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Intro to Integrated Reasoning

Transcript

Now we can talk about integrated reasoning. Integrated reasoning is a section that is unique to the GMAT. It doesn't appear on any other standardized test and it's a relatively new type of question. It first appeared in 2012, so, it, unlike the, math and the verbal questions, there's a long back log of practice questions, going back for decades.

But there are relatively few official release. Integrated Reasoning questions. It is integrated in the sense that quantitative and verbal information can be combined. Now, why did the GMAT create this new section? It turns out that they created this new section in part.

Grew out of conversations with business schools and even with industry. In other words businesses in the world were saying well here are the skills that we need, they were talking to business schools and then business schools went to GMAT and Said, well, here are the, the skills that businesses need we should be testing these, so, think about it. Part of the reason is that, when you're at work in the business world after you get your MBA, for example, when you go to a business meeting.

There will be no separate math or verbal sections, it's not like in a typical business meeting they say, okay, here's the math section, pay attention, do your math, and then break, okay now here's the verbal section, of course it doesn't work that way, it's all jumbled together. Part of success in the modern world involves processing all kinds of information as it presents itself, verbal as well as mathematical.

That's why the GMAT wanted an integrated section. The GMAT integrated reasoning section is also about processing large amounts of data. Now, think about it, in the modern world, we all experience just an absolute avalanche of information. There's all kinds of information coming at us all the time.

And when you're in the business world, this doesn't change. There's even more information coming at you. So in the modern electronically connected business world, a good businessperson needs to be able to look at the massive data coming in and discern those particular pieces of information that are the most significant. That's what distinguishes the people who really make very strong decisions versus the people that are just kinda floundering because they're lost in all the information.

Isolating what data is important is an essential skill on the GMAT Integrated Reason. The good news is that there's no new math content or verbal content that you need to learn. So we, we really have covered all the content already. The math on the integrated reasoning focuses on real-life math, as you'd expect.

Percents, ratios, word problems, that sort of thing. The verbal focus is on reading comprehension, and especially critical reasoning skills, analyzing arguments. The GMAT integrated reasoning, prevents, presents a great deal of information in graphs, but many of the graph-reading skills are probably already familiar. So we'll be talking about different kinds of graphs in upcoming videos.

Those, but that's the only thing that's a little bit different, that there are a lot of graphs on the integrated reasoning. So, there's some basic facts about this section. How is this section structured? It's 30 minutes, Iit's right after the analytical writing assessment, so when you sit down to take a GMAT, the first 30 minutes you write an essay.

You're done with the essay, boom, right away next section without a break is integrated reasoning. Then of course after the integrated reasoning then you'll have your first opportunity for a break before you begin the quant section. There are 12 questions and this is the term that, that GMAT itself uses. They call them questions, but I put that word in quotes.

Because, most of the integrated reasoning questions have more than one task. And one way to think about it is, it's actually 12 screens. And on each screen, there may be multiple things that you have to do. And so, an entire screen with all its tasks, that's what GMAT calls, a quote, unquote question here. So it's a little bit different from just a math or a verbal question where it just is literally one question on the screen.

You have about 2.5 minutes for each question, that is to say each screen. In other words, you have about 30 minutes for about 25 to 30 separate tasks. So, time is really of the essence on the integrated reasoning, even more so than on the quant and verbal sections. Unlike the quant and verbal sections of the GMAT, the integrated reasoning section is not computer adaptive.

So, we've talked a little about this in previous videos on the quantitative verbal section. Every time you answer a question, the computer's making adjustments. If you get the question right, it starts to give you harder questions. If you get the question wrong, it starts to give you easier questions, it's adjusting.

That's not going on in the Integrated Reasoning section. So essentially what's happening is, that the test is just picking out 12 integrated reasoning questions, and then just giving them to you. So that 12 is fixed when you start your integrated reasoning section, the 12 questions have already been selected for you. Nevertheless, as on the rest of the GMAT.

Once you have completed a problem, you can't go back to it. You must do the questions in order. You get no choice about that. So that's the same as the rest of the GMAT. The Integrated Reasoning section of the GMAT is the only section on which you get an on-screen calculator.

So I know for some people that sounds like good news and we'll talk about that. We'll talk about the calculator in an upcoming video. Now, the four question types. Here, I'm just gonna give a very brief general summary of the four question types. Do not worry about understanding everything in detail.

Each one of these question types has several videos of its own. So this is just to get kinda the bird's-eye view right now. Question type number one, multi-source reasoning. So multi-source reasoning presents a great deal of information or two or three tabbed cards so, it will be a split screen. On the left side of the screen, you'll have sort of like reading comp, except for just a single passage, what you'll have are cards, and you'll, you can tab between them.

And each card has information on it verbal information, mathematical information, charts, formulas, etc. And because it's a lot of information, like the GMAT reading comprehension, you'll have three or four questions in a row, just on this same block of information, so. So just like on the verbal section, you get a reading comprehension passage, you get three or four questions in a row.

On the GMAT, you get this block of information in multi-source reasoning, all this information on these tabbed cards. And then, you get three, three or four questions in a row on these tab cards. So, the same idea: if you process all this information, they want you to spend a few questions on it. Now, the types of questions, some of them are multiple choice, you get a single multiple choice question on the screen, and incidentally, this is the only type of, of question on the entire integrator reasoning where you could possibly see a standard five answer multiple choice.

It sometimes comes up on the multi source reasoning or you can have what I'll call a set of three dichotomous choice tasks, so in other words, three things where you just get a binary choice. Either three statements and you have to decide true or false, or yes or no, or this increases profits and this decreases profits something like that. So you just make a binary one way or the other choice about three different statements.

That's the basic idea of multi-source reasoning. We have a lot more to say about that in upcoming lessons. The second type, table analysis. So table analysis, basically they present you with a gigantic table. And the cool thing is, this is a sortable table. So, it will have several different columns and you can sort by any column.

Say it has, you know, profit and population and a bunch of other things. You could sort by profit so you get profit from top to bottom, or you get population from top to bottom. Often there are ranks, world ranks or something like that, you can also sort by these ranks. So, again, we'll talk more about this, but you'll get a sortable table, and again you'll get three dichotomous choice tasks.

It's things where you just have to answer yes, no or true, false. Three statements, and you sort the table to figure out how to answer those questions. That's a birds eye view of table analysis. The third type, Graphic Interpretations. So this one presents a graph or a chart.

And so we'll be talking about this, there's a wide variety of graphs and charts that could appear. And we'll be talking about the different kinds of charts in upcoming videos. So there'll be a chart and then there'll be two sentences. And each sentence will have a drop-down menu and so your job is just to select the right choice from the drop-down menu.

So you can imagine a sentence along the lines of, In 1996, profits increased by drop down menu percent from the year before. And then you'd have to figure out the percent, and choose the right thing from the drop down menu, that kind of thing. So that's the, the bird's eye view of graphic interpretations. Much more to say about that in upcoming videos.

Finally, the fourth type, two part analysis now this is fascinating. It presents a verbal or math prompt and two questions that same, share the same answer choice. So it's a little bit like multiple choice, except you, you have two different questions and both of those questions rely on the same answer choice, and what's, what's very interesting is that often, those two questions are interdependent.

That is, not just question number one and question number two, but the two choices, you have to pick them together, you know? So, one choice could be, one question might be. Which of the following statements would person number one say to support their position? And statement number two, question number two might be.

Which one of the statements would person number two say, to attack that statement by statement number, by person number one, something like that. This is a very versatile question design. And it can explore a variety of mathematical, logical, verbal scenarios. So a Two-Part Analysis question could be entirely verbal. It could be like a, a gigantic critical reasoning type thing.

It can be entirely mathematical. So, just like a math problem or it can be logical. This, this is a question type. It is incredibly flexible and it lends itself to a variety of forms. So, of course, we're gonna have a lot more to say about this question type also. Right now it's not important that you understand in detail these four questions that's because we already talked much more about that.

The important thing to appreciate right now is all the ways in which questions are framed on the GMAT Integrated reasoning. Are unique to this section and unlike anything that anyone taking the GMAT has ever seen before. You really have to appreciate that very deeply. These four question types, they're not just new to you, they're new to everyone who is taking the GMAT.

Because no matter what standardized test you've taken before, SATs or ACTs or the GRE, you've never seen question types like this. You only see these on the GMAT. So, right away. Yes it's new for you but it's new for everybody. Don't be intimidated by that.

In the upcoming videos in this module we explore each one of these four questions types in depth. So once again at this point you're not expected to have a detailed understanding of the four question types. If you can remember the names of them that's fantastic. We'll be talking much more about each one of them in upcoming videos.

Finally, how is the IR section scored? So, the score you get is an integer from one to eight. That's what will appear on your score report. IR score, and it will be a number from one to eight. Of the 12 questions, some unknown number probably two to four of them. Some unknown number are experimental, and don't count toward your score.

All the non experimental questions count equally. And the number of these you get correct is converted to the scaled score. You receive your IR score right away, as part of your unofficial score report when you're done with your GMAT. So you finish your math and you finish your verbal section, you decide you're not going to cancel your score, you're done with your GMAT.

You walk out of the room. They hand you a piece of paper. And this piece of paper has on it, your, your, verbal sub score, your math sub score. Your, your overall GMAT score. As well as your IR score, you get that all at once.

The only thing you don't get is the AWA essay. It takes a little time for them to do that, cuz the computer has to read it. And then a human has to read it. So that takes a little more time. You get that when your official report is mailed to you a couple weeks later. But you find out the IR score right away with all the other scores.

As mentioned in the, in the video. We had a video way back at the introduction, GMAT Scores. The IR score is separate from the other scores and does not contribute at all to your overall GMAT score. It is it's own thing, separate from math and verbal, separate from the overall GMAT score.

In summary, the GMAT integrative reasoning tests math and verbal skills in real life scenarios. You get 30 minutes for 12 multi-task questions. Really what you have are 12 screens and on each screen there's a variety of things you need to do. It is not adaptive but you can't go back.

That's the important thing. Once you're done you press, press enter. You're done with that question you'll never see it again. There are four unique question types, so again the names are multi-source reasoning, table analysis, graphics interpretation, and two-part analysis. Right now you are not expected to have any detailed understanding of these question types.

We'll go through each one of these. It's just enough to remember the names right now. And finally, the GMAT Integrated Reasoning score is a whole number from one to eight, and it's entirely separate from the Quantitative and Verbal scores, as well as the Aggregate GMAT score.

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