The question is--does it measure aptitude for business school? The GMAT's ability to predict performance in school is as poor as the SAT's. This is to be expected since the tests are written by the same company (ETS) and the problems are quite similar (though the formats are different). However, the GMAT also includes two types of questions--Arguments and Data Sufficiency--that the SAT does not. Many students struggle with these questions because they are unlike any material they have studied in school. However, the argument and data sufficiency questions are not inherently hard, and with sufficient study you can raise your performance on these questions significantly.

No test can measure all aspects of intelligence. Thus any admission test, no matter how well written, is inherently inadequate. Nevertheless, some form of admission testing is necessary. It would be unfair to base acceptance to business school solely on grades; they can be misleading. For instance, would it be fair to admit a student with an A average earned in easy classes over a student with a B average earned in difficult classes? A school's reputation is too broad a measure to use as admission criteria: many students seek out easy classes and generous instructors, in hopes of inflating their GPA. Furthermore, a system that would monitor the academic standards of every class would be cost prohibitive and stifling. So until a better system is proposed, the admission test is here to stay.

FORMAT OF THE GMAT (CAT) TEST

The writing sections always begin the test. You will type your essay on the computer, using a very basic word processor.

Each question must be answered before you can go to the next question. Further, you cannot return to a question once you go to the next question.

The GMAT is a standardized test. Each time it is offered, the test has, as close as possible, the same level of difficulty as every previous test. Maintaining this consistency is very difficult--hence the experimental questions (questions that are not scored). The effectiveness of each question must be assessed before it can be used on the GMAT. A problem that one person finds easy another person may find hard, and vice versa. The experimental questions measure the relative difficulty of potential questions; if responses to a question do not perform to strict specifications, the question is rejected.

About one quarter of the questions are experimental. The experimental questions can be standard math, data sufficiency, reading comprehension, arguments, or sentence correction. You won't know which questions are experimental.

Because the "bugs" have not been worked out of the experimental questions--or, to put it more directly, because you are being used as a guinea pig to work out the "bugs"--these unscored questions are often more difficult and confusing than the scored questions.

This brings up an ethical issue: How many students have run into experimental questions early in the test and have been confused and discouraged by them? Crestfallen by having done poorly on a few experimental questions, they lose confidence and perform below their ability on the other parts of the test. Some testing companies are becoming more enlightened in this regard and are administering experimental questions as separate practice tests. Unfortunately, ETS has yet to see the light.

Knowing that the experimental questions can be disproportionately difficult, if you do poorly on a particular question you can take some solace in the hope that it may have been experimental. In other words, do not allow a few difficult questions to discourage your performance on the rest of the test.

THE CAT AND THE PAPER & PENCIL TEST

The computerized GMAT uses the same type of questions as did the Paper & Pencil Test. The only thing that has changed is medium, that is, the way the questions are presented.

There are advantages and disadvantages to the CAT. Probably the biggest advantages are that you can take the CAT just about any time and you can take it in a small room with just a few other people--instead of in a large auditorium with hundreds of other stressed people. One the other hand, you cannot return to previous questions, it is easier to misread a computer screen than it is to misread printed material, and it can be distracting looking back and forth from the computer screen to your scratch paper.

SCORING THE GMAT TEST

The two major parts of the test are scored independently. You will receive a verbal score (0 to 60) and a math score (0 to 60). You will also receive a total score (200 to 800), and a writing score (0 to 6). The average total score is 500.

In addition, you will be assigned a percentile ranking, which gives the percentage of students with scores below yours.