Check the admissions requirement for your academic program to find out if the Graduate Records Exam (GRE) or General Management Admission Test (GMAT) examination is required.
2011 GRE Changes
The information below is provided for prospective graduate students and academic departments about changes to the Graduate Records Exam (GRE) effective August 1, 2011. This information was provided by Dr. Jeffery Morrissette of the College of Arts & Sciences. You can visit the GRE test preparation site for more information.
- The new exam is approximately one hour longer at four hours.
- Guessing is still an option on the exam. Students are not punished for getting a wrong answer.
- The new GRE is still adaptive, but by section and not by question. Everyone will receive the same first section (#1). If you do well with #1 then you get a harder section #1a and are eligible for the highest scores. If you do poorly in #1 you then get an easier section #1a and are not eligible for the highest scores.
- The new GRE uses a friendlier interface. A calculator function is added, you can skip questions and return to answer them later, and you are able to move more freely within each section.
- The new scoring range is from 130-170, a change from the old scoring range of 200-800.
- GRE scores are still valid for five (5) years.
- The new GRE will retain its main parts (analytical writing, math, and verbal sections) but new types of questions will be added. Examples of new question types include:
- Multiple choice questions with more than one possible answer. Students must get all answers correct to receive any credit.
- Quantitative problem solving with numeric entry. Students compute a numerical answer and type it into the answer box.
- Select-in-Passage. This new question type where students click on a specific passage sentence that matches to a particular task. For example, students may be asked to “Select the sentence that…” addresses a commonality between opposing views; or distinguishes between two phenomena. This question type requires understanding of not only the sentence’s content but the author’s purpose in writing the sentence and its context.
- Sentence Equivalence. This new question type contains a blank and a number of options for completing it. Two of the options presented are correct, and students must identify both correct options to receive credit.
- Text Completion. This new question type uses three blanks to fill in words instead of the previous two. Word answers are not linked. Separate pools are provided for each blank. Students must provide the correct answer within all three blanks to receive credit.