Wednesday 2 December 2015

Graduate Management Admission Test

The Graduate Management Admission Test is a computer adaptive test (CAT) intended to assess certain analytical, writing, quantitative, verbal, and reading skills in written English for use in admission to a graduate management program, such as an MBA. The GMAT does not measure business knowledge or skill, nor does it measure intelligence.

According to the test owning company, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the GMAT assesses analytical writing and problem-solving abilities, while also addressing data sufficiency, logic, and critical reasoning skills that it believes to be vital to real-world business and management success. On June 5, 2012, GMAC introduced an integrated reasoning section to the exam that is designed to measure a test taker’s ability to evaluate data presented in new formats and multiple sources.

GMAT is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admission Council. More than 5,900 programs offered by more than 2,100 universities and institutions use the GMAT exam as part of the selection criteria for their programs. Business schools use the test as a criterion for admission into a wide range of graduate management programs, including MBA, Master of Accountancy, and Master of Finance programs.

The GMAT exam is administered in standardized test centers in 112 countries around the world. According to a survey conducted by Kaplan Test Prep, the GMAT is still the number one choice for MBA aspirants despite the increasing acceptability of GRE scores. According to GMAC, it has continually performed validity studies to statistically verify that the exam predicts success in business school programs.

Predictive validity

The intended purpose of the GMAT is to predict student success in graduate business programs. Using data collected by GMAC between 1997 and 2004, GMAC found there to be a .459 correlation between total GMAT scores and mid-program student grades in graduate business programs.

Independent research has shown significantly different results. Independent research has shown that the GMAT can explain only 4.4% of the variance in final MBA GPA while undergraduate GPA can explain 17.4% of the variance in final MBA GPA. In addition, more recent research has shown that undergraduate grade point average and work experience are able to convey the information that the GMAT attempts to represent.

Scoring


The total GMAT score ranges from 200 to 800 and measures performance on the quantitative and verbal sections together (performance on the AWA and IR sections do not count toward the total score, those sections are scored separately). Scores are given in increments of 10 (e.g. 540, 550, 560, 570, etc.). From the most recent data released by GMAC, the average GMAT score of all test takers is about 540.

The score distribution conforms to a bell curve with a standard deviation of approximately 100 points, meaning that 68% of examinees score between 440 and 640. More precisely, the mean score is 545.6 with a standard deviation of 121.07 points.

The final score is not based solely on the last question the examinee answers (i.e. the level of difficulty of questions reached through the computer adaptive presentation of questions). The algorithm used to build a score is more complicated than that. The examinee can make a mistake and answer incorrectly and the computer will recognize that item as an anomaly. If the examinee misses the first question his score will not necessarily fall in the bottom half of the range.

After previewing his/her unofficial GMAT score, a GMAT test taker has two minutes to decide whether to keep or cancel the GMAT score. A cancelled score can be retrieved within 60 days for a fee of $100. After 60 days a cancelled score is not retrievable

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