Changes in GRE Format from August 2011

The Education Testing Services (ETS) has announced many changes in the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) from August 2011. The test is conducted for admission in the United States and other English speaking countries into the MS programmes. The changes will let the GRE score to be considered for admission into MBA programmes making its examination format equivalent to CAT and GAT. Here is a quick look at the major changes done in the GRE format.

• Antonyms and analogies are removed from the verbal ability section and will focus on Verbal Reasoning and reading.
• The quantitative reasoning section will focus on basic maths concepts and real life scenarios. The new format will also have multiple choice questions and numeric entry type questions.
• There will be less emphasis on computation with the availability of onscreen calculator.
• The analytical writing will now have more focused responses and less generalization of answers.
• The computer-adaptive testing (CAT) format of question-by-question adjustment has been eliminated.
• There will be a new grading scale of 130 to 170.

The Education Testing Service (ETS) has offered a discount of 50 percent on the fees for people writing the test between 1 August 2011 and 30 September 2011. There will be 9 test centres with the new format and the score will be valid for 5 years. The ETS will also conduct a paper based GRE test for the first time at 5 centres namely New Delhi, BITS-Pilani, Mumbai, Bangalore, and BIT-MESRA, Ranchi.