ACET, Inc. Blog

Dr. Michael C. Rodriguez has worked closely with ACET for more than 12 years, and it is with great pride that we announce and congratulate him on his new textbook, Developing and Validating Test Items, co-written with Dr. Thomas M. Haladyna and published by Routledge. Dr. Rodriguez’s contribution, the product of several years of writing in addition to his other considerable responsibilities, is unique in its attention to the subject of test item construction. Arriving at a critical time when test design is a hot topic in education news, educators and evaluators alike can benefit from the book’s extensive use of good and not-so-good test item examples and, crucially, how both can be made better. The depth and complexity of this text alone makes it a valuable resource in the ACET office library, but it is made even more valuable by being the work of a respected colleague. We at ACET extend our thanks and congratulations to Dr. Rodriguez for his excellent work.

ACET Staff

The Graduate Record Examination (GRE), owned and implemented by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), is the most commonly used standardized test when applying to graduate school. Made up of sections for quantitative reasoning, verbal reasoning, and writing, the test covers a variety of questions meant to show an individual’s knowledge on specific subjects in preparation for graduate school.

ETS has revised the GRE General Test to better capture student readiness for graduate level course work. The revised GRE also resulted in changes in the scoring system. Originally, an individual score would fall between 200 and 800 points in 10-point increments; however, starting in November of 2011, scores will fall between 130 and 170 in 1-point increments. The adjusted score scale allows reviewers to compare candidates more simply; 1-point increments may more accurately represent how far apart candidates are on the score scale. The new score scale should also allow for a better distribution of scores and more aptly show candidate abilities. Percentile scores, which have always reflected where an individual tested in comparison with other test takers over the previous three years, will remain on the scorecard.

To learn more about the score scale revisions, check out this video from ETS:
http://www.ets.org/s/gre/swf/gre_score-scale-video/GRE_ScoreScale_Video.html

Cassie