The Old GRE Exam and the GRE General Test

From time to time, standardized tests go through serious revisions. Test makers hope to make the test more relevant, more inclusive, and more in line with what colleges and graduate schools are looking for in their incoming students. A History of GRE Revisions 1949 The GRE, first created in 1949 via the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and administered at Prometric Testing centers, is no exception as it has gone through a number of changes. 2002 The earliest versions of the GRE only tested Verbal and Quantitative reasoning, but after October of 2002, the Analytical Writing Assessment was added.  Ã‚   2011 In 2011, ETS decided that the  GRE needed a  major  overhaul, and decided to create the Revised GRE exam, complete with a new scoring system, new types of questions, and a completely different testing system that not only changed the difficulty of the test as students progress, but allowed students to mark answers to go back to questions previously skipped or change answers. It also allowed for students to select more than one answer as correct if the test question indicated to do so.   2012 In July 2012, ETS announced an option for users to customize their scores called ScoreSelect. After testing, on test day, testers can choose to send just their most recent scores or all of their test scores to colleges and universities to which they would like to apply. Schools who receive the scores will not know whether or not the test-takers have sat for the GRE  once or more than once, if they choose to send just one set of scores.   2015 In 2015, ETS changed the name yet again from the Revised GRE back to the GRE General Test, and reassured testers not to be worried if they encountered test prep materials with one or the other names used. Old GRE vs. Current GRE General Test So, in case you are researching the GRE or happened to have taken the GRE prior to August of 2011, here is  a comparison between the old (between October 2002 and  August 1, 2011) and the current (post August 1, 2011) GRE exams. GRE Exam Old GRE Exam GRE General Test Design Test questions change based on answers (Computer-Based Test) Test sections change based on answers.Ability to change answersAbility to mark answers and come back (Multi-Stage Test)Ability to use a calculator Structure Old Structure Current Structure Time Approx. 3 hours Approx. 3 hours 45 min. Scoring Scores range from 200-800 in 10-point increments Scores range from 130-170 in 1-point increments Verbal Question Types:AnalogiesAntonymsSentence CompletionsReading Comprehension Question Types:Reading ComprehensionText CompletionSentence Equivalence Quantitative Question Types:Multiple Choice Quantitative ComparisonMultiple Choice Problem Solving Question Types:Multiple-choice Questions - One AnswerMultiple-choice Questions - One or More AnswersNumeric Entry QuestionsQuantitative Comparison Questions AnalyticalWriting Old Analytical Writing DetailsOne Issue EssayOne Argument Essay Revised Analytical Writing DetailsOne Issue EssayOne Argument Essay