GMAT Focus Edition: Facts You Need to Know

Q – What’s the timeline?

A –GMAT Focus registration opens on August 29th, 2023. GMAT Focus testing starts Q4 of 2023. The current GMAT ends in early Q1 of 2024.

Q – Other changes?

A –

• This is not just a “shorter GMAT.” GMAC’s head of psychometrics kept coming back to this point, and he seemed very genuine about it.
• No Sentence Correction.
• Almost no Geometry (except a very small amount of Coordinate Geometry).
• Integrated Reasoning becomes Data Insights, and it fully counts as part of the composite score.
• No essay.
• Verbal-oriented Data Sufficiency exists now.
• Chart/table Data Sufficiency exists now.
• “Pure math” totally equation-based Data Sufficiency is gone now.
• Every score report is now basically an Enhanced Score Report. Score reports show right/wrong and time spent for every question. Times do include time during review/edit at the end of the section. The score report will show review/edit data. Students also get a Time Pressure Index. Score reports also provide benchmarks (percentile among applicants) to business schools and individual programs.
• Practice exams also offer additional data insight on their results now.

Q – What’s the deal with taking the test out of the country? E.g. a client spending August in SE Asia. Do the at-home tests have to go through a (longer) 30-day vetting/flagging period, especially internationally, and/or especially if you get a score north of 750?

A –The test is the same everywhere, and the vetting/flagging process doesn’t discriminate based on where the test is taken. It’s offered online or in testing centers in SE Asia but not in mainland China. Of course, there are no guarantees of how long the score review will take other than the 30-day maximum (though most are much faster), and any irregularities can push the review time toward the longer end of the spectrum.

Q – Do they feel that the academic predictive merits of the shortened test are as valid as the longer version?

A –Looking to get slightly different information. You lose some data points with a shorter test, and so you get a less-reliable score. The solution is to stop asking about language skills. Schools can evaluate that elsewhere. Not much compromise in terms of test score reliability on what you’re actually still asking about. Narrowing focus actually improves reliability.

Improved Computer Adaptive Test algorithm also creates “significant improvements in measurement efficiency, resulting in shorter tests while maintaining score accuracy”; “reliability remains comparable.” This is journal-published, peer-reviewed research. The correlation between GMAT Focus and graduate GPA is 0.46 – 0.58, which is comparable to the current GMAT total. GMAT Focus score reliability > 0.90. Each section has a reliability 0.8 or higher. High internal consistency for each section; each section tests a single latent trait. Verbal reasoning used to test 2 factors but now tests 1 factor. Standard Error is lowest at high scores. (It peaks in the 300s.)

Q – Does the GMAT Focus re-center percentiles, especially on math?

A –The scale is recalibrated. The drift of the previous scores, and the negative skew that resulted, have been fixed. The drift happened (since 1997) because of changing test-taker population, especially the influx of international students, especially from China, India, Korea, and elsewhere in Asia.

The percentile scales for each of the three sections are now similar, though perhaps not identical, and of course future drift is always possible if the test-taker population shifts again.

Q – What are these numbers for GRE?

A –Correlation (current GRE, not shortened new GRE): below 0.46. GMAC expects this correlation will drop “dramatically” on the new shortened GRE. GMAC expects GRE correlation will drop below 0.4 or even below 0.3. Schools haven’t figured this out yet, but in general care a lot about these numbers.

Reliability (current GRE, not shortened new GRE): 0.92 currently, but expected to drop with the new GRE; GMAC would not be surprised if it falls below 0.8.

Q – How should (or may) schools compare candidates who took both GMAT and GMAT Focus?

A – GMAC is publishing a concordance table for comparison of old and new GMAT scores.

To minimize confusion, Harvard will not accept the GMAT Focus in either Round 1 or Round 2 of this year’s MBA application. However, Harvard is accepting GMAT Focus for their 2+2 program in 2024. Other schools’ policies are TBD.

Schools will have to re-establish their psychological thresholds for what defines a “good” score on the GMAT Focus.

Q – Are they noting it anywhere on score reports, etc.?

A –Focus goes 205 to 805 in 10-point increments instead of 200 to 800, sections go from 60 to 90. The 5-point shift is because GMAC wants it to be clear to everyone which version was taken. But the new scale cannot be thought of as midpoints of the old scale’s 10-point ranges. E.g., 505 is NOT “better than 500 but worse than 510 from the old GMAT.”

Q – Is the intent to make the test easier by making it shorter or just to make the ordeal less of a trauma for those who dread it?

A –Not easier. Actually, there is more discrimination at the top of the scale. (But the scale is compressed; 60-90 instead of 6-51. Does that mean less discrimination lower on the scale? GMAC says no; the GMAT Focus has “[improved] score discrimination throughout the score scale.”)

The new GMAT Focus reflects an extensive collaboration with MBA programs via surveys and conversations. Schools wanted the test to be shorter to make it easier on candidates; the programs also wanted an increasing emphasis on data literacy, problem-solving skills, and higher order reasoning skills and a de-emphasis on language skills. Schools were okay with removing the AWA.  The main goal of GMAT Focus is to make the test more efficient and require less prep (read: less painful) for students.

Integrated Reasoning had been giving mixed signals to schools, and GMAC had been getting mixed signals about IR from schools in return. Schools didn’t know what to do with the score since it wasn’t part of the composite score. “Integrated reasoning” was an ambiguous phrase that didn’t explain what underlying skill(s) it was really testing.

Students can flag questions and can change a few answers (3) per section now at the end of the section (time permitting). This feature was heavily desired by students – 86.7% wanted this. (Many of the others said they had already taken the test and felt it would be unfair that they would miss out on this feature.) Many students believe that this will decrease anxiety and increase feelings of control.

Note that this has been tested against “gaming the test” strategies and is not game-able. Initial item difficulty jumps have been made a bit smaller to make sure the “intentionally miss the first 3 and correct them later” strategy doesn’t break the test. Also, this is NOT for “second-guessing” – literature shows that second guesses are worse on average than first guesses. This is a time-management tool to help students let go of the small number of questions they get totally stuck on and stubbornly cannot let go of – the 5- or 6-minute questions that kill people’s pacing. “This is expected to greatly reduce the anxiety level” of students.

Q – Is there some relationship between these choices (what they shortened or added, what they removed) and the ongoing criticism of standardized tests for being demographically biased? If so, how?

A –GMAT Focus uses a new methodology “to ensure the fairness of GMAT Focus scores across protected groups.”

GMAC did not target populations, e.g., to try to boost Americans/westerners versus other groups. GMAC did not attempt to balance scores across country/culture populations.

Sentence Correction removal was mainly about the skills business schools want to see tested and not about what candidates feel comfortable with or believe is culture-fair (though note that Sentence Correction was always carefully reviewed for culture-fairness). There is, however, a good amount of relief among Asian students about the removal of Sentence Correction. On the other hand, there is some apprehension in Asia about the verbal aspects of the Data Insights section.

Q – Anything else?

A –Average self-reported prep time: South Asia 120 hours, East and Southeast Asia 100, Europe 60, US 42. The US is falling, but Asia is actually rising.

For the GMAT Focus, the one allowed reset of each paid practice exam (practice tests 3-6) WILL NOT show repeat questions. Then why not simply split these into two practice exams? Theoretically, they could, but they haven’t done so because that functionality existed previously, and they didn’t want to be seen as removing any functionality. Why was it done that way previously? Unclear – before the time of the current administration.

GMAT questions are time-balanced as well as subject-matter-balanced, tested-skill-balanced, and so forth.

Useful links from GMAC:

1. GMAT Focus Overview (Flyer)
2. GMAT Focus Edition vs GMAT Exam (Flyer)
3. Test Center or Online (Flyer)
4. Score Concordance Table (Website)
5. 6-week study planner (Flyer)
6. The GMAT Focus Edition Explained (Video)
7. The GMAT Focus Edition: Scores & Percentiles (Video)