Potential graduate students around the nation need to prepare for changes in the graduate record exam, or GRE, the exam that applicants for graduate school sometimes must take. The most significant difference is the change from the computer-adaptive test to the new computer-based linear test.
“The current test can be troublesome,” Liz Wands, director of graduate programs for the Princeton Review, said. The adaptive test presents a series of questions with difficulty based on the applicant’s previous answers. The non-profit Educational Testing Services has researched the future test and suggested the changes.
“If a question is answered correctly, the test makes the next question harder; if it is answered incorrectly, the next question is easier than the previous,” Wands said.
The security and validity of such a test can sometimes be threatened, she said.
“The new test will be more costly, and it will have a larger pool of questions,” Wands said. “Therefore it will take up to four hours.” The current exam lasts two hours.
Test dates for the future exam will be fixed. “Right now people are able to sign up to take the test on any day except for Sunday,” Wands said. Applicants can take the future exam on one of 30 selected days during the year.
Although the deadline might slip, Wands said that the new test should be actualized in October 2006.
This test may affect the graduate school preparation nation-wide. However, it may not have much of a consequence for applicants to graduate school at Mississippi State University. “MSU does not have a required GRE score,” director of graduate studies William Person said.
“Certain departments are allowed to require a GRE exam as part of the admission criteria, but a minimum cut-off score is not he said. “Department committees can look at grade point average, publication history and research history.”
“However, the GRE exam may help graduate programs better develop a student’s particular lacking skills,” Person said.
“If professors in a department know that students have a void that needs to be addressed, then they can try to help the student improve his or her skill in that area,” he said.
For example, writing skills are an important part of graduate school, Person said. “Even the non-thesis programs require the students to submit written, completed and research documents,” he said.
“If someone’s writing is called into question, then the department can know how to better exercise his or her lacking,” he said.
The test changes, however, shouldn’t have a significant impact on MSU graduate enrollment. “It shouldn’t affect students who want admittance in one of our graduate programs,” Person said.
The Princeton Review offers private tutoring for the GRE as well as practice tests at www.princetonreview.com/grad/testprep.