GRE in 2011. Will it harder or easier?

[Riyad Mohammad]

Today i have visited this MS in US - University Rankings - Profile Evaluation site and visited the link GRE-2011. The myths about the GRE 2011 were as the follows:

New GRE Coming 2011...

It’s been a long time coming. In 2004 GRE announced changes to take effect in 2006. In 2006 they announced the changes were to take place in 2007. In 2007 the proposed changes to the GRE were cancelled.

Now GRE has annouced a revised GRE to take effect in 2011. The information from GRE includes a “slick video”. It appears that the changes are going to be pretty much the same as the changes which were proposed for 2007.

New GRE Highlights – The Three Sections: Verbal, Quantitative and Analytical Writing Remain

Verbal Changes

- no more antonyms and analogies and a statement that vocabulary will no longer be tested;

- more reading and reasoning questions

-Grading scale from 130 to 170

Quantitative Changes

- calculators allowed

- questions that test reasoning skills and not memorization (does that mean that the basic math formulas will become irrelevant?

Analytical Writing Changes

- less clear

General Test Changes

- the scoring scale will be changed to a 130 – 170 scoring scale

- test takers are no longer required to answer the questions in order (presumably the test will not be computer adaptive)

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Now my question is:" What do you think about the changes that ETS are going to bring on?" "Will it be easier or more harder?"

Please, post your valuable opinions so that it may help a lot of people from non-native English countries to take decisions about taking the GRE test.

[MegaDuke]

My opinion is that the revised GRE test will be significantly less g-loaded than the current test. The most significant change is the removal of analogies and antonyms, which are standard items on IQ tests because of their high g-loading. Performance on difficult analogies and antonyms is often what separates the elite scores from the good scores. The changes will make the GRE less of an IQ test for native speakers and thus easier to crack through study and memorization. It should be easier for both native and non-native speakers to get high verbal scores on the new test.

 

With the above in mind, if you are able to score high on the current Verbal test, my thinking is that you should take the test before before the changes go into effect.

[Riyad Mohammad]

thanks for your opinion. Lets see what other people say. But what do you think about the math? @MegaDuke

[mookrit]

thanks for your opinion. Lets see what other people say. But what do you think about the math? @MegaDuke

 

Since they're allowing the use of a calculator now, my guess is the math will be made harder (i.e. GMAT level).

[Riyad Mohammad]

Since they're allowing the use of a calculator now, my guess is the math will be made harder (i.e. GMAT level).

 

Thanks.

[MegaDuke]

Good point. I've read that ETS has been working to make the GRE competitive with the GMAT as a suitable test for business school applicants. Some business schools already accept GRE scores, but making the math section more difficult might further increase its acceptability as a substitute for the GMAT. Just as a side note, when they first announced changes to the GRE several years ago, I had heard that they were removing QCs. I don't know if that's still the case.

[GRE2010]

Frankly speaking GRE will be difficult from 2011 than the current version. Vocabulary based skills or knowledge can be mastered in a shorter period but the reading skill is a long term process and cant be mastered so fast, specially for those like non-native speaker and technical/engineering background. New Generation GRE will focus less reliance on vocabulary and will emphasize on cognitive and critical analytical skills of written texts. There will be something similar to sentence completion which they named "text completion" and that is also more time consuming than SC. Some of the sentence completion questions will incorporate two answers. Quantitative section will include an on-screen calculator but will incorporate tougher problems (more like GMAT) if not calculus.

 

So, hone up your skills in Reading Comprehension and you're are ready for it.

[Riyad Mohammad]

Frankly speaking GRE will be difficult from 2011 than the current version. Vocabulary based skills or knowledge can be mastered in a shorter period but the reading skill is a long term process and cant be mastered so fast, specially for those like non-native speaker and technical/engineering background. New Generation GRE will focus less reliance on vocabulary and will emphasize on cognitive and critical analytical skills of written texts. There will be something similar to sentence completion which they named "text completion" and that is also more time consuming than SC. Some of the sentence completion questions will incorporate two answers. Quantitative section will include an on-screen calculator but will incorporate tougher problems (more like GMAT) if not calculus.

 

So, hone up your skills in Reading Comprehension and you're are ready for it.

 

Thanks. Now i should tell my all friends to take the GRE this year

[kar]

Well it has to be seen! I feel it would not be too much change in any of the ways!