Starting on April 16, 2018, the GMAT exam will be shorter by 30 minutes to give you a more streamlined experience and help reduce your exam anxiety. The total test time on the updated exam will now be 3.5 hours instead of 4 hours, including breaks and instructions.
What exactly is changed and how does it affect you?
The most significant time reduction comes from shortening the Quant and Verbal sections. The number of questions on the Quant section will be reduced from 37 to 31 (reducing the total time of the Quant section from 75 to to 62 minutes). The number of Verbal questions will be reduced from 41 to 36 (reducing the Verbal section time from 75 to 65 minutes).
Additional time will be saved by reducing tutorial screens and moving them online. You will now be able to take the exam tutorial at home before coming to the exam centre.
You will still have unlimited time to choose your 5 target schools, and 2 minutes to decide whether to accept or cancel your score. However, the time on all other tutorial screens (including the time to choose your preferred section order) will be cut in half.
Why is the exam changing?
The GMAC aims to find ways to simplify test-taking experience and reduce candidate anxiety. This is a welcome change to help you manage stress levels and fatigue on the exam.
How does this affect exam scores?
The scoring algorithm is not affected by this change. As you are probably aware of, by now, each section has a number of experimental questions that are tested for future use, but don’t influence your score. The shortened exam will have fewer experimental questions, but the number of scored questions on each section will remain the same.
This means that you’ll waste a lot less time working on the questions that don’t matter! On the other hand, the proportion of experimental questions has been reduced dramatically, and there is now a much smaller chance that the question you guessed on did not count 🙂
When will this change take effect?
The shorter exam will become effective for all tests worldwide on Monday, April 16, 2018.
I’ve already booked my exam. What should I do?
When you appear for your exam, you won’t be able to choose a “shorter” or a “longer” exam. For this reason, if you booked your exam before April 16 and would like to take advantage of a shorter exam, please call the GMAC at (800) 717-GMAT (4628) before April 11, 2018 to reschedule your exam to a later date for free (online reschedules will still carry a $50 fee).
I’m still studying. Will the practice exams be updated?
The Official GMAT prep software will be moving online at the end of April 2018. The 2 official practice tests will reflect the shorter sections at the time of release.
The downloadable GMATPrep software will not be updated and will be released in 2019.
The Admit Master practice tests will remain at 75 minutes for the time being, while we’re updating our software. However, we still recommend using them for practice, since the time per question on the exam will not change, and taking longer exams at home will help you build stamina for the exam date.
NB: The All-Inclusive Admit Master GMAT Mastery Course includes 9 online practice tests and access to a very large question bank of over 5,000 well-explained practice questions.
You can also access a free GMAT practice test here, or purchase a pack of 5 tests here.
I have more questions. What should I do?
Reach out to us any time for clarification! Sign up for the free 1-on-1 consultation, or register for our All-Inclusive GMAT Mastery Program in Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, New York City or Online. We have already incorporated the updated exam structure in our curriculum.