The GMAT, or Graduate Management Admission Test, is a standardized test designed to assess skills relevant to graduate studies in business and management. GMAT is required to be undertaken by those students who wish to pursue M.B.A in United States. GMAT measures language, quantitative and writing skills and is designed to help predict a student's potential academic performance in the first year of graduate management school. Since October 1997, the GMAT has been administered exclusively as a computer adaptive test, or CAT. The GMAT CAT consists of 150 minutes of multiple-choice testing, plus two 30-minute writing sessions. (Test takers are required to type their essays using a simple word-processing program.) GMAT is measured on a maximum of 800 marks.
Here's how the four sections of the GMAT CAT break down:
Analytical Writing Section
Analysis
of an issue topic
1 essay - 30 minutes
Verbal Section
Reading comp
Sentence correction
Critical reasoning
41 questions - 75 minutes
Quantitative Section
Data sufficiency
Problem solving
37 questions - 75 minutes
The essay questions are administered first, followed by the multiple-choice sections. The question types within a section appear in random order.
CAT Format
A computer adaptive test (CAT) is very different structurally from a traditional paper and pencil test. On a CAT, the computer will select which questions to administer based on how well you're doing up to that point. If you keep getting questions right, the test will get harder and harder; if you make some mistakes, the computer will adjust and start giving you easier problems. If you answer the easier problems correctly, the computer will give you harder questions again.