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Written by: Jessica Snyder
Published: 10/12/2005 ETS Revamps GRE and Academic Profile
The Educational Testing Service (ETS) is making major changes in two of its examinations.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, for the first time in 55 years, officials at the ETS say the Graduate Record Examination is undergoing major overhaul. New sample questions will be available on the ETS website by the end of this month, and the new exam will be first offered in October 2006. Each of the exam’s three sections will undergo major changes.
Instead of sitting for two and a half hour, examinees will be tested for four hours. The test also will no longer be offered in a computer-adaptive format, in which the difficulty of each question is determined by the previous answer.
Other changes include the elimination of analogies and antonyms in the verbal-reasoning section, more critical-reading questions and, for the first time, sentence-equivalence questions, in which test takers will pick the best paraphrase of a sample text. Rather than 30 minutes, the new verbal test will have two 40-minute sections.
The quantitative testing will be in two 40-minute sections, rather than one 45-minute section, and the analytical-writing section will be 15 minutes shorter and more specific than before. Also, currently admissions deans can only view the scores. Under the new system, they will also have access to the writing samples.
In a press release on October 10, ETS also announced that it will launch a new general-education outcomes assessment in January 2006. The Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress (MAPP) test will replace the Academic Profile. Students at two- and four-year institutions will take the MAPP test, which focuses on academic skills developed through general-education courses rather than on subject-specific knowledge.
Says Mari Pearlman, Senior Vice President of ETS’s Higher Education Division: “The MAPP test is an enhanced and even more flexible version of the Academic Profile. It provides a credible solution for every general-education program dean who is concerned about student learning outcomes in today’s accountability-conscious higher education market.” The MAPP test will be available in a 40-minute abbreviated form and a two-hour standard form.
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