Michelle Moeder thought the vocabulary quizzes on the GRE exam were ridiculous.

“Those words are not used in everyday (speech),” the Kansas University senior said. “They’re not even used in books.”

Moeder and others may get some relief. The test’s creator, Educational Testing Service, has overhauled the Graduate Record Examination taken by students for admittance to many graduate schools.

“In one fell swoop, this is the largest revision we’ve done,” said David Payne, executive director of the GRE program for ETS.

The revised test will be in use in October 2006. The test, which takes more than two hours, will be even longer with time added for verbal and quantitative reasoning questions.

And there will be changes in all three test sections – verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and analytical writing.

The analogies and antonyms sections will be cut. There will be fewer geometry questions and more quantitative reasoning questions involving real-life scenarios and data interpretation. For the first time, a calculator will be supplied.

Payne said the changes are meant to make the test a better indicator of students’ success. They also address security issues and attempt to block cheating.

“This really addresses those issues head-on, really in concrete ways,” Payne said.

ETS is cutting back the number of test dates. It also is aligning the test times, with adjustments for time zones, so that students take the test at the same time worldwide. Payne said the changes are meant to stop students from gathering information about a test and sending it to others about to take it.

Moeder, who wants to study clinical psychology in graduate school, said she welcomes changes to the test, which she recently took and thought was a bit out of step.

Michael Mosser, assistant dean of the KU Graduate School and international programs, said his school joined others in its concerns over the test’s security but that he viewed the format changes as a natural updating.