GMAC has released new information about the upcoming GMAC Focus Edition and the official study materials for the test. Read on for an in-depth review of the information from one of our expert tutors.
GMAT Focus Edition Official Prep Materials
GMAC has announced that official prep materials for the GMAT Focus Edition will be available starting Tuesday, June 6, 2023. These materials include the following resources:
- 70 sample questions (free)
- A six-week study planner (free)
- Six official practice exams (two free, four more available for purchase)
- GMAT Official Guide 2023-2024 (print and e-book)
- Quantitative Review 2023-2024 (print and e-book)
- Verbal Review 2023-2024 (print and e-book)
- Data Insights Review 2023-2024 (print and e-book)
- Practice Questions – Quantitative*
- Practice Questions – Verbal*
- Practice Questions – Data Insights*
*online product purchased from and accessed via mba.com
The Structure of the New Prep Materials
This slate of resources is essentially identical to the existing suite for the current edition of the GMAT. The current free sample question set has 90 questions covering all verbal, quantitative, and integrated reasoning question types. Since the Focus Edition omits sentence correction from the verbal section and geometry questions from the quant section, it is likely that the new set of 70 questions is simply the existing set of 90 questions with the sentence correction and geometry questions deleted.
Like the platform for the current GMAT, the Focus Edition prep platform will have a total of six official practice exams, of which the first two are free and the remaining four are available for purchase. These six GMAT Focus Edition practice exams will simulate the real test and employ the same scoring algorithm as the real test – so you can use them to learn both what the test is like and how you can expect to perform on it. However, like the set of 70 free sample questions, the question banks for these six practice exams might be pared-down versions of the question banks for the current GMAT’s six practice exams.
Potential Drawbacks of the New Prep Materials
In other words, if you are interested in the GMAT Focus Edition practice exams mainly as a source of never-before-seen practice questions, you might be disappointed. And if you have taken practice exams 1 and 2 for the current GMAT, you might be familiar with many of the questions presented to you on practice exams 1 and 2 for the GMAT Focus Edition. Still, the official GMAT Focus practice exams will be a valuable resource for candidates preparing for this new version of the test.
Official Guide and Review Books Integration
Prior editions of the Official Guide and its accompanying review books have not been integrated with the mba.com prep platform, but this could be changing. In either event, these books are likely to become available for purchase on June 6, in sync with the mba.com resources. Earlier images of the covers of these books showed two quantitative review books: one for problem-solving and one for data sufficiency. It is unclear why this was ever the case, especially since data sufficiency questions are being moved from the quantitative section to the Data Insights section.
Now, GMAC has clarified that there will be only one Quantitative Review book, accompanied by a Verbal Review book and a Data Insights Review book. So there will be one Official Guide covering all sections of the test, and there will be three review books – one for each section – containing practice questions not included in the Official Guide. Each of these four books will also have an online version of its practice question set. We don’t know whether this will be hosted by mba.com or by Wiley Efficient Learning like the questions for the current books. In either event, you will be able to use the online version of the practice question set to filter questions by category and by difficulty level.
MBA.com Practice Question Packs
mba.com will also sell unique practice question packs for each of the three sections of the GMAT Focus Edition (the last three items in the list above). GMAC has not specified the number of questions contained in these packs, but none of them will be repeated from the Official Guide or the review books. So although only 70 official practice questions will be free, there will be plenty of official practice questions available for purchase. Taking information from the images of the book covers, we can begin to count up all the official practice questions that will be available for the GMAT Focus Edition:
| Resource | Number of Questions |
| Free Sample Set | 70 |
| GMAT Official Guide 2023-2024 | 650+ |
| Quantitative Review 2023-2024 | 150+ |
| Verbal Review 2023-2024 | 200+ |
| Data Insights Review 2023-2024 | 200+ |
GMAT Focus Edition Scores
GMAC has released charts correlating current GMAT scores and percentiles with GMAT Focus Edition scores and percentiles. Although the 205 to 805 score range for the Focus Edition looks like a mere shift of the 200 to 800 range for the current GMAT, GMAC is stressing the point that a GMAT Focus Edition score of 725, for example, cannot be equated with a 720 score on the current GMAT. The table of overall scores and percentiles concurs with this point:
GMAT Focus Edition Percentile
| Focus Edition Score | Percentile | GMAT Exam score |
| 805 | 100 | 800 |
| 795 | 100 | 800 |
| 785 | 100 | 800 |
| 775 | 100 | 800 |
| 765 | 100 | 800 |
| 755 | 100 | 800 |
| 745 | 100 | 800 |
| 735 | 100 | 800 |
| 725 | 99 | 760 |
| 715 | 99 | 760 |
| 705 | 99 | 760 |
| 695 | 98 | 750 |
| 685 | 97 | 740 |
| 675 | 96 | 730 |
| 665 | 94 | 720 |
| 655 | 93 | 710 |
| 645 | 89 | 700 |
| 635 | 85 | 690 |
| 625 | 83 | 680 |
The table at mba.com continues to include all possible GMAT Focus Edition scores. GMAC has also released percentile tables for each of the three GMAT Focus Edition sections. Below each table is information about the data sample size and time period:
Sample size: 866,664
Data Period: July 2017 – June 2022
How can GMAC have information on GMAT Focus Edition performance from 2017 through 2022? Well, they don’t. They are using performance data from the current version of the GMAT and somehow extrapolating performance data for the GMAT Focus Edition. It is unclear exactly how this is supposed to work. We are interested to see whether GMAC’s forecast of GMAT Focus Edition score percentiles is correct. Will all scores 705 and above really be in the 99th percentile? We’ll find out when the first year of Focus Edition data is published in December 2024.
GMAT Focus Edition Official Score Report
The information now contained in the ESR (Extended Score Report) will be included for free in every GMAT Focus Edition Official Score Report, and this information will be more specific and more useful. The ESR used for the current version of the GMAT provides timing and correctness data only about groups of questions within each section. The Official Score Report for the GMAT Focus Edition will tell you how much time you spent on each question and whether that question was answered correctly or incorrectly. Also, for every school to which you send a Focus Edition score, your Official Score Report will provide the percentile of your overall score among all test-takers who also sent scores to that school.
Preparation is the key to success on the GMAT. We’re committed to providing you with the most effective and up-to-date GMAT prep resources. Schedule your complimentary call today and take your first step towards mastering the GMAT Focus Edition. This is your chance to discuss your study plan, ask any questions you have about the GMAT Focus Edition, and receive personalized advice tailored to your success.