Should I Take Advantage of the GMAT Selection Order Pilot?

by , Jan 15, 2016

You may have heard that, on Monday, some students started receiving emails inviting them to take part in a pilot program that GMAC (the organization that makes the GMAT) is holding in late February / early March.

This pilot is to test an awesome potential new feature: the ability to select the order in which you do the various sections of the GMAT!

Below, Ive laid out all of the important details and I also talk about how to decide whether to join, if you were one of the lucky students invited to take part.

How does the pilot work? What are they testing?

Theyre offering four possible combinations:

Quant. Verbal. IR. Essay.

Quant. Verbal. Essay. IR.

Verbal. Quant. IR. Essay.

Essay. IR. Verbal. Quant.

The last option allows you to take the test mostly like the real thing: you just swap quant and verbal. (When I first saw that, I thought: whos going to choose that? But some people might more on that later.)

The first three are serious departures from the status quo, though! They allow you to push the essay and IR to the end of the test and to do the quant and verbal sections while youre still fresh. This could be a serious advantage, depending on your strengths and weaknesses and your test-taking style.

That sounds great. How can I sign up?

If you dont receive an email from GMAC, then you cant. Im sorry. Its invite only.

But there is some potential good news, as long as you arent planning to take the test very soon.

This isnt JUST a pilot. The scores will count.

Anyone who agrees to the pilot is going to come out of it with real, valid GMAT scores. In other words, GMAC is very far along in the testing process; otherwise, they wouldnt be able to offer valid scores from this pilot.

If all goes well, then theres a possibility that we just might see this roll out system-wide later this year. It might not happen until next year. (Or it might never happen, of course.)

So if you arent planning to take the test in the next few months, then you just might be able to take advantage of this new feature later this year. Well have to wait and see.

I was chosen! Should I do it? Or should I take it the traditional way?

If you were chosen for the pilot, then there are a few important factors to consider.

Dont let this add to your stress.

If you are feeling really stressed out about everything you have to do for this test, and this new pilot just seems like one more annoying variable / decision to make, then opt out.

For the pilot, you wont have the ability to rehearse your chosen order on a practice test first. If that is a significant concern for you, either opt out or consider participating in the pilot and choosing option 4. That option swaps the order of quant and verbal, so its the closest to the current test. If you tend to be way too tired when you get to verbal (and if quant is a relative strength), then swapping the order of those last two sections may help your performance.

If you think that this sounds like a good opportunity to take the GMAT more on your own terms, then read on.

In general, its better to start with a strength (caveat below)

Most people are going to be interested in one of the first three options, which allow you to do either quant or verbal first. Your first section is also your warm-up on the test, so its better for that section to be your strength.

In addition, if you do your stronger section first, you can carry that confidence and momentum over into your weaker second section. Finally, that weaker section will still come earlier in the test than usual, so your mental stamina will be higher than it normally isgiving you a better shot at lifting your score.

(caveat) unless you really dread your weaker section.

If you are so worried about your weaker section that you know you will just be thinking about and dreading it all through your stronger section, then you may want to bite the bullet and get your weaker section over with first.

One student I spoke with told me that she feels that if she can just get quant over with, then she will feel free for the rest of the test, and shell feel much more confident about her ability to do a great job with the other three sections, which are much stronger for her than quant.

If this applies to you, too, then you may want to consider doing your weaker section first rather than your stronger one.

When is GMAC going to roll this out for everyone?

Its not certain yet that this will become a permanent part of the GMAT, though I think theres a good chance or they wouldnt be allowing the students in this pilot to keep their scores. Theres no real way for me to predict, of course, but if everything goes well, I would not be at all surprised to learn that this becomes a permanent feature later this year.

If you were selected for the pilot and want to talk more about what you should do, please join me on the Manhattan Prep forums in the General GMAT Strategy Questions folder. Even if youve already decided, Id love to hear what youre going to do and how you made your decision.

Good luck and happy studying!