A Comparison Between 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

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How Do GRE General Scores Compare to Prior GRE Scores?

By Kelly Roell

The earliest versions of the GRE only tested Verbal and Quantitative reasoning, but after October of 2002, the Analytical Writing Assessment was added.  

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.