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The Boston Globe

January 6, 1995, Friday, City Edition

Computerized graduate school entrance testing reduced

As part of its effort to reduce the possibility of cheating on the computerized Graduate Record Exam, the Educational Testing Service is eliminating about three-quarters of the test dates scheduled in the next five months.

The test, which is required for admission to most graduate schools, will still be offered in a traditional pencil-and-paper version as planned on April 8 and June 3. But the computerized version, which was introduced in 1992 and had been offered up to six days a week at 226 sites nationally, will be offered only one week each month from February through May.

ETS changed the schedule and is adding questions to the exam after evidence surfaced that questions had been recycled so frequently that they could be memorized and passed on to other test takers.

Kaplan Educational Centers, the test preparation firm that uncovered the recycling of items, questioned this week whether all 420,000 students who take the GRE each year could be accommodated under the new schedule and still meet application deadlines. But ETS officials said they did not foresee a problem.

In the first three weeks of January, a busy time because of application deadlines in February and March, about 2,300 students nationally have registered each week for the computerized exam. ETS says it can test as many as 20,000 a week. About 100,000 are expected to take the test on computer this year.

"Availability is not a problem," said Ray Nicosia, an ETS spokesman.

ETS also said that it would postpone computerized GRE subject tests, a second part of the exam. Computerized tests in three subjects had been scheduled to begin this spring. The postponement is indefinite.

However, ETS maintained that there is not a major problem with the security of the exam and that there is no evidence of cheating. Officials said they had not put all security measures into effect.

The company has sued Kaplan, which uncovered the problems by sending employees to take the exam. The suit charges breach of copyright and communication privacy laws.

Computerized testing dates are as follows: Jan. 6 and 7, 9-14, 16-21, 30, 31; Feb. 1-4; March 6-11; April 3-8; and May 1-6. In New England, tests are offered through the Sylvan Learning Centers.

Copyright 1995 Globe Newspaper Company

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