GMAT Test Structure

The GMAT has three main divisions: Analytical Writing; Verbal Reasoning; Quantitative reasoning.

Analytical Writing

The analytical writing section has two essay writing tasks: the Issue and the Argument. The Issue task requires the students to write an essay presenting the writer’s position on a topic. The candidate is required to support his or her point of view with examples and reasoning. The time allotted for this task is 30 minutes.

The Argument task presents a statement of a position. The candidate is required to analyze the logic of the given position and suggest how and where the reasoning may be faulty or require improvement. The student is given 30 minutes for this essay.

The scoring for the Analytical Writing section is on a scale of 0-6. Each essay is scored by a human reader and then by a computer program (which the official GMAT website, mba.com, refers to as an automated essay-scoring engine). If the human and computer scores differ, the score is sent to a second expert reader for final evaluation. The final score is the average of the score on the Issue task and the score on the Argument task.

Quantitative Section

The quantitative section has two types of multiple choice questions: data sufficiency and problem solving. Follow the links to explore these types of math question.

There are 37 questions to be solved in 75 minutes. The level of math knowledge should be within the grasp of an 11th Grade student. However, the level of reasoning required is quite high. No calculators are allowed.

Verbal Reasoning

The verbal reasoning section contains three types of question: critical reasoning; reading comprehension; sentence correction. All questions are multiple-choice. You can click on the links to try out questions of each type.

There are 41 questions to be completed in 75 minutes.

Next Steps

We have over 30 free GMAT practice tests on our website for you to try. There are tests for each of the question types discussed above.