New GMAT Focus Edition Can be Taken Starting November 7, 2023
So the new structure of the GMA in the focus edition is, we still got quant. We've still got a quantitative reasoning section, however, it's only 21 questions in 45 minutes, all right? So, this is a much shorter section, both in terms of questions and in terms of minutes, and you'll also notice that the timing is slightly different, right? With the old quant section we had two minutes per question, here we have slightly more than two minutes per question, is it enough to make a difference?
I'm not sure, but a little bit more time per question. All right, let's talk a verbal, on the verbal section, we have 23 questions in 45 minutes. So, same section length between the two, couple of extra questions in that verbal section. Here I wanna know that again, we have slightly similar timing, I'll note here actually that while quant got a little bit more time per question, here verbal gets a little bit less time per question.
Which is especially interesting when we're gonna go into some of the content changes that have happened between the current version and the Focus Edition. So verbal, again, a much shorter section, much shorter. All right, now, this is where things get really weird, because we don't have IR anymore. We have a new section called Data Insights, now, this section is maybe not that new we'll talk about the content in it.
But it's got a new name, it's called Data Insights, and data insights is 20 questions in 45 minutes. So you'll notice here that we got three sections each one 45 minutes long with different numbers of questions in the section. So you'll see that data insights we've got the most time for question then quant and then verbal.
And that's it, those are the only three sections in the new focus edition. So, no AWA, the four section structure is gone, we've got three sections, 45 minutes a pop for a grand total of two hours and 15 minutes, much shorter. All right, and then here's an interesting piece, this one, I'm still figuring out my take on.
It used to be you could not change any answers, with the new version when you finish a section, provided you have extra time at the end of the section. You will be taken to a review screen and on that review screen you can look at any of your answers. And you can have bookmarked them in advance as you go through the section, and you may change up to three answers within that section.
Okay, let's talk about a focus edition, what is the content like? Quants, is just problem solving now. And you might be going, whoa, that's crazy, data sufficiency is like the classic GMAT question type, it is the most inventive part of the GMAT. Hold your horses, we'll come back to data sufficiency, but data sufficiency is gone from Quant, all right?
And there's also an interesting thing about the content of Quant. So Quant used to be arithmetic, our guess still is, the current version still exists. Arithmetic, algebra, geometry and other things, right? Geometry was a not insignificant portion of the material. Geometry as a content type is no longer going to be tested as part of the math on the GMAT, this is interesting, we'll come back to this, right?
So quiet is back to you, problem solving, just five answer multiple choice. Verbal, has also had a question type eliminated, so verbal is reading comprehension and critical reasoning, end of list. Sentence correction is gone, so that piece of grammar logic, all right? No longer here, all right, we still have the passage analysis, right?
From reading comprehension, from critical reasoning, a lot more logic based, but the piece of, does this verb match, thus now, and do we have a parallelism? That's gone, interesting, I'll talk more about this in a second. Data insights, we might be going totally new section, must be totally new content, right? Wrong , data insights is the four question types from integrated reasoning, and data sufficiency, all right?
So, question types we've already seen, question types we're familiar with, but repackaged into a new more analytical section. So quant has returned to kinda basic math roots and data insights has taken the more analytical piece of the math or quant section data sufficiency. And combined it with the analytical questions from Integrated reasoning, package together into the new data insight section, which will be section or sorry, question adaptive.
So with IR, that used to not be adaptive data insights, now is going to be adaptive, interesting, and that's it, all right? So no essay anywhere in here so, all right, new scoring, quant is gonna be scored from 60 to 90, verbal, also scored from 60 to 90. All right, so same scale just like currently, but we don't know again how those skills compare, the percentiles can be very, very different across those two sections.
So, an 80 might be super high on verbal but maybe only the 75th percentile on quant. We don't know that yet, but the same section scoring. And then data insights is also scored from 60 to 90, so now we're seeing, okay, data insights is different that IR, in the IR was its own thing. Data insights is not being put on the same level as quant and verbal, they have the same scoring across each exam.
And that is reflected in the total score, now, very strange, the total score is now 205 to 805, not really sure what that's about , maybe just to distinguish from the old score. I don't know, maybe there's more logic to it, it goes in 10 point increments, so you might have a 795 or a 685, all right? And that score is composed of quant, verbal, and data insights, all right?
So it's composed of all three of those sections.
Read full transcriptI'm not sure, but a little bit more time per question. All right, let's talk a verbal, on the verbal section, we have 23 questions in 45 minutes. So, same section length between the two, couple of extra questions in that verbal section. Here I wanna know that again, we have slightly similar timing, I'll note here actually that while quant got a little bit more time per question, here verbal gets a little bit less time per question.
Which is especially interesting when we're gonna go into some of the content changes that have happened between the current version and the Focus Edition. So verbal, again, a much shorter section, much shorter. All right, now, this is where things get really weird, because we don't have IR anymore. We have a new section called Data Insights, now, this section is maybe not that new we'll talk about the content in it.
But it's got a new name, it's called Data Insights, and data insights is 20 questions in 45 minutes. So you'll notice here that we got three sections each one 45 minutes long with different numbers of questions in the section. So you'll see that data insights we've got the most time for question then quant and then verbal.
And that's it, those are the only three sections in the new focus edition. So, no AWA, the four section structure is gone, we've got three sections, 45 minutes a pop for a grand total of two hours and 15 minutes, much shorter. All right, and then here's an interesting piece, this one, I'm still figuring out my take on.
It used to be you could not change any answers, with the new version when you finish a section, provided you have extra time at the end of the section. You will be taken to a review screen and on that review screen you can look at any of your answers. And you can have bookmarked them in advance as you go through the section, and you may change up to three answers within that section.
Okay, let's talk about a focus edition, what is the content like? Quants, is just problem solving now. And you might be going, whoa, that's crazy, data sufficiency is like the classic GMAT question type, it is the most inventive part of the GMAT. Hold your horses, we'll come back to data sufficiency, but data sufficiency is gone from Quant, all right?
And there's also an interesting thing about the content of Quant. So Quant used to be arithmetic, our guess still is, the current version still exists. Arithmetic, algebra, geometry and other things, right? Geometry was a not insignificant portion of the material. Geometry as a content type is no longer going to be tested as part of the math on the GMAT, this is interesting, we'll come back to this, right?
So quiet is back to you, problem solving, just five answer multiple choice. Verbal, has also had a question type eliminated, so verbal is reading comprehension and critical reasoning, end of list. Sentence correction is gone, so that piece of grammar logic, all right? No longer here, all right, we still have the passage analysis, right?
From reading comprehension, from critical reasoning, a lot more logic based, but the piece of, does this verb match, thus now, and do we have a parallelism? That's gone, interesting, I'll talk more about this in a second. Data insights, we might be going totally new section, must be totally new content, right? Wrong , data insights is the four question types from integrated reasoning, and data sufficiency, all right?
So, question types we've already seen, question types we're familiar with, but repackaged into a new more analytical section. So quant has returned to kinda basic math roots and data insights has taken the more analytical piece of the math or quant section data sufficiency. And combined it with the analytical questions from Integrated reasoning, package together into the new data insight section, which will be section or sorry, question adaptive.
So with IR, that used to not be adaptive data insights, now is going to be adaptive, interesting, and that's it, all right? So no essay anywhere in here so, all right, new scoring, quant is gonna be scored from 60 to 90, verbal, also scored from 60 to 90. All right, so same scale just like currently, but we don't know again how those skills compare, the percentiles can be very, very different across those two sections.
So, an 80 might be super high on verbal but maybe only the 75th percentile on quant. We don't know that yet, but the same section scoring. And then data insights is also scored from 60 to 90, so now we're seeing, okay, data insights is different that IR, in the IR was its own thing. Data insights is not being put on the same level as quant and verbal, they have the same scoring across each exam.
And that is reflected in the total score, now, very strange, the total score is now 205 to 805, not really sure what that's about , maybe just to distinguish from the old score. I don't know, maybe there's more logic to it, it goes in 10 point increments, so you might have a 795 or a 685, all right? And that score is composed of quant, verbal, and data insights, all right?
So it's composed of all three of those sections.
The GMAT in its current form will be offered through January 31, 2024. Starting on November 7, 2023, a new, shorter version of the exam called the GMAT Focus can be taken.
For even more details about the new GMAT Focus edition, you can check out the full recording of this live stream on YouTube, or here's an article with some quick highlights: GMAT Focus Edition: the Key Changes.
Lastly, if you'd like to toggle your Magoosh account between the Current GMAT version or the GMAT Focus version, please see this walkthrough: How to toggle your Magoosh account between Current GMAT and GMAT Focus version
