PGRE: Exam Evolution 1986-Present

[hochenergie]

The ETS released exams date back to 86. Have the exams changed much in style or content throughout the years? Surely, the older exams are worth working through, but are the "newer'' exams like 96 or 01 more like the exams administered in the past few years?

 

[G037H3]

probably

 

[Someone1987]

I took the PGRE in October 2009 and it was very similar to the 2001 exam in content and difficulty.

 

[G01]

The 2001 exam is most like today's PGRE's

The others should still be used as material for prep, but use 2001 to gauge the difficulty of the current test. The older ones are, on average, harder.

 

[twofish-quant]

I have been told that the tests got much harder in the early 1990's. One thing I remember when I took the PGRE's with the very rude shock that I got when the test was much, much harder than any of the practice tests.

 

[TMFKAN64]

I took the PGRE 2-3 years ago, and I really didn't notice any difference in difficulty between the practice exams and the one I took. After getting my test-taking skills in order after the first practice exam (just skip the question if you don't know it cold, don't look for your error if your answer isn't one of the options, etc.), I scored roughly the same on all of them.