The U.S. Education and Testing Services has made the biggest change in its GRE general test in 60 years.

Officials of the Korean branch of ETS said that the agency has advanced the test technologically with emphasis on real-world applications.

The GRE general test is the most widely adopted test for graduate admission, with 230 countries acknowledging its results.

The good news for Korean students preparing for the test is that all international students will be able to take it once a month in the same advanced format, which means Koreans don’t have to go through taking a lengthy and bulky paper-based test here or fly to Japan to take the computer test.

Only the paper-based test has been available in Korea since 2002 when the country was penalized by the ETS because students illegally shared the questions and answers with other students, according to officials.

The revised test features new questions emphasizing real-world applications, a different scoring system and a new candidate-friendly design, they said.

Students will have more flexibility to move back and forth between questions and edit or change answers ― similar to the internet-based TOEFL test.

“The launch of the GRE revised general test marks a new era in graduate and business school admission, an era that means a friendlier testing experience and even more useful results for graduate and business schools,” said David Payne, vice president of the higher education division of ETS.

Would-be graduate students have a chance to take the revised test at 50 percent discounted price from August to September. More information on the test is available at www.ets.org/gre.

By Lee Woo-young (wylee@heraldcorp.com)