The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), used for MBA admissions by a vast majority of business schools across the world will add a new section that will test advanced reasoning skills, starting June 2012.

The new section, known as ‘Integrated Reasoning’, will feature questions that will test skills of data analysis and interpretation, the ability to form relationships between information from multiple sources and form judgments.

Even though the ‘next generation’ GMAT will add another section, the total duration of the exam will remain the same at 3.5 hours (excluding the breaks). However, the Analytical Writing section will have only one essay instead of the two in the present avatar of the exam.

The GMAT exams verbal and quantitative sections however, will not change. As a result, when the new section is introduced in June 2012, tests will be scored on the same 200800 scale used today. Test takers will receive a separate score for the essay as they do now and another distinct score on the new integrated reasoning section. The new score would thus look like something on the lines of 800/6/X, where X would be the score of the new Integrated Reasoning section.

“The new test will be launched on June 4, 2012 at all locations worldwide and registrations will begin six months prior, as they do at present,” Ashok Sarathy , Vice President of the GMAT Program told PaGaLGuY over telephone from the US. He added that there will be no change in the price of appearing for the GMAT as a result of the test revamp.

Those joining the classes of 2013-15 at b-schools worldwide would thus be the first batch to receive admits based on the new GMAT.

The Integrated Reasoning section

According to Mr Sarathy, the new section was added after a survey of business school faculty across the world including India about the additional skills they would like tested in the GMAT.

The section will feature questions that would require test-takers to use information from multiple sources, such as charts, graphs and spreadsheets to analyze information, draw conclusions and discern relationships between data points, just as they must do in business school, he added.

A sample Integrated Reasoning question released by GMAC consists of an interactive spreadsheet listing traffic data at 21 airports across the world. Test-takers can sort columns of the spreadsheet to interpret the data from different viewpoints. Questions that follow ask the test-taker to examine a few statements based on the data and determine which ones are true. Questions may also have more than one true statements. Other types of questions would test the ability to assess the reason for, or the likelihood of certain outcomes. Watch the video below or here for a demo released by GMAC.

Mr Sarathy said that there would also be audio questions in the section, which will test the ability to listen to complex spoken material and form judgments, strengthen and weaken an argument or separate and convert data between arguments.

According to Dave Wilson, president and CEO of GMAC, “The new integrated reasoning section of the GMAT will be a microcosm of todays b-school classroom. These questions will provide critical intelligence to schools about the ability of prospective students to make sound decisions by evaluating, assimilating or extrapolating data.

Score scale, number of questions

GMAC has as yet not decided the number of questions in or the scale it will use to score the Integrated Reasoning section. “We are currently in pilot mode and will test the questions with 3,000 more students to determine how many to include in the section and how much of a question bank to create,” Mr Sarathy told PaGaLGuY.

On the score scale for the new section he said, “Once we finalize the questions, we will go to admission directors and ask them to define the scale. Since they have to use the scores, they will know best what scale to use for differentiating the candidates.”

Effect on the Analytical Writing section

In the present format, the Analytical Writing section requires the test-taker to write two essays, one on the analysis of an issue and the other on the analysis of an argument. Post-revamped launch, the section would shrink to just one essay, which could either be on the analysis of an issue or of an argument.

“We have been researching on the scores of these essays and admissions directors have said that performance in the two essays is correlated,” said Mr Sarathy, “so we decided to do away with one.”

Managing the launch

In the 2012 admission season, b-schools would thus receive two types of scores — from the tests taken before the new GMAT launch and those from the new format. “The verbal, quantitative and analytical writing scores would be common to both the old and new GMAT scores. After June 2012, schools will have one additional score component. It is upto them to decide how they will compare the two types of scores,” said Mr Sarathy.

In all likelihood, there would be a rush to take the GMAT in its old format in the months preceding June 2012. GMAC on its part will make the new GMAT sample test material available on its website. “We will also be working closely with test preparation companies around the world to make sure that students are as prepared as possible to take the new format,” said Mr Sarathy.

GMAT vs GRE

In recent years, the GMAT exam has had a growing rival in the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), traditionally used for applying to programs in arts and sciences in the US. The upgrade received by GMAT will help it in strengthening its competitive edge against the GRE.

GRE, though is giving a good fight. It has in the past couple of years convinced some big name b-schools such as Tuck-Dartmouth, Stanford, Wharton and others to accept the GRE score for their MBA admissions. With a revised b-school-focused version of GRE set to launch in August 2011, coupled with their ‘Personal Potential Index’ offering, GRE is aggressively pursuing GMAT’s traditional stronghold.