Those of you who are familiar with both the SAT and GRE exams (Scholastic Achievement Test and General Records Examination, respectively) may, like me, have detected a certain similarity between them. Awhile back they had even more similarities.
The GRE and SAT both had Quantitative Comparison questions and Problem Solving questions. Today the SAT has only Problem Solving and Student-Generated Response questions, but even in this respect the GRE has adapted the exam - partially thanks to the computer-based format - to include student generated responses. In other words, on both exams there are questions in which the students must fill in a number that they have calculated.
In their respective verbal sections, the two exams have always had a lot in common. They both have Reading Comprehension, and they both have a focus on vocabulary. This focus has changed and mutated on each test over the years, but it has always been there. Now it looks like things are set to change again, further widening the gap between the respective education focuses of each generation.
The new SAT (coming in the near future - see previous post) will downplay advanced vocabulary, replacing it with something that is yet to be clearly defined but is, apparently, more practical and useful for the sorts of communication students will have in the future.
I will post more on the vocabulary issue in my own future. For the moment, it seems as though any knowledge of vocabulary - referred to alternatively as "advanced," "university," "collegiate," or "erudite" - will be unnecessary for the universities of the future. I hope it will still be useful in graduate programs, many of which have the GRE as an entrance test, along with their other application requirements.
I can understand that students dislike having to study, learn, or know vocabulary that they feel is useless or that they will never use. For those students, I can say that they are fortunate if they plan to do the SAT after 2016.
For those students who still have to take the GRE in the future, start studying vocabulary. I don't think that part of the exam will be changing any time soon.
