The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is a computer adaptive test (CAT) intended to assess certain analytical, writing, quantitative, verbal, and reading skills in written English for use in admission to a graduate management program, such as an MBA program.The GMAT assesses analytical writing and problem-solving abilities, while also addressing data sufficiency, logic, and critical reasoning skills that it believes to be vital to real-world business and management success. It can be taken up to five times a year but no more than 8 times total. Attempts must be at least 16 days apart.The GMAT exam consists of four sections: an analytical writing assessment, an integrated reasoning section, a quantitative section, and a verbal section. Total testing time is three hours and seven minutes. The total GMAT score ranges from 200 to 800.The Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT, is an important part of the business school application process. The GMAT is a multiple-choice, computer-based and computer-adaptive standardized exam that is often required for admission to graduate business programs (MBA) globally.
The GMAT contains four distinct section types, although you’ll use the same critical thinking and analysis skills throughout the test, just like you will during your MBA coursework. The content on the GMAT is broken down into four scored test sections, two of which are scored separately, and two of which are scored separately but are also combined to generate your composite score:
The Analytical Writing Assessment section of the GMAT is scored separately from 0 to 6 in half-point increments. The Integrated Reasoning section is also scored separately on 1–8 scale, in one-point increments. The Quantitative and Verbal sections each have a scaled score of 0–60. They are then combined to generate a score on the 200–800 scale, with 10-point increments, you’re probably most familiar with. Your score on the 200–800 scale, in 10-point increments, reflects the level of difficulty of the questions you answered correctly using a proprietary GMAC algorithm. The mean score for Verbal is 27, while the mean score for Quantitative is 39. The mean is 4.4 for Analytical Writing and 4.2 for Integrated Reasoning. The score that MBA programs weigh most heavily for admission is your combined Verbal and Quantitative scores. Here, the GMAT applies its algorithm to your Verbal and Quantitative scores, converting them to the familiar 200–800 scale, where the mean score is 552. See more on how the GMAT is scored below.