Fruit and Flash Cards Score High among GRE® Test Takers

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Educational Testing Service

22 Sep, 2014, 13:00 GMT

-- New Poll of GRE Test Takers Headed to Graduate and Business School Reveals Study Habits

PRINCETON, New Jersey, Sept. 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- In a recent survey of GRE ® test takers, individuals from around the world shared their personal study habits and preferences about their test preparation. Their answers provide insight to the hundreds of thousands of individuals currently readying themselves to take the GRE ® revised General Test during the peak testing season, in pursuit of master's, MBA, specialized master's in business and doctoral programs.

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The survey revealed that the most common length of time students around the world spend preparing for the test is about one month to less than three months. In addition, slightly more than half of respondents said they used the free POWERPREP ® II Software, which includes two simulated tests, to get ready. In the United States, about one-third of respondents said they spent less than one month preparing and approximately six percent said that they spent six months or longer preparing for the test.

"Some test takers will feel ready fairly quickly and want to test right away to meet admissions deadlines," says Dawn Piacentino, director of communication and services for the GRE Program at ETS. "Most test takers will take the test once, but if an individual wants to try to do better, there is a backup plan to help them show their best. The ScoreSelect ® option, available only with GRE tests, lets test takers decide — on test day or anytime up to five years — which of their scores to send to schools. This option gives test takers a lot of confidence from the start."

Survey respondents cited using flash cards and reading books as some of the most popular preparation tools, with nearly 40 percent globally reporting flash cards were part of their study protocol. "Even with the array of prep options, it's interesting to see that students like tried-and-true flash cards for randomly quizzing themselves on how to best answer different types of questions," said Piacentino. Home outranked all other locations as the favorite place to study everywhere around the world, but differences emerged around favorite time of day to prepare. Chinese students led the group with the most "early risers," while approximately 29 percent of test takers in India preferred late-night studying. Slightly more than 60 percent of respondents said they were more motivated to study if friends were also taking the test. Furthermore, friends ranked highest as favorite study-buddy choice, although close to 10 percent of U.S. respondents reported that their favorite study buddy was their dog or cat.

Fruit edged out all other options as the favorite GRE study snack. The top five GRE study snack list is:

  1. Fruit
  2. Nuts, seeds or corn nuts
  3. Chocolate
  4. Potato chips
  5. Cookies

"We conducted this survey so that GRE test takers could tell us more about how they like to prepare for the GRE revised General Test," said Piacentino. "More than 18,000 individuals from over 150 countries responded and shared not only their study habits but how they celebrated after taking the test. We plan to post more insights from this survey on the official GRE revised General Test page on Facebook®. After all, it is a popular time for students everywhere to be taking the GRE revised General Test to apply to graduate or business school."

For more information about the GRE revised General Test or to register to take a GRE test, please visit ets.org/gre.

About ETS
At ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and postsecondary education, and by conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded as a nonprofit in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL® and TOEIC ® tests, the GRE ® tests and The Praxis Series ® assessments — in more than 180 countries, at over 9,000 locations worldwide. www.ets.org