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Guide
THE OFFICIAL GUIDE FOR GMAT QUANTITATIVE REVIEW 2016
FROM THE GRADUATE MANAGEMENT ADMISSION COUNCIL
THE OFFICIAL GUIDE FOR GMAT QUANTITATIVE REVIEW 2016
Copyright 2015 by the Graduate Management Admission Council. All rights reserved.
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1.0 What Is the GMAT?
The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is a standardized, three-part test delivered in English. The test was designed to help admissions officers evaluate how suitable individual applicants are for their graduate business and management programs. It measures basic verbal, mathematical, and analytical writing skills that a test-taker has developed over a long period of time through education and work.
The GMAT exam does not measure a persons knowledge of specific fields of study. Graduate business and management programs enroll people from many different undergraduate and work backgrounds, so rather than test your mastery of any particular subject area, the GMAT exam will assess your acquired skills. Your GMAT score will give admissions officers a statistically reliable measure of how well you are likely to perform academically in the core curriculum of a graduate business program.
Of course, there are many other qualifications that can help people succeed in business school and in their careersfor instance, job experience, leadership ability, motivation, and interpersonal skills. The GMAT exam does not gauge these qualities. That is why your GMAT score is intended to be used as one standard admissions criterion among other, more subjective, criteria, such as admissions essays and interviews.
1.1 Why Take the GMAT Exam?
GMAT scores are used by admissions officers in roughly 1,800 graduate business and management programs worldwide. Schools that require prospective students to submit GMAT scores in the application process are generally interested in admitting the best-qualified applicants for their programs, which means that you may find a more beneficial learning environment at schools that require GMAT scores as part of your application.
Myth -vs- FACT
M If I dont score in the 90th percentile, I wont get into any school I choose.
FVery few people get very high scores.
Fewer than 50 of the more than 200,000 people taking the GMAT exam each year get a perfect score of 800. Thus, while you may be exceptionally capable, the odds are against your achieving a perfect score. Also, the GMAT exam is just one piece of your application packet. Admissions officers use GMAT scores in conjunction with undergraduate records, application essays, interviews, letters of recommendation, and other information when deciding whom to accept into their programs.
Because the GMAT exam gauges skills that are important to successful study of business and management at the graduate level, your scores will give you a good indication of how well prepared you are to succeed academically in a graduate management program; how well you do on the test may also help you choose the business schools to which you apply. Furthermore, the percentile table you receive with your scores will tell you how your performance on the test compares to the performance of other test-takers, giving you one way to gauge your competition for admission to business school.
Schools consider many different aspects of an application before making an admissions decision, so even if you score well on the GMAT exam, you should contact the schools that interest you to learn more about them and to ask about how they use GMAT scores and other admissions criteria (such as your undergraduate grades, essays, and letters of recommendation) to evaluate candidates for admission. School admissions offices, school Web sites, and materials published by the school are the best sources for you to tap when you are doing research about where you might want to go to business school.
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