Keeping Up with the Standards - What One English Professor Learned From Taking Every Standardized Exam in His Discipline

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by SANS

Keeping Up with the Standards presents an English professor’s first-hand account of taking a full set of standardized exams for English majors between 2012 summer and fall. The author compares how the GRE General Exam changed in format and content since the mid-1990s and explains how those changes affect performance and graduate-school readiness. Key observations include the shift to computer testing, expanded ETS preparation resources, and verbal sections emphasizing reasoning through multi-blank sentence completion and heavier reading comprehension demands.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages23

Reading Time58 min

AccessFree to download

GRE General Exam

Goals and rationale

Format and content changes

Preparation resources and practice testing

Verbal section question types

Reading comprehension demands

THE CEA FORUM Summer/ Fall 2015 Keeping Up with the Standards: What One English Professor Learned From Taking Every Standardized Exam in His Discipline Kevin Brown Lee University During the summer and fall semesters 2012, I took on a project to take every standardized exam our English majors take. Thus, I signed up for and took the GRE General Test, the Praxis Content Area Exam (English Language, Literature, and Composition: Content Knowledge), the Senior Major Field Tests in English and Writing, and the GRE Subject Exam in Literature.1 My goals in taking the exams varied by the exam, but one overriding goal was consistent: I wanted to see what these exams are actually like, so I can help students prepare for them. When students talk to me about graduate school or a career in teaching, they often ask about one of these exams. However, I had not taken either the GRE General or Subject Exam since the mid-1990s, and I had no idea how or how much the exams had changed since then. When students asked about the Praxis, I was forced to draw on what I had heard from colleagues and students who had taken it. In each case, I was at least partially ill-informed, and taking the exams seemed like the best way to truly understand what our students needed to do to prepare for these tests. What I found is that changes to the GRE General Exam make it much more reflective of the type of thinking required THE CEA FORUM Summer/ Fall 2015 in graduate school, while both the Subject Exam and Praxis have not kept pace with changes in English graduate studies or high and middle school teaching, respectively. GRE General Exam My primary goal for the GRE General Exam was to see how we were doing at preparing our students for the exam and for graduate school. While those two might not be directly related, I did find at least a slight relationship when I took the exam.2 I am not arguing that we should teach to the test, but that we should be aware of what the exam is like to see where our teaching matches up with it and where it does not. Such knowledge will help us help students prepare for what they will encounter. This exam changed dramatically since the mid-1990s, when I last took it, both in format and in content, both changes that affect people’s performance on it, thus affecting where or whether they attend graduate school. The content change is something I have heard a good deal about in my time as a professor, and it is one I have asked students about. I’ll talk much more about that change, but I will make one brief comment about the format change. While thereis still an option to take the general exam in print, those appointments are difficult to get. The focus now is on having students take the exam on the computer.3 I had purposefully not done any preparation for the exam, as I wanted to see it without any preconceived notions. One improvement ETS has made is that they provide a great deal of material to people who are taking the exam to help them prepare. When I was an undergraduate, any materials we would have wanted, we would have had to purchase.4 However, once I signed THE CEA FORUM Summer/ Fall 2015 up for the exam, I was sent email tips and links to webpages with helpful hints for studying. I was shown the different type of questions, the new format of the test, and a way to take a practice test. After the exam, I looked through their website rather thoroughly, and they do an excellent job at helping students see sample questions. Both of my essay questions were on their list of sample topics (which number well over one hundred, so students cannot memorize and prepare for a few, but the questions certainly help students see the types of questions that they should preparefDoers)piintethe exthe faacctttwohatrtdihnegvIersbaawlsonectthe examion was m.5uch easier for me, it still was much more challenging than I was expecting it to be. Given that I make my living working with words, I thought that I would be abl

FAQs

Why did the author take every standardized exam in his discipline?

To understand what the exams are actually like and to better help students prepare. He also wanted to compare current expectations with what he remembered from the mid-1990s.

What major format change does the author describe for the GRE General Exam?

The GRE is primarily taken on a computer now, and print options exist but are difficult to get.

What does the author find most challenging in the verbal section?

Sentence completion questions with multiple blanks, which force careful logic and reasoning rather than relying on a single correct choice.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by SANS