The GMAT, or Graduate Management Admission Test, is an aptitude test. Like all aptitude tests, it must choose a medium in which to measure intellectual ability. The GMAT has chosen math, English, and logic. The GMAT is a critical part of the selective admissions process for nearly 4,000 graduate management programs at 1,800 schools around the world.
The GMAT is created and administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). MBA admissions committees use the GMAT in comparing the credentials of candidates from widely varying backgrounds.
Format of the GMAT The GMAT is a three-and-one-half hour computer adaptive test (CAT) that has four sections.
Section
Time
Writing
Analysis of Issue Essay
30 minutes
Writing
Analysis of Argument Essay
30 minutes
Math
37 Questions
75 minutes
Verbal
41 Questions
75 minutes
The GMAT writing sections always begin the test. Each question must be answered before you can go to the next question, and you cannot return to a question once you go to the next question.
The GMAT is a standardized test. Each time it is offered, the test has, as close as possible, the same level of difficulty as every previous test. Maintaining this consistency is very difficult--hence the experimental questions (questions that are not scored). Experimental questions are included because the effectiveness of each question must be assessed before it can be used as a scored question on the GMAT. A problem that one person finds easy another person may find hard, and vice versa. The experimental questions measure the relative difficulty of potential questions; if responses to a question do not perform to strict specifications, the question is rejected.
About one quarter of the questions on the GMAT are experimental, and can be standard math, data sufficiency, reading comprehension, arguments, or sentence correction. You won't know which questions are experimental.
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