most grad school programs, other than law or medical schools. Not every graduate program requires it, of course - many music conservatories, for example, make their admission decisions based on auditions and portfolios, not a fill-in-the-bubble exam. But the GRE is the biggie. It's divided into verbal and quantitative reasoning sections, plus an analytical writing section.
But a major revision of the exam - with different types of questions and a radically different scoring scale - goes into effect in August 2011. The revised exam will include new problem-solving questions that put the emphasis on real life scenarios - that's a new emphasis on the revised GMAT too. Analogies are out, reading comprehension and data interpretation are emphasized. Some questions are not multiple choice, and some multiple choice questions have multiple correct answers, all of which must be checked. For example:
SAMPLE QUESTION FROM THE GRE: "Each employee of a certain company is in either Department X or Department Y, and there are more than twice as many employees in Department X as in Department Y. The average (arithmetic mean) salary is $25,000 for the employees in Department X and is $35,000 for the employees in Department Y. Which of the following amounts could be the average salary for all of the employees in the company? Indicate all such amounts."
- $26,000
- $28,000
- $29,000
- $30,000
- $31,000
- $32,000
- $34,000
Answer: A and B
Other changes include an onscreen calculator and the ability to change answers and skip ahead on the computer-based exam. (Calculators are provided when you take the paper version of the exam.)
The scoring will change too. The verbal and quantitative reasoning sections of the old test are scored on a 200-800 point scale, in 10-point chunks, so you can score a 640 or a 650, for example, not a 643. But the new version is scored on a 130-170 scale, with 1-point changes. In both versions, the writing portion is scored on a 0-6 scale.
Grad school applicants applying in 2011 will need to decide whether they want to take the old or new version of the exam - and grad school deadlines will be key. According to ETS, which administers the GRE, scores for the new version will be ready after Nov. 2011, so anyone who needs scores before then should take the old version of the exam.
Need more information? Visit ETS' official GRE website for more sample questions or to register for the exam.
