New GRE to be launched in August

Exam friendlier, more efficient for both test takers, faculty

By Han Sang-hee

For students pursuing an undergraduate degree, the door of opportunities opens to lead in various directions: work, travel or continued academic endeavors by enrolling in a graduate school. If the last one is the case, before choosing a school with the best-looking campus and impressive faculty, first things first: an impressive GRE score... after taking the revised one, of course.

The Graduate Record Exam, commonly known as the GRE, was first created in 1949 by the Education Testing Service (ETS) and was introduced to Korea in 1955. Some 600,000 take the test every year in 180 countries while many graduate schools around the world recognize the scores as an important requirement in the admission process. Only 10 Korean graduate schools currently follow suit, including those at Yonsei and Seoul National universities.

Considering the impact the revision may create for institutes and test takers, David Payne, vice president of ETS, paid a visit to Korea for the first time to make sure everything had been prepared properly for the changes.

“The main reason for my visit is to share information and make sure Korean students and Korean university officials know what’s going on,” he said during an interview last Friday at a hotel in northern Seoul.

The GRE is divided into three sections — Analytical Writing, Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning — but a transition in terms of the questions will mainly be made in the latter two areas. While the previous tests include problems regarding vocabulary and analogies, the ETS eventually recognized the correlation of the test and future graduate studies. By making more relevant adjustments to the problems test takers will confront in real life, the GRE will hopefully become a bridge in guiding them to the next level.

“For example, after reading a passage, the questions will ask the test taker to highlight a sentence that provides a point of view that is counter to the main thesis of the passage. That’s closer to what you will be doing in graduate school where you are going to be reading passages, figuring out the author’s point of view and looking at evidence that is for or contrary to that point of view,” Payne explained.

A new scoring system will also be introduced to help both test takers and faculty to correctly interpret the scores. The current score scale for the Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning section is from 200 to 800 and in 10 point increments. Even if you only make two mistakes, you lose 20 points, which can seem like a lot when compared to other people’s scores when there is actually only a two point difference. To avoid this misinterpretation based on small score differences, the score scale will change to range between 130 and 170 with a one point increment.

“When we deliver the scores to the schools to make admission decisions and the new score scale will encourage faculty to interpret the scores appropriately,” Payne said.

Another part of the transition deals with friendliness. To start off, the revised test will have a calculator on the screen.

“When we have a calculation to work on, we reach for a calculator. We don’t use a pencil and paper anymore,” Payne said.

The test will also allow the test taker to go back and forth in whatever order he or she desires in terms of solving questions, giving him or her flexibility to use their test taking strategies most effectively, rather than having to work in an artificial situation.

Until now, Korea, Taiwan and China have been holding two separate tests: the verbal and quantitative reasoning through paper based tests and the analytical writing through computer based ones. Due to question leakage incidents in Korea, the ETS only allowed paper based tests to be held twice per year, pushing students to travel to neighboring Japan or the Philippines to take tests at other times. The GRE will now be integrated on a computer based form once or twice a month, which will also reduce the cost spent by taking two separate tests and also taking tests abroad to meet the varied submission deadlines.

Transferring entirely to the computer, relevant to Korea, Taiwan and China, also means that test takers will be using the computer-adaptive testing method, which automatically changes the difficulty of questions as the taker proceeds.

“It’s basically bringing the best of both worlds: the adaptive feature that lets you answer questions that are appropriate for your level of ability, and the ability to use your test taking skills in terms of going back and forth and reviewing questions,” Payne said.

Information on revised GRE

The revised GRE will start Aug. 6. Registrations will start from March 15. Test takers who apply during August and September will get a 50 percent discount. The scores for the first two months will be released in mid-November, which makes it crucial for the test taker to confirm school deadlines once more. The test scores will also be available in 10 to 15 days after the revision, rather than the six weeks it took in the past. A sample revised test is available for free at www.ets.org/gre.