New-look GRE braces innovation

Proposed format to have real-life scenarios that mirror the kind of thinking students need at graduate-level work

Shed the crammers tag and move beyond mugging up text books to merely score big, instead understand the subject and come up with something innovative.

Realising the significance of out-of-the box thinking, Educational Testing Service (ETS), the developer and administrator of the Graduation Record Examination (GRE), has decided to get rid of the 'Chaturs' — of the 3 Idiots fame — and have opened the doors for the Ranchos.

ETS believes the new test will be more user friendly and flexible providing the test takers the freedom to use more of their own test-taking style and strategies.

"This is the most significant change the test is going through. Test takers will find new types of questions and more real-life scenarios that mirror the kind of thinking they will do with graduate-level work. It will be more focused on skills students will need for admission to graduate and business schools," says Dawn S Piacentino, Director, Communications and Services, GRE programme.

The new format of the computer-based GRE general test will allow students to move back and forth throughout an entire section to change or edit responses, even skip questions and attempt them later — a feature not available earlier.

"The emphasis is on complex reasoning skills. We are removing antonyms and analogies from the test and adding more text-based material. We are also adding some new question types and some new computer-enabled tests," he added.

But, what made ETS change the format?

In 2006, Graduate Management Admission council (GMAC), the administrators of the Graduate Management Aptitude Test (GMAT), severed its decade-long partnership with ETS and joined hands with a new testing administrator, Pearson VUE.

Soon after, ETS entered the B-school market selling the product as an alternative to GMAT, as it no longer had to abide by a non-compete clause with its former partner. When ETS approached B-schools, the management institutions wanted GRE to be along the lines of an MBA aptitude test. "The earlier format tested the memory of the student more than their capability of