The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) has announced details about the GMAT test change, set to be introduced next year.
The test, which currently consists of three sections; analytical writing assessment, quantitative and verbal, will see a new section introduced that focuses on integrated reasoning. The change comes following a 2009 survey, of 740 business schools, which showed that b-schools believe that students should be able to assimilate, interpret, and convert data.
The integrated reasoning section will replace one of the analytical writing sections and will, like the section it replaces, be 30 minutes long. Consequently, the length of the test shall remain the same: approximately 4 hours.
The section, which the GMAC says will asses the skills that 21st century students will need to succeed in business school, will feature questions that require test takers to assimilate information from several sources and produce solutions to complex problems.
The new section will include 12-15 questions in one of four new formats:
- Multi-Source Reasoning: The student will have to assimilate information from two to three tabbed pages. They then analyse this information to answer questions.
- Table Analysis: The test take will have to sort a table of information, similar to a spread sheet, and analyse this to determine whether statements are accurate.
- Graphics Interpretation: The student will have to analyse a graphical image or graph, and determine which statements, from a drop down list, are correct.
- Two-Part Analysis: The test take will have to answer a question consisting of two components. Possible answer will be given in a table and the student will have to consider the possible answers provided.
Ashok Sarathy, vice president of GMAC, says that the new section will better measure the skills that business schools are looking for. “Both the advisory group and a survey of 740 business school faculty worldwide found that the ability to synthesize and evaluate relevant information is increasingly important to management education,” he said.
“The skills they identified had a unifying theme: the ability to solve problems in a data-rich environment.”
Like the current GMAT format, the new test will not asses business knowledge or terminology, and does not require a business background in order to get a high score. The new test, however, will require students to interpret graphical data and sort tables.
The next generation GMAT will be introduced on June 4 2012.