ETS' Thomas Rochon explained new GRE format and offered strategy tips during the Leadership Alliance Summer Symposium.

Begining October 1, the analytical section of the Graduate Record Examinations' (GRE) general test will change from the current multiple choice, puzzle format, to a new analytical writing format, according to Thomas Rochon, Executive Director of the Educational Testing Service's (ETS) GRE Program. Test takers will author two essays to demonstrate their critical thinking skills. The verbal and quantitative sections remain the same.

Sixty years ago, the graduate deans of a number of prestigious East Coast universities asked the Educational Testing Service (ETS) to organize a test of admissions for graduate school, Rochon explained to the nearly 350 participants at the Leadership Alliance Summer Symposium (LASS) the annual, national meeting of its Summer Research Early Identification Program interns. "Sixty years ago, graduate schools first began to diversify geographically and became national in their recruitment. However, the diversity at that time was nothing like the diversity of today," he said.

Today, over 500,000 students in 180 countries, including the United States, take the GRE every year. Today, diversity means not only geographic, but also racial, ethnic and age diversity, and the GRE has changed little to adapt itself to the changing population of future graduate students - that is until now.

"We have tried to do two things to make the GRE more accessible and more fair to the broadest possible population; one is to get information into people's hands and to do it for free," said Rochon. "The second is we are changing the test itself to make it conform more closely to the kinds of analytical/critical thinking tasks that you actually do in graduate school."

The new writing assessment test section comprises two essays. The first offers two subject prompts from which the test taker chooses a topic, picks a side and argues that side logically in 45 minutes. According to Rochon, the emphasis is on constructing a consistently targeted essay, supported by evidence -- not the position itself.

The second essay prompt presents a claim and evidence in support of that claim. There may be some key evidence to support that claim that is omitted; likewise there may be facts that do not necessarily support the claim. The goal is for the test taker to identify the flaws in the argument and critique it in a 30-minute period.

Rochon advised test takers that it is important to develop a critique and not to argue with the stance taken in the prompt. As the GRE is now a computer test with a word processing capability (but no spell checker), test takers can choose to either type or hand write both essays.

The analytical writing essays will be read and scored by two ETS-trained readers who are faculty members at colleges throughout the country who are participating as a part-time job. Readers will score each essay between zero and six (the highest score). The final score for this section will be an average of the four readings rounded up to the nearest half point. If two readers disagree by more than one point, a third reader will review the essay.

"We train them (the readers) very intensively," said Rochon. "We take a lot of care to make sure there is reliability and consistency in the readings - 97 percent of the time our two readers agree with each other, which gives us a high degree of confidence that we are able to read essays consistently and fairly."

According to Rochon the changes in the GRE are in response to requests from admissions officials for whom the tests were originally designed. "Deans and directors of graduate departments want to know how well prospective graduate students write and how well they think critically," he said. "The transition to graduate school is often a transition from being able to learn well, to being able to organize knowledge, to think critically and to produce knowledge. Producing knowledge requires being able to think critically and analytically. So, we've combined those two traits into one measure of writing and analytical thinking ability.

"We expect the new test to be fairer and more valid," said Rochon. We've done a lot of research on this (measure), and one thing we wanted to know is what would be the impact on differences between groups of test takers - an issue that we are especially sensitive to at ETS. We've learned that the score differences between different groups are significantly smaller for analytical writing than they are on any other test that we've ever developed. For example, there is a fairly large gender gap in scores between men and women on the old analytical measure. In contrast, men and women achieve the same average score on analytical writing.

"The reduction of differences is a little less dramatic for other groups, but still very significant and very satisfying to the GRE Board. For example, there are an increasing number of students who take our test after being away from school for a while, and we were concerned about fair ways of measuring their skills. Those who are older than 25 do not do as well on the (old) analytical measure as those younger than 25, but these differences are reduced by two thirds on the (new) analytical writing measure. Between African Americans and whites we see some of the largest score differences, on average, in the existing analytical measure. Those score differences are reduced by approximately 37 percent on analytical writing.

"One group that we were especially concerned about was Hispanic Americans. We were gratified to see that Hispanic/white score differences are decreased by more than 25 percent by dropping the (old) analytical measure and putting in the analytical writing assessment," said Rochon.

He emphasized that ETS did not succumb to pressure to change the GRE. "I want to be clear with you that in the absence of knowing that we developed a better test of skills needed for success in graduate school, reducing score differences would not by itself be a motivation for ETS to change the GRE," he said. "(However) when you are making a good choice about changing the test and you can also reduce score differences between groups at the same time, then it becomes a no-brainer that you make that change, and that's what we're doing on October 1."

Rochon also emphasized that all the essay prompts for writing assessment, as well as any information a test taker needs to prepare for the GRE, including a 60-page "Math Review" and their "Power-Prep" CD-Rom of timed sample tests, are available for free from their Web site. ETS also offers a $15 diagnostic review that analyzes strengths and weaknesses on the various reasoning skills required for the GRE.

Since the GRE general test will be offered in the existing format through September 30, and the new format beginning October 1, Rochon advised test takers to choose the analytical measure best suited to their skills. And since the new analytical writing measure exists until January 1, 2003, as the Writing Assessment test, those who did poorly on the old analytical measure or who want to have both analytical assessments can take the Writing Assessment test, review their score and then decide whether or not to send it to graduate schools. Writing Assessment scores, like subject test scores, are not automatically reported with GRE general test scores unless the test taker asks that they be sent.

Since ETS automatically reports all GRE general test scores, Rochon advised against re-taking the GRE unless the verbal and quantitative scores fail to reflect what the test taker can do. How do you know what you can do? If actual scores are considerably lower than "Power-Prep" practice scores, then he suggests the test taker consider retaking the test.

"Test taking should not be a game; it should not be something separate from the academic world and the academic preparation in which you are engaged. When you think about it, making arguments and critiquing the arguments of others - for that matter, critiquing your own arguments -- are the foundations of the most important activities in graduate school. We measure your ability to do that," Rochon concluded.