Taking the New Mini-GMAT for EMBA? Here’s How to Prep - Part 1
The Executive Assessment exam was launched in March 2016 to provide a more streamlined version of the GMAT for EMBA candidates at certain schools. Follow that link for logistics.
Ive spoken with multiple students who are planning to take the exam and they all have the same question: How should I prepare for this test?
The short answer is: were going to have to make some best guesses. The information available is still pretty limitedthe exam hasnt even been in public existence for a month yet. But I will do my best to provide some guidelines in this two-part series!
GMAC has released some sample questions, but not many. The organization has not yet released any practice exams or any commentary regarding what topics are or are not tested. Its clear that the Executive Assessment (EA) was built off of the GMAT (the question types are the same), but it also seems clear that the EA will not test the same breadth and depth of knowledge that the GMAT tests.
EA Overview
There are three sections on the EA and four scores: one score for each section and a total score that combines all three subscores (but doesnt just add them up).
The official Executive Assessment website always lists Verbal before Quant, so we are assuming that the test will be in this order: IR, Verbal, Quant. (On the GMAT, Quant comes before Verbal.)
Below, Ill summarize what we know about the released practice questions and draw some conclusions about how to study. As I said, though, not many questions have been released yet. Ill do my best with the information available, but I definitely reserve the right to update my thinking when more material is released!
Integrated Reasoning (IR)
When talking about the GMAT, Id normally leave IR to the last, since people dont care as much about that score. On the EA, though, the IR score is incorporated into your overall score (along with Quant and Verbal), so you do have to be well-prepared for IR.
This section appears to be identical on the two exams. As on the GMAT, you will answer 12 IR questions in 30 minutes and you will have access to an on-screen calculator. Many of the released sample questions are straight from official GMAT materials, so were expecting the IR section on the EA to be similar, if not identical, to GMAT IR. You should be able to use standard GMAT IR materials to prepare for the EA.
There are four IR question types. If you manipulate and analyze data at your job already, then at least two of these question types will feel not-too-weird to you: Tables and Graphs. Multi-Source Reasoning (MSR) questions can be a little more complicated, but they are primarily about synthesizing data and information from multiple sourcespresumably you already do this on a daily basis at work. :) One IR type is still a pretty classic standardized-test type of question: Two-Parts.
The more verbal- or analytical-reasoning questions do not require any outside factual knowledge, but you will need some factual knowledge for the more quant-focused questions. The released sample questions test percentages (including percent change), fractions, ratios, and proportions. They also cover statistics, including median, correlation (positive, negative). Also expect some word problems in the form of unit conversions, population and rate of change and some probabilities.
Since median is in the mix, I would expect to see some questions on average, too. Im not sure about weighted average, but I would guess you need to know how to reason using weighted average concepts, but you may not need to straight-up calculate a weighted average.
Verbal Reasoning
The Verbal section will consist of the same three question types that appear on the Verbal section of the GMAT, but youll only have to answer 14 of them, not 41. Youll have 30 minutes or approximately 2 minutes and 8 seconds per question (on average). This is more generous than the approximately 1 minute and 50 seconds we have for each GMAT Verbal question.
Sentence Correction (SC)
Of the six sample questions released, the underlines are on the shorter sideno full-sentence underlines! With only six released questions, I cant draw many conclusions about which grammar rules are tested and which arent, but we can assume that anything tested in these questions is fair game. I spotted issues from these broad categories in the released examples:
- Meaning (and sometimes concision)
- Sentence Structure
- Modifiers
- Verb Tense related to Meaning (illogical timeframe)
- Parallelism and Comparisons
- Idioms
Notice anything? That list is pretty comprehensiveit covers most of the major issues tested on the GMAT. I didnt see any straight subject-verb mismatches, but I would still expect that topic to be fair game on this test. I also spotted a pronoun issue as part of a comparison, but no pure pronoun errors.
My best guess is that the overall grammar topics (as well as meaning!) are fair game, but that the questions may not get quite as detailed or specialized as some GMAT questions can getso standard GMAT prep materials will work. Just dont bother to learn it all.
If youve never had a solid grounding in grammar (parts of speech and so on), then you may want to start with something like our Foundations of Verbal strategy guide and work your way up to the regular Sentence Correction strategy guide. In that second book, learn the main lessons for the major grammar topics and ignore anything that the book says is more advanced or more rarely tested.
Critical Reasoning (CR)
Of the five sample questions, four could be pulled straight from the GMAT: the questions asked, the argument structures, even the trap answers are entirely consistent with GMAT questions. One is a bit different, but I would call it a variation on an Inference question.
The classic types are all Find the Assumption, Strengthen, or Weaken. The minor-type questionsthe ones that dont appear as frequently on the GMATare not in evidence at all: no boldface, no evaluate the argument, no discrepancies.
My best guess is that this was intentional and we wont see these question types on the EA. Here, I would study the four main CR question types: Find the Assumption, Strengthen, Weaken, and Inference.
Reading Comprehension (RC)
These four sample questions have some noticeable differences compared to GMAT RC. First of all, there are three passages for these four questions. In other words, two of the passages have just one question each!
One of those passages is noticeably shorter than a typical GMAT passageit has only about 130 words. (GMAT passages are more typically 250 to 350 words). Of the other two passages, one is a typical GMAT short passage (about 250 words) and the other is a typical GMAT long passage (about 350 words).
My guess is that well see some shorter passages here with only 1 or 2 questions rather than the more GMAT-standard longer passages with 3 or 4 questions. There are only 14 verbal questions total, so a single passage with 4 questions would be your entire RC quota for the section. If they want to have any kind of topic mix (business, science, social science), they need to be able to give more than one passage.
The question types are classic GMAT: three specific detail questions and one inference question. My guess is that main idea questions will also be fair game.
You can use existing GMAT materials to practice, but the timing wont be quite the same, as it appears that the EA may employ shorter passages with fewer questions. You may want to focus on the shorter GMAT passages until more EA practice questions are released.
Thats it for IR and Verbal. Next time, well talk about the Quant section as well as overall study planning.