***The GMAT is CHANGING in late 2023 to the GMAT Focus Edition***
Dear All GMAT students,
Earlier this month, GMAC announced that the Official GMAT Exam will be going through some substantial changes by the end of this year (2023). The inital message provided some general ideas about what was going to happen to the GMAT:
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Since its launch in 1954, the GMAT has been the gold standard in assessments and has continued evolving to ensure it remains a key indicator of candidate preparedness for graduate business degree programs. To that end, over the past two years, we have been working collaboratively with business school professionals representing a wide mix of program types and sizes from around the world and conducted in-depth concept testing with candidates globally representing a mix of demographic characteristics. Through this process of research, GMAC was able to identify several driving themes to inform our direction....
Redesigned with candidates and business schools in mind, the GMAT™ Focus Edition is shorter, more flexible, and more insightful by homing in on the higher-order critical reasoning skills and data literacy especially relevant and applicable in the business environment of tomorrow. We believe that the more focused exam offers candidates the opportunity to enhance their preparation for and access to business education with greater confidence.
Your role in supporting candidates on their journey to business school is important, and it is my hope that you will continue to provide candidates with valuable and timely insight and counsel so that they stay focused on their path toward business education with the current GMAT, which will remain available until early next year, or the GMAT Focus Edition when made available later this year. Please visit mba.com to learn more about the new features and stay informed by signing up as we roll out planned announcements and a robust program to engage with candidates, schools and key industry stakeholders such as your organization on the changes to the GMAT exam over the coming months.
Again, the current version of the GMAT exam will continue to be available to candidates until EARLY NEXT YEAR to facilitate their in-progress preparation and applications for business school. Rest assured, GMAT™ Official Prep material will also be available to support candidates in achieving success on either version of the exam.
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Another slightly more specific post with information appears on the mba.com website here:
https://www.mba.com/exams/gmat-focus-edition?nav=home
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Not too long afterwards, even more specific information was provided regarding the changes to the Exam:
1) There will be 3 sections to the new GMAT Focus Edition (Quant Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning and Data Insights (which will combine Data Sufficiency with Integrated Reasoning)). Each section will be 45 minutes long.
2) There will be a single score result.
3) Reduced overall content to study for (implying a possibly shorter preparation time requirement).
4) The option to go back, review and change a certain number of questions in each section.
5) An Official Score Report that is automatically generated as part of your test fee.
6) Take the 3 sections in any order (note: the Essay section from the current version of the GMAT is being removed).
7) Send your Score Report for free to up to 5 schools.
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With a bit of additional digging around, some further deductions have been made:
1) The new GMAC Official Guide for 2023 is geared towards the GMAT Focused Version and seems to have been accidentally listed too early in online stores (the links have since been removed from all but a handful of sites). It is unclear when that book will be made available for purchase, especially since the new GMAT Focus Edition will not be available until late in 2023.
2) The GMAT Focus Edition removes Sentence Corrections and Geometry from the list of tested subjects.
3) While the new GMAT will continue to be an adaptive test, it is unclear how much it will continue to follow its prior adaptive nature, since you now have the option to go back and change some of your prior answers.
4) The GMAT Focus Edition appears far more similar to the format of the Executive Assessment, which might mean that the EA could be cancelled in favor of one unifying business school exam.
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Stay tuned for additional developments as they occur.