Tag: GMAT official guides

Jun 16 2015

Analysis of 2016 GMAT Official Guide Verbal

2016 GMAT Official GuideI worked closely with the publisher of the Official Guide for GMAT Review in the weeks leading up to the June 8 release of the 2016 editions, to help improve the online version of the Official Guides. In the fourth post of this series of analysis of the 2016 GMAT Official Guides, we now turn to the verbal section of the main Official Guide. We will focus on how the 2016 GMAT Official Guide differs from the 2015 edition in terms of verbal question difficulty and verbal concepts.

Sentence Correction – Difficulty

Both the 2015 and 2016 editions of the GMAT Official Guide contain 140 Sentence Correction questions, excluding the identical 18 Sentence Correction questions in the Diagnostic Exam portion of the guides. But the allocation of question difficulty, as assigned by the GMAC, has noticeably shifted away from Medium. A big portion of these change resulted from the GMAC upgrading 23 questions from Medium difficulty (in the 2015 edition) to Hard (in the 2016 edition).

Difficulty 2016 2015 Change
Easy 29 26 +3
Medium 39 64 (25)
Hard 72 50 +22
Total 140 140 —

A total of 35 brand new questions, which we have never seen before, appear in the 2016 GMAT Official Guide, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 10 / 8 / 17. This is in lieu of 35 questions from the 2015 edition that have been removed, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 2 / 16 / 17. Let’s further break down how each of these difficulty categories has changed.

Easy Sentence Correction

Additions:
10 new questions
2 downgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
2 questions removed
7 upgraded to Medium

Net change: +3 questions

Medium Sentence Correction

Additions:
8 new questions
7 upgraded from Easy
1 downgraded from Hard

Subtractions:
16 questions removed
2 downgraded to Easy
23 upgraded to Hard

Net change: -25 questions

Hard Sentence Correction

Additions:
17 new questions
23 upgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
17 questions removed
1 downgraded to Medium

Net change: +22 questions

Sentence Correction – Concepts

Let’s now consider changes in the concepts of the 35 new (in 2016) and the 35 removed (from 2015) Sentence Correction questions. We have categorized these questions based on the primary grammar concepts that are tested on Sentence Correction.

Concept 2016 2015 Change
Verb Agreement 4 2 2
Verb Tense 3 3 —
Pronoun Ambiguity 1 2 (1)
Pronoun Agreement 0 1 (1)
Parallel Construction 10 12 (2)
Misplaced Modifiers 4 2 2
Idioms 2 5 (3)
Comparison & Quantity 5 5 —
Expression & Meaning 6 3 3

Although we cannot draw definite conclusions from this data about question composition on the GMAT, what stands out is the decrease in idioms-related questions and the increase in expression / meaning.

Critical Reasoning – Difficulty

Both the 2015 and 2016 editions of the GMAT Official Guide contain 124 Critical Reasoning questions, excluding the identical 17 Critical Reasoning questions in the Diagnostic Exam portion of the guides. The allocation of question difficulty has slightly shifted towards Hard. This change has primarily resulted from the GMAC upgrading 10 Medium questions (in the 2015 edition) to Hard (in the 2016 edition).

Difficulty 2016 2015 Change
Easy 35 36 (1)
Medium 41 47 (6)
Hard 48 41 +7
Total 124 124 —

A total of 34 brand new questions, which we have never seen before, appear in the 2016 GMAT Official Guide, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 7 / 16 / 11. This is in lieu of 34 questions from the 2015 edition that have been removed, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 7 / 14 / 13. Let’s further break down how each of these difficulty categories has changed.

Easy Critical Reasoning

Additions:
7 new questions

Subtractions:
7 question removed
1 upgraded to Medium

Net change: -1 questions

Medium Critical Reasoning

Additions:
16 new questions
1 upgraded from Easy
1 downgraded from Hard

Subtractions:
14 questions removed
10 upgraded to Hard

Net change: -6 questions

Hard Critical Reasoning

Additions:
11 new questions
10 upgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
13 questions removed
1 downgraded to Medium

Net change: +7 questions

Critical Reasoning – Concepts

Let’s now consider changes in the concepts of the 34 new (in 2016) and the 34 removed (from 2015) Critical Reasoning questions. We have grouped these questions based on the question type categorization that GMAT Genius uses for Critical Reasoning.

Concept 2016 2015 Change
Weaken 11 13 (2)
Strengthen 9 9 —
Assumption 7 3 4
Reasoning 0 0 —
Conclusion 2 5 (3)
Explain 2 1 1
Evaluate 1 2 (1)
Boldface 1 1 —
Complete the Passage 1 0 1

Although we cannot draw definite conclusions from this data about question composition on the GMAT, what stands out is an increase in the Assumption category offset by a decrease in the Conclusion category.

Reading Comprehension – Difficulty

Both the 2015 and 2016 editions of the GMAT Official Guide contain 139 Reading Comprehension questions, excluding the identical 17 Reading Comprehension questions in the Diagnostic Exam portion of the guides. The allocation of question difficulty has noticeably shifted towards Easy, although the 2015 edition was admittedly underweighted in Easy questions. The GMAT downgraded 18 questions from Medium (in 2015) to Easy (in 2016), and 5 questions from Hard (in 2015) to Medium (in 2016). These downgrades account for most of the changes in question difficulty.

Difficulty 2016 2015 Change
Easy 47 23 +24
Medium 59 74 (15)
Hard 33 42 (9)
Total 139 139 —

A total of 31 brand new questions, which we have never seen before, appear in the 2016 GMAT Official Guide, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 9 / 6 / 16. These 31 questions are in 6 new passages with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 2 / 1 / 3.

A total of 31 questions have been removed from the 2015 edition, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 3 / 8 / 20. This represents 6 passages with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 1 / 2 / 3. Let’s further break down how each of these difficulty categories has changed.

Easy Reading Comprehension

Additions:
9 new questions
18 downgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
3 question removed

Net change: +24 questions

Medium Reading Comprehension

Additions:
6 new questions
5 downgraded from Hard

Subtractions:
8 questions removed
18 downgraded to Easy

Net change: -15 questions

Hard Reading Comprehension

Additions:
16 new questions

Subtractions:
20 questions removed
5 downgraded to Medium

Net change: -9 questions

Reading Comprehension – Concepts

Let’s now consider changes in the concepts of the 31 new (in 2016) and the 31 removed (from 2015) Reading Comprehension questions. We have grouped these questions based on the question type categorization that GMAT Genius uses for Reading Comprehension.

Concept 2016 2015 Change
Primary Purpose 4 3 1
Author’s Tone 3 1 2
Organization 1 0 1
Function 6 2 4
Specific Reference 9 17 (8)
Inference 6 6 —
Critical Reasoning 2 2 —

Although we cannot draw definite conclusions from this data about question composition on the GMAT, what clearly stands out is the big decrease in the Specific Reference category and the increase in the Function category.

Removed Questions

Here is the list of the verbal questions in the 2015 edition of the GMAT Official Guide that have been removed . We’ll soon publish a list of the new verbal questions in the 2016 GMAT Official Guides.

Sentence Correction – 35 questions removed:

11, 18, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 37, 44, 45, 66, 77, 80, 82, 83, 85, 88, 89, 98, 108, 110, 113, 117, 119, 121, 122, 123, 125, 127, 129, 130, 131, 134, 135, 137

Critical Reasoning – 34 questions removed:

4, 16, 21, 23, 25, 26, 32, 49, 53, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 80, 87, 96, 103, 105, 108, 110, 112, 117, 118, 119, 120, 122, 123

Reading Comprehension – 31 questions removed:

8 to 10, 42 to 44, 93 to 98, 104 to 139

Key Takeaways

We cannot draw firm conclusions about the GMAC’s intent in making changes to the verbal question composition in the 2016 GMAT Official Guide. That said, we can observe certain trends and speculate on what those changes may imply.

By downgrading 23 Reading Comprehension questions without upgrading any questions, the GMAC seems to imply a greater rigor within Reading Comprehension. On the other hand, by upgrading 23 Sentence Correction questions and 10 Critical Reasoning questions from Medium to Hard, the GMAC implies slightly less rigor in these areas than perhaps it did previously.

A shift from idioms-related questions towards expression & meaning in Sentence Correction is consistent with the GMAC’s greater emphasis on understanding sentence structure rather than just learning grammatical rules. A shift from Conclusion to Assumption questions in Critical Reasoning and a shift from Specific Reference to Function questions in Reading Comprehension provide further evidence that the GMAC seems to be placing greater emphasis on analytical reasoning skills to solve CR and RC questions.

Next up from GMAT Genius — look for detailed reviews of the 2016 GMAT Official Guides. Please leave a comment or get in touch if you have any questions.

Jun 04 2015

Preview of 2016 GMAT Official Guide Math

2016 GMAT Official GuideIn this third post of this series of exclusive previews of the 2016 GMAT Official Guides, we now turn to the math section of the main Official Guide. We will focus on how the 2016 GMAT Official Guide differs from the 2015 edition in terms of math question difficulty and math concepts.

Problem Solving – Difficulty

Both the 2015 and 2016 editions of the GMAT Official Guide contain 230 Problem Solving questions, excluding the identical 24 Problem Solving questions in the Diagnostic Exam portion of the guides. But the allocation of question difficulty, as assigned by the GMAC, has noticeably shifted. In particular, the Easy and Hard categories have expanded whereas the Medium category has shrunk considerably. A big portion of these change resulted from the GMAC upgrading 36 questions from Medium difficulty (in the 2015 edition) to Hard (in the 2016 edition).

Difficulty 2016 2015 Change
Easy 55 37 +18
Medium 52 93 (41)
Hard 123 100 +23
Total 230 230 —

A total of 57 brand new Problem Solving questions, which we have never seen before, appear in the 2016 GMAT Official Guide, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 21 / 24 / 12. This is in lieu of 57 questions from the 2015 edition that have been removed, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 12 / 20 / 25. Let’s further break down how each of these difficulty categories has changed.

Easy Problem Solving

Additions:
21 new questions
9 downgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
12 questions removed

Net change: +18 questions

Medium Problem Solving

Additions:
24 new questions

Subtractions:
20 questions removed
9 downgraded to Easy
36 upgraded to Hard

Net change: -41 questions

Hard Problem Solving

Additions:
12 new questions
36 upgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
25 questions removed

Net change: +23 questions

Problem Solving – Concepts

Let’s now consider changes in the concepts of the 57 new (in 2016) and the 57 removed (from 2015) Problem Solving questions. GMAT Genius classifies questions based on their primary and secondary concepts. In order to observe trends, we have condensed our categorization as follows:

Type Concept 2016 2015 Change
Arithmetic Basic 3 5 (2)
Arithmetic Absolute Value 0 1 (1)
Arithmetic Divisibility & Factors 2 3 (1)
Arithmetic Exponents & Roots 4 3 1
Arithmetic Fractions & Ratios 3 5 (2)
Arithmetic Percents 4 2 2
Arithmetic Positive/Negative 1 1 —
Algebra Formulas 2 0 2
Algebra Inequalities 1 4 (3)
Algebra Linear Equations 2 3 (1)
Algebra Quadratics 2 2 —
Algebra Simultaneous Equations 2 5 (3)
Geometry Various 15 14 1
Statistics Averages 5 1 4
Statistics Other 1 1 —
Word Problems Functions & Sequences 2 0 2
Word Problems Other Various 8 7 1

Although we cannot draw definite conclusions from this data about question composition on the GMAT, what stands out is the decrease in algebraic inequalities and simultaneous equations, the decrease in arithmetic fundamentals, and the increase in averages.

Data Sufficiency – Difficulty

Both the 2015 and 2016 editions of the GMAT Official Guide contain 174 Data Sufficiency questions, excluding the identical 24 Data Sufficiency questions in the Diagnostic Exam portion of the guides. As with Problem Solving, the allocation of question difficulty has noticeably shifted. Once again, the Easy and Hard categories have expanded whereas the Medium category has shrunk considerably. A big portion of these change resulted from the GMAC upgrading 24 questions from Medium difficulty (in the 2015 edition) to Hard (in the 2016 edition).

Difficulty 2016 2015 Change
Easy 38 24 +14
Medium 34 64 (30)
Hard 102 86 +16
Total 174 174 —

A total of 44 brand new Data Sufficiency questions, which we have never seen before, appear in the 2016 GMAT Official Guide, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 17 / 12 / 15. This is in lieu of 44 questions from the 2015 edition that have been removed, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 10 / 11 / 23. Let’s further break down how each of these difficulty categories has changed.

Easy Data Sufficiency

Additions:
17 new questions
7 downgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
10 questions removed

Net change: +14 questions

Medium Data Sufficiency

Additions:
12 new questions

Subtractions:
11 questions removed
7 downgraded to Easy
24 upgraded to Hard

Net change: -30 questions

Hard Data Sufficiency

Additions:
15 new questions
24 upgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
23 questions removed

Net change: +16 questions

Data Sufficiency – Concepts

Let’s now consider changes in the concepts of the 44 new (in 2016) and the 44 removed (from 2015) Data Sufficiency questions. GMAT Genius classifies questions based on their primary and secondary concepts. In order to observe trends, we have condensed our categorization as follows:

Type Concept 2016 2015 Change
Arithmetic Basic 0 4 (4)
Arithmetic Absolute Value 0 1 (1)
Arithmetic Exponents 4 2 2
Arithmetic Fractions & Ratios 1 3 (2)
Arithmetic Percents 6 2 4
Arithmetic Positive/Negative 2 1 1
Algebra Simultaneous Equations 1 8 (7)
Algebra Other 7 5 2
Geometry Coordinate 3 1 2
Geometry Other 6 5 1
Statistics Averages 2 3 (1)
Statistics Other 2 0 2
Word Problems Various 10 9 1

Although we again cannot draw definite conclusions from this data about question composition on the GMAT, what clearly stands out is the decrease in algebraic simultaneous equations and basic arithmetic concepts, offset by an increase in percents.

Removed Questions

Here is the list of the math questions that have been removed from the 2015 edition of the GMAT Official Guide. We’ll publish a list of the new math questions in the 2016 GMAT Official Guide after it publicly releases.

Problem Solving – 57 questions removed:

1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 23, 24, 28, 29, 32, 33, 35, 38, 39, 40, 43, 45, 47, 48, 50, 53, 62, 73, 78, 86, 90, 96, 103, 104, 111, 113, 121, 147, 152, 153, 159, 161, 165, 167, 171, 173, 175, 176, 179, 184, 187, 191, 192, 195, 197, 201, 202, 205, 220, 221, 225, 227

Data Sufficiency – 44 questions removed:

1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 30, 36, 43, 45, 50, 56, 61, 72, 86, 87, 88, 89, 104, 106, 107, 112, 115, 121, 132, 136, 138, 140, 145, 148, 151, 153, 155, 156, 158, 160, 161, 162, 165, 174

Key Takeaways

Keep in mind that we cannot draw firm conclusions about the GMAC’s intent in making changes to the question composition in the 2016 GMAT Official Guide. That said, we can observe certain trends and speculate on what those changes may imply.

Between Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency, the GMAC has upgraded 60 questions from Medium difficulty to Hard. We can only presume that the GMAC is moving away from the trend of recent years of increasing the difficulty of the math section. If correct, this would bring welcome relief to many future GMAT hopefuls.

The changes in concepts as discussed above seem consistent with what we’ve observed in the 2016 Quantitative Official Guide. Simultaneous equations, in particular, have been reduced significantly. The GMAC really seems to be moving towards math questions that require more analytical reasoning to solve rather than rote usage of formulas and fundamental math techniques.

We’re still working our way through the Verbal sections of the 2016 GMAT Official Guide, and will post our analysis as soon as we can. Stay tuned!

Jun 03 2015

Preview of 2016 GMAT Verbal Official Guide

2016 GMAT Verbal Official GuideI have been working closely with the publisher of the Official Guide for GMAT Review over the past few weeks, in advance of the June 8 release of the 2016 editions, to help improve the online version of the Official Guides. As with my prior post on the Quantitative Guide, I want to give you an overview of how the 2016 GMAT Verbal Official Guide differs from the 2015 edition in terms of question difficulty and concepts.

Sentence Correction – Difficulty

Both the 2015 and 2016 editions of the GMAT Verbal Official Guide contain 113 Sentence Correction questions. But the allocation of question difficulty, as assigned by the GMAC, has noticeably shifted. In particular, the Easy and Medium categories have expanded whereas the Hard category has shrunk. A big portion of these change resulted from the GMAC downgrading 12 questions from Hard difficulty (in the 2015 edition) to Medium (in the 2016 edition). Interestingly, two Hard questions (#70 and #111 in the 2015 edition) have also been downgraded all the way to Easy.

Difficulty 2016 2015 Change
Easy 31 26 +5
Medium 51 38 +13
Hard 31 49 (18)
Total 113 113 —

A total of 25 brand new questions, which we have never seen before, appear in the 2016 GMAT Verbal Official Guide, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 9 / 13 / 3. This is in lieu of 25 questions from the 2015 edition that have been removed, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 6 / 12 / 7. Let’s further break down how each of these difficulty categories has changed.

Easy Sentence Correction

Additions:
9 new questions
1 downgraded from Medium
2 downgraded from Hard

Subtractions:
6 questions removed
1 upgraded to Medium

Net change: +5 questions

Medium Sentence Correction

Additions:
13 new questions
1 upgraded from Easy
12 downgraded from Hard

Subtractions:
12 questions removed
1 downgraded to Easy

Net change: +13 questions

Hard Sentence Correction

Additions:
3 new questions

Subtractions:
7 questions removed
2 downgraded to Easy
12 downgraded to Medium

Net change: -18 questions

Sentence Correction – Concepts

Let’s now consider changes in the concepts of the 25 new (in 2016) and the 25 removed (from 2015) Sentence Correction questions. We have categorized these questions based on the primary grammar concepts that are tested on Sentence Correction.

Concept 2016 2015 Change
Verb Agreement 1 3 (2)
Verb Tense 4 5 (1)
Pronoun Ambiguity 0 1 (1)
Pronoun Agreement 2 2 —
Parallel Construction 8 9 (1)
Misplaced Modifiers 2 0 2
Idioms 2 1 1
Comparison & Quantity 2 1 1
Expression & Meaning 4 3 1

Although we cannot draw definite conclusions from this data about question composition on the GMAT, we are surprised by the decrease in verb-related questions.

Critical Reasoning – Difficulty

Both the 2015 and 2016 editions of the GMAT Verbal Official Guide contain 83 Critical Reasoning questions. The allocation of question difficulty has noticeably shifted away from Medium. A whopping 21 questions (more than 25%) have been assigned a different difficulty level, including four Hard questions (#64, #72, #79, #80 in the 2015 edition) that have been downgraded all the way to Easy.

Difficulty 2016 2015 Change
Easy 34 25 +9
Medium 26 38 (12)
Hard 23 20 +3
Total 83 83 —

A total of 25 brand new questions, which we have never seen before, appear in the 2016 GMAT Verbal Official Guide, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 7 / 9 / 9. This is in lieu of 25 questions from the 2015 edition that have been removed, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 6 / 14 / 5. Let’s further break down how each of these difficulty categories has changed.

Easy Critical Reasoning

Additions:
7 new questions
7 downgraded from Medium
4 downgraded from Hard

Subtractions:
6 question removed
3 upgraded to Medium

Net change: +9 questions

Medium Critical Reasoning

Additions:
9 new questions
3 upgraded from Easy
2 downgraded from Hard

Subtractions:
14 questions removed
7 downgraded to Easy
5 upgraded to Hard

Net change: -12 questions

Hard Critical Reasoning

Additions:
9 new questions
5 upgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
5 questions removed
4 downgraded to Easy
2 downgraded to Medium

Net change: +3 questions

Critical Reasoning – Concepts

Let’s now consider changes in the concepts of the 25 new (in 2016) and the 25 removed (from 2015) Critical Reasoning questions. We have grouped these questions based on the question type categorization that GMAT Genius uses for Critical Reasoning.

Concept 2016 2015 Change
Weaken 6 8 (2)
Strengthen 4 3 1
Assumption 1 3 (2)
Reasoning 1 0 1
Conclusion 1 2 (1)
Explain 3 3 —
Evaluate 2 4 (2)
Boldface 2 1 1
Complete the Passage 5 1 4

Although we cannot draw definite conclusions from this data about question composition on the GMAT, what clearly stands out is the increase in the Complete the Passage category.

Reading Comprehension – Difficulty

The 2016 edition of the GMAT Verbal Official Guide contains 105 Reading Comprehension questions, one more than in the 2015 edition. The allocation of question difficulty has noticeably shifted from Medium to Easy. Surprisingly, 35 questions (over 30%) have swapped difficulty from Medium to Hard or vice versa.

Difficulty 2016 2015 Change
Easy 26 17 +9
Medium 47 55 (8)
Hard 32 32 —
Total 105 104 +1

A total of 26 brand new questions, which we have never seen before, appear in the 2016 GMAT Verbal Official Guide, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 15 / 4 / 7. These 26 questions are in 5 new passages with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 3 / 1 / 1.

A total of 25 questions have been removed from the 2015 edition, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 6 / 11 / 8. This represents 4 passages with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 1 / 2 / 1. Let’s further break down how each of these difficulty categories has changed.

Easy Reading Comprehension

Additions:
15 new questions

Subtractions:
6 question removed

Net change: +9 questions

Medium Reading Comprehension

Additions:
4 new questions
17 downgraded from Hard

Subtractions:
11 questions removed
18 upgraded to Hard

Net change: -8 questions

Hard Reading Comprehension

Additions:
7 new questions
18 upgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
8 questions removed
17 downgraded to Medium

Net change: —

Reading Comprehension – Concepts

Let’s now consider changes in the concepts of the 26 new (in 2016) and the 25 removed (from 2015) Reading Comprehension questions. We have grouped these questions based on the question type categorization that GMAT Genius uses for Reading Comprehension.

Concept 2016 2015 Change
Primary Purpose 3 2 1
Author’s Tone 0 1 (1)
Organization 1 3 (2)
Function 3 1 2
Specific Reference 9 10 (1)
Inference 10 5 5
Critical Reasoning 0 3 (3)

Although we cannot draw definite conclusions from this data about question composition on the GMAT, what clearly stands out is the increase in the Inference category and the decrease in the Critical Reasoning category.

Removed Questions

Here is the list of the questions that have been removed from the 2015 edition of the GMAT Verbal Official Guide. We’ll publish a list of the new questions in the 2016 GMAT Verbal Official Guide after it publicly releases.

Sentence Correction – 25 questions removed:

3, 6, 7, 8, 20, 21, 27, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 47, 51, 61, 62, 72, 76, 81, 93, 99, 101, 112

Critical Reasoning – 25 questions removed:

4, 7, 16, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, 36, 37, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 53, 58, 60, 62, 66, 69, 71, 73, 75

Reading Comprehension – 25 questions removed:

12 to 17, 33 to 38, 56 to 60, 77 to 84

Key Takeaways

We cannot draw firm conclusions about the GMAC’s intent in making changes to the question composition in the 2016 GMAT Verbal Official Guide. That said, we can observe certain trends and speculate on what those changes may imply.

By downgrading 14 Hard Sentence Correction questions without upgrading any questions to Hard, the GMAC seems to imply a greater rigor within Sentence Correction. The big shifts in question difficulty within Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension seem to imply that the GMAC is more closely assessing Verbal question difficulty than perhaps it did previously.

The changes in Sentence Correction concepts are not significant enough for us to reach any conclusions. The increases in the Complete the Passage category for Critical Reasoning and in the Inference category for Reading Comprehension seem to indicate that the GMAC is placing greater emphasis on analytical reasoning skills to solve CR and RC questions.

Look for more detailed analysis and critique of the 2016 GMAT Official Guides in the coming weeks from GMAT Genius.

Jun 02 2015

Sneak Preview of 2016 GMAT Quantitative Official Guide

2016 GMAT Quantitative Official GuideI have been working closely with the publisher of the Official Guide for GMAT Review over the past few weeks, in advance of the June 8 release of the 2016 editions, to help improve the online version of the Official Guides. In doing so, I have thoroughly analyzed the 2016 versions of the GMAT Official Guides, and want to give you an overview of what to expect. Out of respect for the GMAC, I cannot share specific questions. In this post, we will instead focus specifically on how the 2016 GMAT Quantitative Official Guide differs from the 2015 edition in terms of question difficulty and math concepts.

Problem Solving – Difficulty

Both the 2015 and 2016 editions of the GMAT Quantitative Official Guide contain 176 Problem Solving questions. But the allocation of question difficulty, as assigned by the GMAC, has noticeably shifted. In particular, the Easy category has expanded whereas the Medium category has shrunk. A big portion of these change resulted from the GMAC downgrading 10 questions from Medium difficulty (in the 2015 edition) to Easy (in the 2016 edition). Interestingly, one Hard question (#159 in the 2015 edition) has also been downgraded all the way to Easy.

Difficulty 2016 2015 Change
Easy 82 67 +15
Medium 57 74 (17)
Hard 37 35 +2
Total 176 176 —

A total of 44 brand new questions, which we have never seen before, appear in the 2016 GMAT Quantitative Official Guide, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 22 / 13 / 9. This is in lieu of 44 questions from the 2015 edition that have been removed, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 17 / 20 / 7. Let’s further break down how each of these difficulty categories has changed.

Easy Problem Solving

Additions:
22 new questions
10 downgraded from Medium
1 downgraded from Hard

Subtractions:
17 questions removed
1 upgraded to Medium

Net change: +15 questions

Medium Problem Solving

Additions:
13 new questions
1 upgraded from Easy

Subtractions:
20 questions removed
10 downgraded to Easy
1 upgraded to Hard

Net change: -17 questions

Hard Problem Solving

Additions:
9 new questions
1 upgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
7 questions removed
1 downgraded to Easy

Net change: +2 questions

Problem Solving – Concepts

Let’s now consider changes in the concepts of the 44 new (in 2016) and the 44 removed (from 2015) Problem Solving questions. GMAT Genius classifies questions based on their primary and secondary concepts. In order to observe trends, we have condensed our categorization as follows:

Type Concept 2016 2015 Change
Arithmetic Basic 2 2 —
Arithmetic Absolute Value 2 0 2
Arithmetic Divisibility 1 1 —
Arithmetic Exponents 3 4 (1)
Arithmetic Fractions & Ratios 4 2 2
Arithmetic Percents 3 5 (2)
Arithmetic Positive/Negative 1 1 —
Algebra Formulas 2 0 2
Algebra Inequalities 2 2 —
Algebra Linear Equations 2 4 (2)
Algebra Quadratics 1 1 —
Algebra Simultaneous Equations 2 4 (2)
Geometry Coordinate 1 1 —
Geometry Other 4 4 —
Statistics Averages 2 4 (2)
Statistics Other 0 1 (1)
Word Problems Combinatorics 2 1 1
Word Problems Functions & Sequences 5 1 4
Word Problems Groups (Sets) 1 1 —
Word Problems Interest 1 0 1
Word Problems Revenue & Profit 1 2 (1)
Word Problems Rate & Work 2 3 (1)

Although we cannot draw definite conclusions from this data about question composition on the GMAT, what clearly stands out is the decrease in algebraic equations and the increase in functions and sequences.

Data Sufficiency – Difficulty

Both the 2015 and 2016 editions of the GMAT Quantitative Official Guide contain 124 Data Sufficiency questions. As with Problem Solving, the allocation of question difficulty has noticeably shifted. Once again, the Easy category has expanded whereas the Medium category has shrunk. Interestingly, the GMAC has upgraded 23 Medium questions (from the 2015 edition) to Hard.

Difficulty 2016 2015 Change
Easy 22 9 +13
Medium 25 42 (17)
Hard 77 73 +4
Total 124 124 —

A total of 31 brand new questions, which we have never seen before, appear in the 2016 GMAT Quantitative Official Guide, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 14 / 11 / 6. This is in lieu of 31 questions from the 2015 edition that have been removed, with difficulty ratings of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 1 / 6 / 24. Let’s further break down how each of these difficulty categories has changed.

Easy Data Sufficiency

Additions:
14 new questions
1 downgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
1 question removed
1 upgraded to Medium

Net change: +13 questions

Medium Data Sufficiency

Additions:
11 new questions
1 downgraded from Hard
1 upgraded from Easy

Subtractions:
6 questions removed
1 downgraded to Easy
23 upgraded to Hard

Net change: -17 questions

Hard Data Sufficiency

Additions:
6 new questions
23 upgraded from Medium

Subtractions:
24 questions removed
1 downgraded to Medium

Net change: +4 questions

Data Sufficiency – Concepts

Let’s now consider changes in the concepts of the 31 new (in 2016) and the 31 removed (from 2015) Data Sufficiency questions. GMAT Genius classifies questions based on their primary and secondary concepts. In order to observe trends, we have condensed our categorization as follows:

Type Concept 2016 2015 Change
Arithmetic Basic 2 2 —
Arithmetic Absolute Value 1 0 1
Arithmetic Divisibility 0 3 (3)
Arithmetic Exponents 2 2 —
Arithmetic Fractions & Ratios 2 2 —
Arithmetic Percents 0 1 (1)
Arithmetic Positive/Negative 3 2 1
Algebra Inequalities 3 2 1
Algebra Linear Equations 0 3 (3)
Algebra Simultaneous Equations 3 6 (3)
Geometry Coordinate 3 0 3
Geometry Other 3 4 (1)
Statistics Averages 2 2 0
Statistics Other 2 0 2
Word Problems Functions & Sequences 1 0 1
Word Problems Probability 1 0 1
Word Problems Revenue & Profit 1 0 1
Word Problems Rate & Work 2 2 0

Although we again cannot draw definite conclusions from this data about question composition on the GMAT, what clearly stands out is the decrease in algebraic equations and divisibility concepts, offset by the increase in coordinate geometry and applied word problems.

Removed Questions

Here is the list of the questions that have been removed from the 2015 edition of the GMAT Quantitative Official Guide. We’ll publish a list of the new questions in the 2016 GMAT Quantitative Official Guide after it publicly releases.

Problem Solving – 44 questions removed:

4, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 25, 28, 30, 32, 37, 43, 45, 74, 75, 77, 84, 92, 99, 104, 106, 109, 111, 115, 120, 122, 123, 128, 132, 134, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144, 163, 165, 166, 167, 174

Data Sufficiency – 31 questions removed:

3, 23, 27, 28, 30, 36, 47, 56, 57, 60, 64, 68, 71, 72, 77, 84, 86, 92, 94, 97, 98, 103, 105, 108, 109, 110, 112, 114, 119, 120, 123

Key Takeaways

Keep in mind that we cannot draw firm conclusions about the GMAC’s intent in making changes to the question composition in the 2016 GMAT Quantitative Official Guide. That said, we can observe certain trends and speculate on what those changes may imply.

By downgrading 10 Medium Problem Solving questions to Easy while upgrading 23 Medium Data Sufficiency questions to Hard, the GMAC seems to be indicating that it considers Data Sufficiency more challenging than perhaps it did previously.

Furthermore, given the changes in concepts as discussed above, the GMAC seems to be moving away from questions that are more process-oriented (i.e. solve by following a set procedure) and towards applied questions that require more analytical reasoning to solve.

GMAT Genius will offer much more detailed analysis and critique of the 2016 GMAT Official Guides in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Aug 14 2014

GMAT Official Guide 2015 Online Interface

GMAT Official Guides online accessFollowing up on our prior post about the new 2015 GMAT Official Guides, we now review the online study tools that accompany the printed books. Registration is quite easy. Once you register one book, you can select Profile to add the access codes for additional Official Guide books rather than starting the registration process anew. Your online account is valid for only six months. Due to this time limit, be sure to register only when you are ready to start preparing for the GMAT.

Online access includes three brief videos, one per book. The videos are in a Q&A format, with potential test takers asking and receiving answers to some questions about test preparation. Overall, these videos are not very insightful.

Online Interface

The primary purpose of the online account is not the videos, however, but the online question access. In our opinion, the online interface is poorly designed and detracts from the purpose of online question access.

Problem Set Options

You create a practice problem set by selecting any combination of question difficulty (Easy, Medium, or Hard) and question type (PS, DS, RC, CR, or SC), and the number of questions for the set. When choosing multiple question types, the types are all inter-mingled (i.e. they do not come in discrete blocks). Therefore, be sure to choose among either math question types or verbal types, but not both for a given practice set. You must also name your practice set; these names are listed in the review stage for your prior sessions. The system allows you to use the same name multiple times. But it will be helpful for you to create a unique, intuitive name for your future reference.

Finally, you must choose between Practice Mode (the default) and Exam Mode. In Practice Mode, you can view the answer / explanation for a question at any time. Similarly, you can review a summary table of all your responses so far for the current practice set. The time counter does not pause while you are viewing an answer, thereby defeating the purpose of time analytics. Also in Practice Mode, there is a button to take notes for each question. But this is a useless feature, because there is no way to ever access the notes that you took. We highly recommend that you use only Exam mode, in which you review your responses and explanations only after completing all questions in the practice set. Since the system keeps defaulting back to Practice Mode, be sure to switch to Exam Mode before starting a practice set.

Reading Comprehension

In either mode, Reading Comprehension presents only one question per passage. Even when practicing with only a limited set of RC questions, the passages are interspersed. For example, you may see a certain passage for questions 1, 5, and 8 in your set, with a different question each time for the same passage. Since it is not efficient or worthwhile to read the same passages over and over, the RC functionality is effectively useless. We recommend that you practice RC only in the physical book.

Progressing Through Problem Sets

Unlike the real exam, the test interface saves your answer as soon as you choose Next Question (in either mode). There is no Answer Confirm feature, so be sure that you have selected your final response before progressing. After you answer the last question in a practice set, you must select “View Test Results” in order to submit your answer. We found this to be non-intuitive.

As you progress through practice sets, the test does not give you repeat questions, unless you have already completed all the questions of that type at that difficulty level. You can bookmark questions and return to bookmarked questions in the review phase. Answer explanations are identical to those in the printed books. The test interface shows the time spent per question, but offers no performance analytics.

Poor Design Decisions

Questions are presented in a different order than in the book, and there is no way to easily cross-reference completed questions with the printed book. This makes it difficult to move back-and-forth between the book and online access. It would have been helpful, at a minimum, for each question to list the corresponding question number in the Official Guide. Even better, the interface could have presented a chart with the question numbers from the book, highlighting which questions have been completed online. Unfortunately such functionality is absent.

A calculator is available for all question types, even verbal. This reflects a poor design decision the part of GMAC and Wiley, since a calculator is not available on the real GMAT. Absolutely do not use the calculator – just pretend that it does not exist.

You can Pause and then Resume the test (in either mode). You can also choose End Test; the interface treats the remaining questions as unanswered. We encourage you to use these features sparingly, since they defeat the purpose of concentrated studying. The system logs out fairly quickly, after about 5 to 10 minutes of inactivity, so you may find yourself frequently having to log-back-in.

Diagnostic Test Mode

In addition to the Practice and Exam Modes, the main Official Guide also offers a Diagnostic Mode. This section presents the same questions, in the same order, that are in Chapter 3 (Diagnostic Test) of the Official Guide. You can select which question type(s) you wish to complete in one sitting. Since questions are presented sequentially, the Reading Comprehension section is fine in this mode.

Unlike the Practice and Exam modes, your results are not saved for the Diagnostic exam. Once you exit the review screen, you cannot retrieve your prior performance. So either carefully review your results or capture screen shots before navigating away.

Integrated Reasoning Interface

The Integrated Reasoning questions open up in a new tab at an entirely different, non-integrated website. The calculator is entirely different than for the main Math and Verbal questions, making the presence of a calculator for those questions all the more puzzling. There is no timing feature for IR, so you must track timing on your own. You can individually check the answer for each question. There is no exam mode or review results screen.

Your responses are saved for each question, and you can jump at any time to any question. The IR section includes the exact same questions as in the 13th Edition of the Official Guide, including the two highly-flawed Two-Part Analysis questions that we described in a prior post.

Bottom Line

The inclusion of an online practice site is an added bonus that previously did not exist for the Official Guides. Because the GMAT is taken on a computer, it is advisable to practice GMAT questions on a computer. For this reason, we recommend practicing the Official Guide questions (other than Reading Comprehension) using the online platform (in Exam Mode), despite the disappointing practice interface. We much prefer the interface of GMATPrep, and wish that the GMAC had instead integrated the Official Guide online practice into GMATPrep instead.

Jul 17 2014

Review of the 2015 GMAT Official Guides

2015 GMAT Official Guides

2015 GMAT Official Guides

The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) released new editions of all three GMAT Official Guides last week. To our dismay, the new editions are almost 100% identical to the editions that they replaced. Other than some very minor wording changes and corrections, the content and questions are the same. This breaks with GMAC’s history of changing 20-30% of the questions for each question type with a new edition of an Official Guide.

The GMAC announced that it will now release new versions of the Official Guides annually. We certainly hope that subsequent editions will revert to the practice of introducing new questions. Otherwise we see no purpose in this move, other than to boost revenue by suppressing the used book market for the Official Guides (and making GMAT instructors buy new copies every year).

Specific Changes in the 2015 GMAT Official Guides

Let’s list the specific changes made from the 13th edition of the main Official Guide, along with some comments:

  • The color used for contrasting text has been changed to a very-hard-to-read lime green. We hope that, in a subsequent release, the GMAC will instead use the readable blue contrasting color that is in the Quantitative and Verbal Official Guides.
  • Page 6 briefly describes the supplementary online videos and practice question tools that are available with the new Official Guides. Pages 4 of the Verbal and Quantitative guides have a similar paragraph. More on the online tools later.
  • Data Sufficiency question #47 (page 279) corrects two minor typos (lack of subscript) in the original printing of the 13th edition, but that were corrected in subsequent printings of that edition.
  • The explanation for Sentence Correction question #77 (page 741) expands significantly on incorrect answer A on slightly on correct answer D.
  • Appendix B – Answer Sheets: Rather than listing the answer sheet for each question type on a separate page (as in the 13th edition), the GMAC now condenses the answer sheets to run continuously. This is admittedly a relatively unimportant section of the Official Guide. But this decision (which saves one printed page of space) degrades the utility of the Answer Sheets.

Appendix A – Percentile Ranking Tables have been updated in all three Official Guides. Perhaps due to printing lead times, the data in these tables are as of July 2013 and are already outdated. You can find the latest percentile tables, released in July 2014, here.

Typos and Incorrect Information

Surprisingly, all three Official Guides contain typos / incorrect information in the first and second chapters. The Official Guide do not reflect current information about Integrated Reasoning. The Official Guides also reference retired editions of the Official Guides. Finally, the timeframe references to the percentile tables have not been updated in all three books. Some simple proofreading should have caught these errors:

  • Main Official Guide – last sentence of page 12: “A score scale for Integrated Reasoning will be available by April 2012 on mba.com.” In fact, a score scale has long since been readily available: IR is scored on a scale from 1 to 8.
  • Main Official Guide – first sentence of page 13: “Appendix A contains the 2011 percentile ranking tables that explain the distribution of GMAT scaled scores across all GMAT test-takers during the period beginning July 2008 and ending June 2011.” Appendix A actually contains the 2013 tables, presumably with data from July 2010 through June 2013.
  • Quantitative and Verbal Official Guides – second sentence of section 1.2 on page 6: “You start the test with two 30-minute Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) questions …” In reality, one of the AWA essays was replaced with the Integrated Reasoning section in June 2012.
  • Quantitative and Verbal Official Guides – last sentence on page 9: “Appendix A contains the 2007 percentile ranking tables that explain how your GMAT scores compare with scores of other 2007 GMAT test takers.” Appendix A actually contains the 2013 tables.
  • Quantitative and Verbal Official Guides – section 1.9 on page 10 makes three references to the Analysis of an Issue essay that was eliminated from the GMAT in June 2012.
  • Quantitative and Verbal Official Guides – first sentence on page 13 AND first sentence on page 14 suggest that you use the long-since retired 12th Edition of the Official Guide, plus the just retired 2nd Edition of the Quantitative / Verbal guides.

Bottom Line

As mentioned before, the 2015 Official Guides have one important added benefit – online study access. In addition to the 50 online Integrated Reasoning practice questions that were also available with the 13th Edition book, you can now take online practice question sets with the same questions available in the Official Guides. The functionality available is inferior to that available in GMATPrep, but it is a new feature nonetheless. We’ll offer a review of the online tools in our next blog post.

Although the new 2015 GMAT Official Guides are a disappointment, the GMAT Official Guides nonetheless continue to be an incredibly valuable study tool. If you already have the prior versions, there is no need to purchase the new versions. But if you do not yet have the Official Guides, definitely buy these books. Since there is no overlap in practice questions, we recommend that you use all three Official Guides. The Official Guides are the only source for retired real GMAT practice questions, which are essential for effective GMAT preparation.

Jun 25 2014

New GMAT Score Preview and New Official Guides

GMAC logoWe have two important updates from the GMAC to share. First, the GMAC announced today that effective this Friday (June 27), all GMAT test takers can preview their four unofficial scores (Integrated Reasoning, Quantitative, Verbal, and Overall) before they decide whether to report or cancel the scores. The AWA score is not included, since that score is not immediately available due to the human scoring element. Ashok Sarathy, GMAC VP of Produce Management, said, “We are pleased to offer this feature as part of our efforts to make preparing for and taking the GMAT exam easier. The new score reporting feature gives test takers more certainty and control in the testing process and in how their scores are reported to schools.”

How Score Preview Works

Test takers currently must decide to report or cancel their scores without any indication of how they actually performed on the GMAT. If a test taker currently cancels her scores, she will never know what the scores actually were. This change should prove to be a big anxiety relief for test takers. This should also reduce stress levels for test takers during the exam. GMAT examinees will now confidently be able to decide whether to keep or cancel scores, depending on how the scores match up to their goals and expectations. Examinees will no longer need to guess how they performed and then second-guess their decision if they cancel or if they report and receive a lower-than-expected score.

The process works as follows. Immediately after finishing the GMAT, test takers will be shown their four scores. A test taker has two minutes to decide whether to report or cancel. If a test taker does not make a choice, her scores will be automatically canceled. A test taker whose scores are cancelled (either by choice or automatically) will have to option to reinstate the scores within 60 days of the test date for a $100 fee. Since two minutes is not much time, the GMAC wisely recommends that you decide in advance what are the minimum scores you would want in order to report the scores. You can read more about the announcement here.

New Official Guides

The second update is that new versions of all three Official Guides for GMAT Review will release on July 8. If you are just starting your preparations and your test date is far enough out, we suggest that you wait for the new Official Guides. The latest versions will include online access to the questions, and you can create custom practice tests. You can buy the three books as a bundle or individually: Official Guide, Quantitative Guide, and Verbal Guide. We will provide our analysis of the books once we receive and go through our copies.