The New GRE
The GRE, also known as the Graduate Records Examination, is a standardized test used for admission into any graduate school in the United States. The GRE is created and administered by the Educational Testing Service, or ETS. Graduate schools use the GRE to gauge how academically successful a candidate will be. The test is a total of three hours and 45 minutes, during which time you will be tested on your Writing, Verbal, and Quantitative skills.
Taking the GRE
The GRE can be taken on a computer or on paper in areas where the computer-based test is not available. For the paper-based test, not all test centers are open on all test dates – make sure to check which testing location are open before registering. The computer-based test is offered year-round. You may take the test only once per calendar-month and no more than 5 times within a 12-month period.
Logistically, if you take the test between August 1st, 2011 and September 30th, 2011, you are eligible for a 50% discount. Also, before taking the test, make sure you know to which schools you will be applying. If they need your results before November, take the test before August 1st. Allow adequate time for your test to be scored and sent.
About the New GRE
Come August 1st, 2011, the GRE will make its debut in the new format. The new GRE (a.k.a. the “GRE revised General Test”) will still be used for graduate school admission and for the most part, its structure will remain the same. However, there will be some notable changes:
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A friendlier test-taking design allows you to edit, change, skip through and return to questions within a certain section. There is thus more freedom to use any personal test-taking strategy you may have.
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There is an on-screen calculator to make computation less time-consuming.
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In the Analytical Writing section,
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There will be one topic for each essay task, not several.
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The responses will be measured more on your critical thinking and your analytical writing rather than the examples themselves.
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In the Verbal Reasoning section,
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There are no antonyms or analogies. You will only be tested on the vocabulary you see in the context of the test.
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Revised Text Completion questions omit certain words in short passages and ask you to select the appropriate answer from a corresponding list.
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Revised Sentence Equivalence questions ask you to come up with an appropriate conclusion to a sentence. But, you must recall the meaning of the entire sentence.
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Revised Reading Comprehension questions have questions where more than one multiple-choice answer is correct. Select-in-passage questions are also new. To answer these questions, you highlight your answer in the passage itself.
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In the Quantitative Reasoning section,
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Questions will focus more on data-interpretation and real-life scenarios. For example, the question may ask you to analyze the percent change in a business’ inventory over the last quarter. Of course, you will not have to know that kind of information; it will be given to you.
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Some multiple-choice questions have more than one correct answer choice.
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Numeric Entry questions require you to type or write your answer into an on-screen box.
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Remember that there is an on-screen calculator.
