GMAT
Brief Background
The GMAT exam, a standardized assessment delivered in English, helps business schools assess the qualifications of applicants for advanced study in business and management. The B-Schools use the test as one yard-stick to predict the academic performance in MBA program or any other graduate management programs. Though some colleges in UK do not require GMAT, top colleges in UK, Canada, Australia and Singapore and all colleges in USA require a decent GMAT score.
About the test
The GMAT exam consists of four main parts, the Analytical Writing Assessment, Integrated Reasoning, the Quantitative section, and the Verbal section.
The AWA consists of an argument based essay and Integrated Reasoning section tests the students’ ability to assimilate information from various graphs and data.
Quantitative Section of the GMAT contains 37 multiple-choice questions of two types—Data Sufficiency and Problem Solving. Students are allowed a maximum of 75 minutes to complete the entire section.
Verbal Section contains 41 multiple choice questions of three types—Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, and Sentence Correction. Students are allowed a maximum of 75 minutes to complete the entire section.
The remaining two sections (Quantitative and Verbal) consist of multiple-choice questions delivered in a computer-adaptive format. Questions in these sections are dynamically selected as the student takes the test; the multiple-choice questions will adjust to the student’s ability level, and every student’s test will be unique.
For each multiple-choice section of the GMAT exam, there is a large pool of potential questions ranging from a low to high level of difficulty. In a computer- adaptive test, only one question at a time is presented. Because the computer scores each question before selecting the next one, the student may not skip, return to, or change his responses to previous questions.
If the student answers a question incorrectly by mistake or correctly by randomly guessing, the answers to subsequent questions will lead the student back to questions that are at the appropriate level of difficulty for the student. . Every student has to answer a mixture of questions from all levels of difficulty.
How is the score determined?
The total GMAT score is 800 marks. 400 marks for the Verbal and Quantitative score each. The scores are valid for a period of 5 years. The GMAT score is determined by:
• the number of questions answered,
• whether the student answers the questions correctly or incorrectly, and
• the level of difficulty and other statistical characteristics of each question.
The questions in an adaptive test are weighted according to their difficulty and other statistical properties and not according to their position in the test.
When to write GMAT ?
Ideally, the aspirant for business studies should have a work experience of approximately 3 to 4 years, as top colleges require the same. Since the Fall- intake in colleges is maximum and the first deadline for applications to the colleges in USA is normally in October, the GMAT preparation should begin at-least three and a half months prior to this. Some schools do have a Dec-January intake.
A word on preparation
GMAT is a challenging but an interesting exam, which teaches many management skills such as time-management, stress management, strategy management etc., It is not just a test of English and math.
Background of Mrs R Saraswathi
Mrs.R.Saraswathi is a Post Graduate in Math and a Gold Medallist in Englilsh. She is a State-rank holder in the SSLC and was first in University in English during under-graduate study. Endowed with deep insights into both math and English, Mrs.R.Saraswathi has been tutoring students for more than twenty years, for various exams. In particular, She has experience of more than a decade in coaching for global entrance exams like GMAT,GRE, SAT, ACT & PSAT . She has her own classroom facilities.
For further information on GMAT, log on to www.mba.com
