The makers of the GRE graduate school entrance exam have scrapped an extensive makeover of the test, citing concerns that they wouldn't be able to accommodate enough students at test centers.

The Educational Testing Service, which designs the exam, had already delayed planned revisions by a year, including lengthening the exam from 2 1/2 to four hours. ETS also was planning substantive changes such as eliminating antonym and analogy questions and emphasizing more critical reading.

Most students already take the current version of the GRE on a computer, but ETS had hoped to switch to a more secure Internet-based system that would eventually expand the number of sites where the test could be taken.

The new version, however, was to be offered only about 30 times per year, whereas students are free to schedule the current test at almost any time.

On Monday, ETS and the Graduate Record Examination Board said they do not have the capacity to make the planned switch this fall and will stick with the old test and the centers where it is already being administered. The test had been in development for about five years, said ETS spokesman Tom Ewing.

"In the last three months we've looked very carefully at the issue of access and whether there were enough Internet-based testing centers available to ensure that every student who wanted to take the test could," he said. "It became clear that there were not enough domestically."

The GRE is taken by between 550,000 and 600,000 applicants to graduate programs annually.

The change involves very different issues than the scoring errors on the SAT college entrance exam that surfaced last year. But Monday's announcement could contribute to concerns that the standardized-testing industry, busy with dozens of national and state-level standardized exams, has too much on its plate.

The announcement confirms that ETS "has repeatedly tried to rush computerized exams into the marketplace before they were ready for prime time," said Robert Schaeffer, public education director of the group FairTest, which has been critical of the testing industry. "They pushed these flawed products to increase test-maker income, not improve assessment quality or meet students needs."

Even though it scrapped the planned changes, ETS said it is still considering increasing the price of the exam. It had previously announced the cost would rise but had not said by how much.

The current exam costs $130 in the United States and $160 in most other places.

"We're still evaluating whether the price is going to go up," Ewing said. "We suspect it will, but we just don't know at this point."

Additional information about the Educational Testing Service is available at www.ets.org.