GMAT Test Prep

For most aspiring business school students—many of who work in demanding jobs with constricting schedules and crazy hours—finding sufficient time for GMAT test prep may not sound feasible.

What Is On The GMAT?

Each GMAT test is comprised of three sections: the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA), the Quantitative Section, and the Verbal Section. The AWA will always be given first.

Altogether, the GMAT takes three and a half hours. It is a Computer-Adaptive Test, which means that it’s taken on a computer, which automatically adjusts the difficulty level of the questions in response to how many correct and incorrect answers the student gives. The better you do, in other words, the harder the subsequent questions. The GMAT is scored on a curve so that you’ll receive more points for answering harder questions correctly. This computer adaptivity is something of a double-edged sword, but strategies learned during GMAT prep can help you use it to your advantage.

The GMAT test is scored out of a possible 800 points. For both the Quantitative and Verbal Sections, you will receive a raw score between 0 and 51. These two scores are then scaled to produce a number between 100 and 400. Added together, the final score will be between 200-800. The AWA is scored separately on a scale of 0-6. The national average GMAT test score in recent years has been 533, with a national average of 4.4 on the AWA.

The top business schools are looking for students with a 700 or better.

Analytical Writing Assessment

Length: 60 min.
Item Types: Two essays
Score: 0-6

The first essay asks you to analyze an argument; the second asks you to analyze an issue. You will be given 30 minutes for each essay.

Quantitative Section

Length: 75 min.
Item Types: Multiple-choice math questions
Score: 100-400

Each GMAT test contains 37 questions relating to Data Sufficiency and Problem Solving. Data Sufficiency questions are unique to the GMAT, which means you’ve probably never seen this format before. Consisting of a math problem followed by two separate statements, these questions ask you to determine whether the statements, alone or together, give you sufficient data to solve the problem.