Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) - The Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review 2015

THE OFFICIAL GUIDE FOR GMAT VERBAL REVIEW 2015

Copyright 2014 by the Graduate Management Admission Council. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-118-91418-2 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-91420-5 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-118-91419-9 (ePub)

Updates to this book are available on the Downloads tab at this site: http://www.wiley.com/go/gmat2015updates.

Visit gmat.wiley.com to access web-based supplemental features available in the print book as well. There you can access a question bank with customizable practice sets and answer explanations using 300 Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, and Sentence Correction questions. Watch exclusive videos highlighting the skills necessary to perform well on the Verbal section of the exam and addressing concerns of non-native English speakers.

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 test 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 test 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 test 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.

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.

1. M If I dont score in the 90th percentile, I wont get into any school I choose.
2. F Very few people get very high scores.

Fewer than 50 of the more than 200,000 people taking the GMAT test 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 test 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 test 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 test, 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.