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A new version of the Graduate Management Admission Test will debut this year.
The Graduate Management Admission Council, which runs the test, announced the change Thursday without providing much detail. It said the GMAT Focus “is more efficient, flexible, and insightful by honing in [sic] on the higher-order critical reasoning skills and data literacy especially relevant and applicable in the business environment of tomorrow.”
But Business Because, which is owned by the GMAC, said the new test “comprises three 45-minute sections, reducing the test time by one hour.” The writing of an essay will no longer be part of the test.
Stacey Koprince, director of content and curriculum at Manhattan Prep, which prepares students for the test, said, “This is easily the biggest change to the GMAT since it moved from a paper and pencil format to a computer-adaptive format in 1997. While there is not yet a lot of information on the GMAT Focus Edition, from what we can see, these are very student-friendly changes. It’s hard to say that an exam that’s one hour shorter will frustrate test takers, particularly when GMAC has also indicated that there will be fewer topics to study. Not including break time, the new GMAT will be more than an hour shorter than the GRE. Test takers will be able to review problems after the fact and change a small number of answers. And there will be no essay. In our opinion, these changes sound great.”
In recent years, the GMAT has faced increased competition from the Graduate Record Examination.
