GMAT Focus Edition – Everything You Need to Know

The GMAT Focus Edition was released on November 7, 2023. The current version of the GMAT will still be available until January 31, 2024. Starting February 1, 2024, the only version of the GMAT available for you to take will be the GMAT Focus Edition.

According to GMAC, the new version of the GMAT is designed to “home in on the higher-order critical reasoning and data literacy skills that are especially relevant and applicable in the business environment of tomorrow.” This means that the test content will place more emphasis on skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and data analysis, all of which are essential for success in modern business.

The GMAC has worked collaboratively with business school professionals representing a wide mix of program types and sizes from around the world to redesign the exam. In-depth concept testing with candidates globally representing a mix of demographic characteristics has also been conducted to ensure the exam’s effectiveness.

It’s important to note that the fundamental purpose of the GMAT is not changing with the introduction of the GMAT Focus Edition. Rather, the new version is simply a revised and updated version of the exam that aims to better assess the skills that are most relevant to business school success. As such, the skills needed to perform well on the current GMAT will largely remain the same for the GMAT Focus Edition. This means that if you’ve already been studying for the GMAT, your preparation won’t go to waste, and you can continue studying for the GMAT Focus Edition with confidence.

Sections

The GMAT Focus Edition introduces significant format changes to the test. Instead of four sections, it now features three 45-minute sections consisting entirely of multiple-choice questions. This new format makes the exam about an hour shorter than the current GMAT, which takes just over three hours to complete.

Section Order Selection

One significant benefit for test-takers is the new section order selection feature. The GMAT Focus Edition allows test-takers to choose the order in which they complete each of the three sections. This means that individuals can start with the section that they feel most confident about or are more comfortable with, which can help reduce test anxiety and improve performance.

Question Review and Edit Answers

On the current GMAT, when you confirm your answer to question 9 of a given section and the screen advances to question 10, you have seen question 9 for the last time – you will never get another chance to see it or to change your answer. The GMAT Focus Edition will change this aspect of the test. On the Focus Edition, you must answer every question in a section before you can see any of them again, but once you have answered every question, you can see all of them again and change up to three answers.

What everyone needs to remember is that the GMAT Focus Edition will still be an adaptive test. This means that when you get a question wrong, the test adjusts the difficulty of the next question accordingly. Going back and changing the answer later doesn’t change the “path” of questions you stepped onto as a result of having gotten that answer wrong the first time. If you had spent the time to get the answer right, you would have stepped onto a more challenging “path” – one with a higher potential score.

If the Focus Edition uses the same adaptive algorithm as the current GMAT, the impact of a given question on your “path” will start out very high at the beginning of each section and decrease as the section progresses. This has to do with the test’s “confidence” in determining your ability level. The more questions you have answered, the more data the test has to work with. As you approach the end of a section, the test has acquired enough data and knows you well enough that it doesn’t drastically decrease the difficulty of the next question if you get a certain question wrong.

At the beginning of a section, the opposite is true. If you miss question 3, the official difficulty of question 4 (not necessarily its perceived difficulty for you) will be significantly lower than that of question 3. There is a big “swing.” Since these “swings” are drastically reduced in size as the section goes on, missing a few questions near the beginning of the section can set you on a “path” from which there is no recovery, depending on your goal score. It is important to make a great “first impression” on the GMAT in each section. If you make a bad first impression and the GMAT decides that you don’t know what you’re doing, you may not be able to change its mind later – no matter how many answers you can change.

Bottom line: These three answer changes are not free skips. Depending on how early in a section you decide to guess and change your answer later, you could derail your plans for a great score. A good rule of thumb would be to do your very best to answer every question correctly in the first half of each section. After this point, you can start to think about using one or two of your “skips” on questions that threaten to eat up your time.

Official Score Report

Currently, GMAT test-takers can purchase (for $30) an Extended Score Report (ESR) for any administration within the last five years. The ESR provides performance data for each section and each question type, including time management breakdowns. GMAC has publicized that these reports will be improved for the GMAT Focus Edition and that they will be free. Every time you take the GMAT Focus Edition, you’ll receive a document with a detailed breakdown of your performance and time management.

Score Sending

Every time you take the current GMAT, you can send a score report to up to five business schools for free. However, you must select these schools before you see your scores. On the GMAT Focus Edition, you will select these schools after you see your scores. This means you should never cancel your scores on the GMAT Focus Edition. 

When you send GMAT Focus Edition scores, you only send the scores for that single administration of the test. This is a change from the current GMAT format, where sending scores means that the schools receive a report displaying all your GMAT scores from the last five years. With the GMAT Focus Edition, each school will only ever see the scores you want them to see.

The GMAT Focus Edition brings some significant content changes to the Verbal and Quantitative sections, as well as a new section called Data Insights. These changes are aimed at evaluating critical reasoning and data literacy skills.

Data Insights Section

The most significant content change in the GMAT Focus Edition is the addition of a new section called Data Insights, which replaces the Integrated Reasoning section of the current GMAT. The new GMAT Focus Edition section leverages Integrated Reasoning and Data Sufficiency question types to measure a newly calibrated digital and data literacy dimension. Thus, the Data Insights section on the GMAT Focus Edition is an essential component that measures your ability to analyze and interpret data, which is highly relevant in today’s business environment.

• The Data Insights section is composed of 20 questions that assess how multiple sources and types of information relate to each other and can be leveraged to make informed decisions.
• You can use an on-screen calculator while working on this section.
• The new Data Insights section will be adaptive, unlike the current GMAT’s Integrated Reasoning.

The question types you’ll find in this section include:

• Data Sufficiency: Measures your ability to analyze a quantitative problem, recognize relevant data, and determine when there is enough data to solve the problem.
• Multi-Source Reasoning: Measures your ability to examine data from multiple sources, including text passages, tables, and graphics, and to analyze each source carefully to answer multiple questions.
• Table Analysis: Measures your ability to sort and analyze a table of data to determine what information is relevant or meets certain conditions.
• Graphics Interpretation: Measures your ability to interpret information presented in a graph or other graphical image to discern relationships and make inferences.
• Two-Part Analysis: Measures your ability to solve complex problems involving both quantitative and verbal reasoning.

Quantitative Reasoning Section

The Quantitative Reasoning section in the GMAT Focus Edition aims to evaluate the examinee’s understanding of fundamental arithmetic and elementary algebraic concepts and their ability to apply that knowledge to solve complex problems.

• The new section features 21 Problem-Solving questions and has been shortened to 45 minutes, 
• Data Sufficiency questions have been removed from this section and added to the Data Insights Section.
• Also, geometry questions have been eliminated from the GMAT Focus Edition.
• The use of calculators is still not allowed in this section. 

Verbal Reasoning Section

The Verbal Reasoning section on the GMAT Focus Edition assesses your ability to comprehend written material, evaluate arguments, and reason logically. 

• Sentence Correction questions are no longer included in this section.
• The section consists of 23 questions on Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning.

The Reading Comprehension questions will test a candidate’s ability to understand words and statements, infer relationships between significant points, make inferences, and follow the development of quantitative concepts. The questions will assess specific reading skills such as identifying the main idea, supporting ideas, inferences, application, logical structure, and style.

On the other hand, Critical Reasoning questions will evaluate a candidate’s ability to assess and formulate arguments, and to evaluate a plan of action. These questions are based on a short reading passage, typically under 100 words, and come with a question that requires the candidate to choose which of the five answer options either strengthens or weakens an argument, tells why the argument is flawed, or strongly supports or damages the argument. The questions do not require any specialized knowledge of the subject matter.

Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) 

Another notable change is the removal of the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) section from the main GMAT Focus Edition exam. This change reflects the increasing importance of critical thinking skills in the business world, and allows candidates to better focus their preparation efforts for each section of the exam.