GMAT Examination

About the GMAT

The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is administered by the Education Testing Service (ETS) and is primarily a multiple-choice test that management schools use for admission of students into their MBA programs. ETS administers the GMAT CAT (computer-adaptive test) on behalf of the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC). The GMAT Program also assists students in their transition to graduate education through a variety of services and publications. The GMAT CAT includes:

• A Quantitative Section: It measures quantitative ability and includes problem solving and data sufficiency questions.
• A Verbal Section: It includes reading comprehension, critical reasoning and sentence correction questions.
• An Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) Section: It measures proficiency in analytical writing and includes two writing tasks of 30 minutes each.

Because of the strong correlation between high GMAT scores and success in graduate school, many schools require that the applicants take the GMAT General Test.

The GMAT Test Structure

The GMAT general test includes three major areas of testing: Verbal Ability, Quantitative Ability (Mathematics), and Analytical Writing Ability.

GMAT Verbal Ability
The GMAT verbal section contains three types of questions: Sentence Correction, Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. Your success in this section will depend on your ability to read and fully comprehend written material, reason and evaluate arguments and your familiarity with the stylistic conventions and grammatical rules of written English. Questions vary in difficulty from easy to real tough ones. Typically, the verbal section contains 41 multiple-choice questions. You are allowed a maximum of 75 minutes to complete this section.

GMAT Quantitative Ability (Mathematics)
The GMAT quantitative section is often referred to as the Mathematics section. It tests your basic understanding of arithmetic, algebra and geometry. Knowledge of more advanced mathematics is not required in this section of the GMAT. Most of the questions in the Quantitative Ability section are of high school level and are intended to just show how well you understand elementary mathematics. You are allowed a maximum of 75 minutes to complete this section. Typically, the GMAT quantitative section contains 37 multiple-choice questions from the following types :

The Data Sufficiency section : Questions in the Data sufficiency section consist of a Math problem followed by two statements, which might lead you to the answer of the problem. You need to choose which of the statements (if any) is sufficient to solve the problem. Along with your math knowledge, this section will require a sense of logic.

The Problem Solving section involves traditional computational skills, and includes arithmetic, algebra, and geometry concepts you have learned in school. You will need to know the necessary facts and formulae for this section.

You can expect 17 - 18 questions of each type in this section. Questions of both types appear in random order one after the other.

GMAT Analytical Writing Assessment
It tests writing ability through 2 writing assignments - Analysis of an Issue and Analysis of an argument. Watch this space for forthcoming material on preparing for these essays! You are allowed 30 minutes to complete each essay.

The following table should be useful for remembering the GMAT test structure:

Section Number of Questions Time (minutes) Verbal 41 75 Quantitative 37 75 Analytical Writing 2 essays (30 minutes allotted for each one)

All multiple-choice questions in the GMAT have five options following a problem statement. Out of these, only one option is the correct answer.