GMAT - general information

Today we begin the cycle of publications about the GMAT exam . Within a month we will publish a cycle of informative and useful articles, after reading which, you will be able to familiarize yourself with the structure of the exam, the assessment system, secrets and materials for preparation.



In today's introductory article we will talk about what a GMAT is, what are its features and structure. This publication opens our cycle, so in it we want to give you a general idea of ​​the exam.

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Let's start!



The GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) test is designed to assess the degree of readiness of a candidate for admission to a magistracy or business school for programs in finance, business, economics and management.



GMAT history



In the middle of the last century, the nine best educational institutions in the field of business decided to form an association that would create a standard test that would give an objective assessment of candidates' knowledge and identify the most promising students among them.



It is this structure that became the basis for the organization, which today is known as the Graduate Management Admission Council or, in short, GMAC . The test itself has almost the same name - GMAT (the last word is Test). In the first years of its existence, this type of assessment was rarely used: during the first two years, only 4000 candidates passed it for training in MBA programs, and only 54 schools throughout the United States used the test results to assess the quality of future students.



GMAT demand



However, today the situation has changed, and every year more than a quarter of a million candidates pass the GMAT test, and the exam results are taken at 1,500 universities and business schools, they are necessary for 5,400 different educational programs conducted around the world.



The relevance and popularity of the exam is not surprising. It is annually rented by people from many countries working in various fields. Thus, the selection committee can easily compare the level of knowledge of seemingly completely different applicants.



GMAT changes



For more than half a century of existence, the exam has changed several times, and the transformations have affected both the format and the assessment system, and even the structure of the test itself. Now the exam has 4 main sections and is built on an adaptive principle.



The whole XX century applicants handed over GMAT on paper, and only in 1997 the test became computerized and adaptive, and the Analytical Writing section was also added.



Thanks to the new CAT format, tasks in each of the sections are adapted to the level of preparation of the examinee. The complexity of each subsequent question depends entirely on how correctly the answer was given to the previous task. Thus, in these sections a set of tasks will be completely individual for each of the applicants, however, the more correct answers are given, the more difficult the next tasks become.



In 2012, the most recent significant change occurred — the Integrated Reasoning section was added, replacing 1 essay from Analytical Writing. This section has become innovative and distinctive for the test, which further distanced itself from the GRE test (we will tell about this exam in our next articles).







GMAT structure



Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) consists of four main sections, namely (in the order of their passing):

• GMAT AWA (Analytical Writing Assessment);
• GMAT IR (Integrated Reasoning);
• GMAT Math (Quantitative);
• GMAT Verbal section.

On the test is about 4 hours. Below will be discussed in detail each of the sections of the assessment.



GMAT Verbal section



In this section, you will need to answer 41 questions. You do not have much time for answers - only 75 minutes, so you shouldn’t think about each question for long. In this part of the test, all tasks can be divided into three main types:

• correction of sentences (Sentence Correction);
• reading comprehension;
• critical reasoning (Critical Reasoning).

In this section, you should demonstrate your skills of fast reading of the text, highlighting its main idea, as well as knowledge of elementary stylistic norms and grammar. To prepare for the section, it will be useful to familiarize yourself with examples of tasks in this section or to go through the GMAT trial test .



GMAT Math (Quantitative)



This section includes 37 small tasks, the solution of which is given 75 minutes. In total, there are two types of tasks in the mathematical section :

• problem solving;
• data sufficiency analysis for solving the problem.

This section is designed to assess the level of your knowledge of algebra, geometry and arithmetic.



GMAT AWA (Analytical Writing Assessment)



In the third section, you will need to write an essay analyzing the above argument. The essay is written within half an hour. The statement may relate to the most different spheres of human life: from business to science. The work should show the examiners the level of your ability for analytical thinking, as well as the ability to correctly express thoughts and ideas on paper. In this section you will not need any additional knowledge on the subject. Nevertheless, it is recommended to complete a training course, study essay topics, as well as get a hand in writing 10-20 essays. Be sure to submit an essay for review by an expert teacher who will point out the main mistakes in the presentation logic, shortcomings of lexical diversity, grammar.



GMAT IR (Integrated Reasoning)



The last test section that appeared is a fairly new phenomenon in the GMAT. In this section you will have to solve 12 tasks in 30 minutes, which can be divided into 4 main types:

• table analysis;
• two-part analysis;
• chart analysis;
• analysis of information, based on several sources.

GMAT points



After receiving the official certificate, most candidates pay attention only to the overall result, not particularly interested in the number of points for each section separately. Unfortunately, this is not always correct, because the points for a separate part help to understand the selection committee, in which particular areas you are strong, and where else you can improve your knowledge.



In addition, each section has its own special rating system, which is why the certificate indicates the score accumulated in each section. In order not to get confused, we advise you to pay attention to how each section of the exam is assessed and verified:

• In the Analytical Writing Assessment, you can get from 0 to 6 points. Each essay is verified both by computer and by person. After that, the "points" that were set at each check are summed up, as a result, the total score is displayed. The evaluation step is half a point.
• For the Integrated Reasoning section you can score from 1 to 8 points. Your result, first of all, depends on how many questions you answered correctly. Some of them imply several correct answers that need to be found in order for the task to be fully credited. This part is evaluated at intervals of 1 point.
• In the sections Quantitative (Maths) and Verbal several aspects are important: how many tasks are completed, the number of correct answers, the level of complexity of the questions.

You need to answer the maximum number of questions as high as possible. You can score from 0 to 60 points, while the interval is one point. As a rule, candidates rarely score less than 7 points and more than 50 for Quantitative (Maths); for the Verbal section, the average result usually ranges from 9 to 44 points.



The total score for the GMAT test ranges from 200 to 800. After counting and summing up the points scored for all sections, the total result is displayed, which is set in 10 unit increments.



If you want to make an impression and show that already now, before the start of training, you are thinking about what you will actually encounter during its passage, then you can speculate a little on topics related to future studies .



The next post will discuss GMAT preparation.



The author of the article is Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult