How many Describe the Role Questions on the GMAT

The answer to "how many of _____ question type will be on the GMAT?" is always "it varies." There are experimental questions, and GMAC does not release information on exactly how its algorithm picks out which questions you'll see, and when.

But based on data from several dozens colleagues who reported their question type breakdowns, and based upon what we can gather from the OG (knowing that it might not be perfectly representative of the test itself), here's what I can tell you:

- you'll probably have 11-14 CR problems total, out of 41 Verbal. It's very rarely less than 11 or more than 14.

- Strengthen and Weaken are the most common question types. You'll like have 3-4 of each of those - about half of your overall CR.

- Assumption & Evaluate are the next most common. You might see between 1-3 of each.

- Inference & Discrepancy - 1-2 of each expected. (Though this varies - I didn't see any Discrepancy questions on the last GMAT I took, even though there are quite a few in OG2017)

- Describe the Role (aka Boldface) is the least common of the major question types (there are minor types that show up very rarely). You can expect 1 of these, but it would be surprising to see 2 or more.

So to answer your question - I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "I'm not great at Describe the Role, so if I see one, I'll just guess randomly, and save my time for question types at which I'm more successful." In fact, I recommend it!