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| Edited By: Yogita Rao |Source: DNA |Updated: Feb 27, 2011, 11:59 PM IST
Come August and students taking the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) will experience a test-taker friendly exam. GRE which is taken by students across the world for admissions to graduate schools in the US has undergone several changes.
Educational Testing Services (ETS), which administers GRE has brought about changes to ensure students’ skills are more aligned to the requirements in graduate and off late B-schools as well. The new testing pattern ensures that the results are more reliable and does not encourage mugging up theory.
Students will also be able to skip questions and go back to them when they have time, unlike the earlier pattern. Vinayak Kudva, the head of IMS Learning Resources Private Limited, which trains students to attempt GRE, said, “From the last year, several B-schools in US also have started accepting the scores. ETS has started promoting it for B-schools as well. The new format will test students on their reasoning skills,” said Kudva.
Kudva also feels that the revised GRE is also trying to set a benchmark for B-schools. “In GMAT, B-schools had a benchmark. In GRE they don’t have one. The revised pattern will cover both the needs of graduate schools and B-schools. Even the vocabulary section will not have questions on analogies and antonyms, they will be more based on completion of sentences, writing comprehension, etc. This will do away with the need for mugging up, which many candidates indulged in.,” said Kudva. He added that in the new test, unlike in the earlier test, where the level of difficulty changed from question to question, the difficulty level will change from section to section.
The ETS suggests students who need their scores for admission in the 2012 fall will have to take the test in the existing pattern as the results for the revised pattern will be out only after November 2011 as opposed to the 15 days period.
The new testing format will have more of verbal reasoning and quantitative reasoning questions featuring more real-life scenarios that would show the students’ thinking in today’s demanding courses, claim the information provided by the executive director, ETS, Cathrael Kazin. Students will also be able to review or preview the questions that they have taken and an online calculator also will be provided for students’ benefits. According to Kazin, online study material will be provided to candidates for the revised test.
