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How many questions of each should we expect in the GMAT?

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How many questions of each should we expect in the GMAT?

by CJCG » Sat Jul 10, 2010 12:37 am
Hi all,

that is basically my question: How many questions of each kind should we expect in the GMAT?

Problem Solving
Data Sufficiency

Critical Reasoning
Reading Comprehension
Sentence Correction

I am asking because I did one of the official GMAT prep tests and I got 18 Data Sufficiency questions. They are a lot more time consuming than the Problem Solving questions and I thought that we can expect 14 of them instead of 18. I found 18 quite a high number!

Anyone knows an average?

Cheers and good luck with the GMAT to all preparing for it!!
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sun Jul 11, 2010 5:02 pm
The breakdown of questions on the verbal side is supposed to be around 1/3 for each, which would be 14, 14, 13. However, when I took the GMAT again in March I got only 10 CR 14 RC and a remarkable 17 SC. I do not think that I reveal too much in saying this.

The difference probably lies in the experimental questions. I would think that none of my critical reasoning questions were experimental and that several of the sentence correction were.

On the Quant side the breakdown used to be something like 15 DS for 22 PS. But that has started to shift. Many people find Data Sufficiency more difficult and so one way to add complexity to the quantitative, without making the math more difficult is to increase the number of DS problems. Now DS can be up to half of Quantitative.

What struck me about your post is that you said DS takes you longer. This should not be the case. The breakdown should be something like 1:30 for Data Suff and 2:30 for Prob. Solv. This is because you do not have to take a DS all the way to the solution so it should be quicker.

How are you addressing DS? Do you have a standard methodology that you use? At Veritas Prep we emphasize the importance of having a repeatable strategy that will not break down on test day.

I recommend breaking down into specific number and yes/no questions. Then for yes/no you should try to get yes and no to the question for each statement. If you can get yes and no you are not sufficient. If you fail to get both and only get, for example, yes, then that statement would be sufficient. For specific number you are looking for one number as an answer or for two unique linear equations with two variables. Try to have a step-by-step method for DS and it should become quicker than PS.

Good luck!
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