GMAT Official Guide 2020: Book + Online Question Bank

Book Preface

1.0 What Is the GMAT ™ Exam?

The Graduate Management Admission Test™ (GMATrM) exam is a standardized exam used in admissions decisions by more than 7,000 graduate management programs worldwide, at approximately 2,300 graduate business schools worldwide. It helps you gauge, and demonstrate to schools, your academic potential for success in graduate-level management studies.
The four-part exam measQres your Analytical Writing, Integrated Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Quantitative Reasoning skills- ·higher-order reasoning skills that management faculty, admissions professionals, and employers worldwide have identified as important for incoming students to have.
“Higher-order” reasoning skills involve complex judgments, and include critical thinking, analysis, and problem solving. Unlike undergraduate grades and curricula, which vary in their meaning across regions and institutions, your GMAT scores provide a standardized, statistically valid an<l reliable measure of how you are likely to perform academically in the core curriculum of a graduate management program. ‘Ihe GMAT exam’s validity, fairness, and value in admissions have been well-established through numerous academic studies.
The GMAT exam is delivered entirely in English and solely on a computer, It is not a test of business knowledge, subject-matter mastery, English vocabulary, or advanced computational skills. The GMAT exam also does not measure other factors related to success in graduate management study, such as job experience, leadership ability, motivation, and interpersonal skills. Your GMAT score is intended to be used as one admissions criterion among other, more subjective, criteria, such as admissions essays and interviews.

1.1 Why Take the GMAT ™ Exam?

Launched in 1954 by a group of nine business schools to provide a uni form measure of the academic skills needed to succeed in their programs, the GMAT exam is now used by more than 7,000 graduate management programs at approximately 2,300 institutions worldwide.
Taking the GMAT exam helps you stand out in the admissions process and demonstrate your readiness and commitment to pursuing graduate management education. Schools use GMAT scores to help them select the most qualified applicants-because they know that candidates who take the GMAT exam are serious about earning a graduate business degree, and it’s a proven predictor of a student’s ability to succeed in his or her chosen program. When you consider which programs to apply to, you can look at a school’s use of the GMAT exam as one indicator of’ quality. Schools that use the GMAT exam typically list score ranges or average scores in their class profiles, so you may also find these profiles helpful in gauging the academic competitiveness of a program you are considering and how well your performance on the exam compares with that of the students enrolled in the program.

No matter how you perform on the GMAT exam, yo11 should contact the schools that interest you to learn more and to ask how they use GMAT scores and other criteria (such as your undergraduate grades, essays, and lc.:ttcrs of recom1m:ndation) in their admissions processes. School admissions offices, web sites, and materials published by schools arc the key sources of information when you are doing research about where you might want to go to business school.
For more information on the GMAT exam, test preparation materials, registration, how to use and send yotir GMAT scores to schools, and applying to business school, please visit