The GRE CAT is a computer-adaptive version of the Graduate Record Examination General Test used by graduate schools to assess verbal and quantitative reasoning skills. The test adapts to the student’s proficiency level and is taken on a computer. It will be phased out in 2011.
The GRE CAT is the computer-adaptable version of the Graduate Record Examination General Test offered by Educational Testing Services (ETS) and commonly used by graduate schools to determine which candidates to admit and fund. This version of the GRE uses an adaptive series of questions to assess a student’s proficiency in the verbal and quantitative reasoning categories, giving students scores between 200 and 800 in each of these categories. This test is taken on a computer, and the software adapts the difficulty of the questions to the degree of proficiency shown by the individual taking the test. In 2009, ETS announced plans to phase out this test in 2011.
This version has largely replaced the paper-and-pencil version of the test and has several important advantages. A paper-and-pencil test should include questions that challenge students at all skill levels in order to produce accurate results for students at different levels. This means that students answer a lot of questions that are not at their skill level, being too difficult or trivially simple. The GRE CAT solved this problem by adjusting the difficulty level of the questions asked based on the accuracy of the student’s answers to the previous questions. Students who answer the initial questions correctly soon face more challenging questions, while students who do not face progressively easier questions until they reach their proficiency level.
The GRE CAT score is determined by the difficulty of questions answered correctly. The exam progresses as the student answers the questions, and by the end of the exam, the software will have had time to accurately identify a student’s proficiency level. The test can correct some degree of error in early questions, allowing students to recover from one or two early incorrect answers, although early answers are weighted more heavily than later answers in the overall determination of a score.
Students and academics were mixed in their reactions to this type of test. On the one hand, the shorter exam duration reduced stress, as students only spent an hour and 15 minutes taking the exam. Other aspects of the GRE CAT can cause stress among test takers. Some students react negatively to questions they consider easy, inferring that they indicated poor performance on the exam. Other students, especially those used to performing well on non-adaptive tests, experienced stress when faced with questions they found difficult, even though this indicates success in taking the GRE CAT.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
