The Education Testing Service announced earlier this month it would stop administering the current version of the Graduate Record Examination, a common entrance test for graduate schools, July 31.

The new version of the GRE will be administered beginning in September, which does not leave much time for potential test takers to prepare for the latest version, said Susan Kaplan, director of the graduate programs at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions.

"This is somewhat inconvenient," Kaplan said. "Over 500,000 students take the exam each year, and now students are forced to make a decision on whether to take it under the old or new format."

Kaplan added students who planned to take the old version of the GRE might be forced to take it earlier.

And, with registration spots filling quickly, Kaplan said many students might not even be able to take the test at all.

"Students need to be aware of the implications of the new exam," Kaplan said. "We recommend students take the exam before it changes."

According to Kaplan, the new version of the GRE will have a greater emphasis on cognitive and reasoning skills, including questions with complex sentences that require filling in multiple words. The math section will focus more on data analysis for more "world-life" problems rather than geometry, Kaplan said.

Another major change in the exam, Kaplan added, is that graduate schools will have the ability to see the essays written by students on the critical thinking-writing section.

"This is the most drastic change to the test in 55 years," Kaplan said. "ETS believes that is a more accurate predictor of students' success in graduate school."

Since ETS needs to allow time to analyze the scores from the first revised version of the exam, Kaplan said ETS would not provide students with their results until November, which will affect students who are planning on applying with early decision to graduate school in fall 2007.

University of Illinois junior Kristen Maiorano said she plans to apply to graduate school for journalism and is taking the GRE March 19.

"I knew they were changing it so that is the reason I am taking it so early," Maiorano said.

Maiorano added she believed the new test is less vocabulary-based and a more accurate way of testing students, but said ETS should clearly define the categories of the new test so students know how to study.

Kaplan said students who plan on taking the test should give themselves three months of preparation time. Given the change in the test dates, Kaplan said students should enroll now in practice courses if they plan to take the GRE before July 31.

Kaplan Test prep is prepared for the new changes in the GRE, Kaplan said, and has begun to update their curriculum by offering new practice tests that are of similar time length and format to the new test.

For students who want testing experience for the current version of the GRE, a free practice exam will be held at the University of Wisconsin Feb. 24.