{"id":519,"date":"2019-04-27T00:23:46","date_gmt":"2019-04-27T07:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gmatgenius.com\/blog\/?p=519"},"modified":"2020-04-14T21:23:20","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T04:23:20","slug":"preview-of-2020-gmat-official-guides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gmatgenius.com\/blog\/preview-of-2020-gmat-official-guides\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview of 2020 GMAT Official Guides"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2020<\/a>GMAT Genius is pleased to present an exclusive preview of the 2020 GMAT Official Guides<\/a>, which release on May 7. In the 2020 Official Guides, there is a net addition of 130 Quant and Verbal questions, primarily Data Sufficiency (75) and Critical Reasoning (40)<\/strong> and primarily in the Main Official Guide.<\/p>\n

Questions Added to the 2020 GMAT Official Guides<\/h2>\n

A total of 214 questions that were not contained in the 2019 Official Guides have been added to the 2020 GMAT Official Guides. Unlike additions to prior Official Guide editions, the \u201cnew\u201d questions in the 2020 Official Guides are primarily questions that appeared in older Official Guides<\/strong>. According to GMAC\u2019s Director of Test Prep Products, \u201cFor selecting questions to put in these series, we looked less at whether something was \u2018new\u2019 or \u2018old\u2019 and more on what it could add to the OG.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following table summarizes the questions added to the 2020 GMAT Official Guides, by difficulty level. There are no new questions at the Hard-difficulty<\/strong>. As you will see, most of the added questions are on the cusp of Easy and Medium<\/strong>. Let\u2019s give an example to better explain this. The 26 added Problem Solving questions in the GMAT Quant Official Guide are #77-102. In the 2019 Quant Official Guide, #76 (in 2020) was rated Easy and #103 (in 2020) was rated Medium. So these 26 added questions are some mix of Easy and Medium, but we won\u2019t be able to identify the exact split until we receive the 2020 GMAT Official Guides.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Official Guide<\/strong><\/th>\nQuestion Type<\/strong><\/th>\nEasy<\/strong><\/th>\nEasy \/ Medium<\/strong><\/th>\n Medium<\/strong><\/th>\nTotal<\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Main<\/td>\nProblem Solving<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Main<\/td>\nData Sufficiency<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n48<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n59<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Main<\/td>\nReading Comp.<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Main<\/td>\nCritical Reasoning<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n13<\/td>\n30<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Main<\/td>\nSentence Correction<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Quant<\/td>\nProblem Solving<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n26<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n26<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Quant<\/td>\nData Sufficiency<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n19<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n19<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Verbal<\/td>\nReading Comp.<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n14<\/td>\n14<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Verbal<\/td>\nCritical Reasoning<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Verbal<\/td>\nSentence Correction<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n13<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n17<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total<\/td>\nTotal<\/strong><\/td>\n20<\/strong><\/td>\n141<\/strong><\/td>\n53<\/strong><\/td>\n214<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Ordered by Difficulty?<\/h2>\n

That most of the added questions are on the cusp of Easy and Medium difficulty leads to an interesting implication. The covers of the Official Guides state that questions are \u201corganized in order of difficulty from easiest to hardest.\u201d Using Problem Solving in the Quant Official Guide as an example again, the 26 added questions appear as a block from #77 to #102. It is exceedingly unlikely that all 26 of the questions added in 2020 are harder than #76 yet easier than #103. <\/p>\n

We discussed this issue with the GMAC. According to GMAC\u2019s Director of Test Prep Products<\/strong>, \u201cWe categorize and order questions by difficulty levels (easy-medium-hard), but the order within these difficulty levels is less precise<\/strong>. While there has always been some amount of imprecision in the order, it\u2019s perhaps more pronounced with the inclusion of questions from both older Official Guides and new ones, because the data that we have on the questions may not be entirely comparable across all questions.\u201d <\/p>\n

So there you have it, straight from the GMAC. There is understandably some subjectivity in assessing difficulty and therefore in deciding the order in which to place questions. The big takeaway, however, is that we should interpret the \u201cin order of difficulty\u201d claim loosely<\/strong> rather than strictly.<\/p>\n

Removed Questions from the 2019 Official Guides<\/h2>\n

A total of 84 questions from the 2019 Official Guides have been removed and will not appear in the 2020 Official Guides. The table below shows the distribution of these 84 questions.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Official Guide<\/strong><\/th>\nQuestion Type<\/strong><\/th>\nEasy<\/strong><\/th>\n Medium<\/strong><\/th>\nHard<\/strong><\/th>\nTotal<\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Main<\/td>\nProblem Solving<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Main<\/td>\nData Sufficiency<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Main<\/td>\nReading Comp.<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Main<\/td>\nCritical Reasoning<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Main<\/td>\nSentence Correction<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Quant<\/td>\nProblem Solving<\/td>\n17<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n26<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Quant<\/td>\nData Sufficiency<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Verbal<\/td>\nReading Comp.<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n12<\/td>\n18<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Verbal<\/td>\nCritical Reasoning<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Verbal<\/td>\nSentence Correction<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n8<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n17<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total<\/td>\nTotal<\/strong><\/td>\n27<\/strong><\/td>\n40<\/strong><\/td>\n17<\/strong><\/td>\n84<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

We are disappointed to see that 17 Hard-difficulty questions are getting removed<\/strong> (all from the Verbal OG), but that there is not a single added Hard-difficulty question in the 2020 GMAT Official Guides to compensate for this loss. We are at least glad to see that the Critical Reasoning question that was duplicated in both the 2019 Main and Verbal Official Guides is one of the removed questions. <\/p>\n

The following are the 2019 Official Guide question numbers that will not appear<\/strong> in the 2020 Official Guides.<\/p>\n

Main Official Guide<\/strong><\/p>\n