An analysis on the validity of the lexicon required by GRE® test takers

Authors

  • Maria Teresa Segarra Costaguta Mattos UFRGS

Keywords:

GRE, validity, Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)

Abstract

The GRE® (General Record Examinations) Revised General Test is a  standardized graduate admissions test administered by ETS (Educational Testing Service) taken by 675,000 students yearly. Requiring an effortful preparation from students, the score achieved by the student in the test greatly determines, along with other criteria, their admission to graduate school programs. Books which prepare for the GRE® test usually indicate a list of words to be learnt or memorized by the test-takers, words which have frequently appeared on the test on previous years. Once the test takers are approved in the school of their choice, however, will this vocabulary be in fact put to use, as originally intended by ETS? To investigate the validity of the lexicon required by GRE® test takers, we analyzed the word list from the preparation book Cracking the New Gre 2012 according to its frequency in the academic section of COCA.


 

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Author Biography

Maria Teresa Segarra Costaguta Mattos, UFRGS

Undergraduate student of English and Literature

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Published

2012-10-15

How to Cite

Mattos, M. T. S. C. (2012). An analysis on the validity of the lexicon required by GRE® test takers. BELT - Brazilian English Language Teaching Journal, 3(1). Retrieved from https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/ojs/index.php/belt/article/view/10333

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