You want to apply for a Master in Management or MBA program? Be sure about the requirements. Besides language tests, academic references, and motivation letters, also the GMAT may be required.
What is the GMAT?
Some say the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) was the toughest test in their life – others treat it pragmatically as just another step towards their Master in Management or MBA program. Whether you like it or not – the GMAT is required from many business schools and used as a test for the suitability of the applicants. And for GMAC, the organization who actually offers the GMAT, it is an amazing source of money: more than 100,000 people take the test every year.
Stress tolerance is necessary for the GMAT
The GMAT is not only a test for language skills, it is also supposed to test the analytical-logical abilities of the examinee. Therefore it is split into three parts: Essays, quantitative part, verbal part. These three parts always appear in the test in this order. The difficulty hereby especially is enormous time pressure. Many of the GMAT questions could be easily answered correctly if you had enough time to calculate the answer for example – but you don’t have it and that’s what accounts for the GMAT.
- Part: Essays (Analytic Writing Assessment)
The first part of the GMAT includes two essays, 30 minutes each. Although the score (0 to 6 points) does not fall into the final GMAT score it is nevertheless mentioned on your final GMAT certificate. Are the essays important? Good question. It may depend on the recruiter but why taking unnecessary risks? The essays are easy and 4 out of 6 points are a must. - Part: Quantitative Section
This part challenges your quantitative skills and confronts you with 37 questions. You have 75 minutes time for solving them and the questions consist of two types:(a) Data Sufficiency
Here you get a problem, for example: Is 5x less than 1,000? Then you get two equations, for instance (1) 5x+1 > 3000 and (2) 5x-1 = 5x – 500. Then you have to decide if (1) is sufficient to solve the problem, or (2), or both together, or (1) or (2) by themselves or if neither (1), (2), or (1) and (2) together are sufficient.(b) Problem Solving:
Find the answer that is the solution to the mentioned problem. Example: What percentage of 256 is 32 ? Possible answers: 8%, 0.125%, 12.5%, 12.8%, 128% - Part: Verbal section
In this part, your language skills are tested, however, on a much higher level than by the TOEFL. The difficulty lies in the fact that any answer is correct. Your task, however, is finding out the “best” answer.(a) Sentence correction
: In a brief text passage some words are underlined. Choose among the alternatives the one that fits best into the passage.(b) Critical reasoning:
You read a medium-long passage and decide which answers about the content fits best.(c) Reading Comprehension:
You read quite a long text, mostly about a scientific or sociological phenomenon, and answer questions to it.
GMAT-preparation – what do I need?
How long should you prepare for the GMAT? Well…. Asian people are said to prepare about a year for the GMAT. Others say that two months should be enough. It is a fact that high GMAT scores impress business school recruiters. So maybe the better question is: Which score do you need to get accepted for your favorite Master in Management ot MBA program?
GMAT preparation courses
There are several offers for preparatory courses for the GMAT. These mostly extend over a whole weekend and often cost up to 800 US Dollars. Others are held during the week or on an individually tailored base. The question whether they pay off can not generally be answered as it may depend on the “learning type” you are. It is a fact that most courses consist of candidates with varying degrees of previous knowledge. Thus there are often problems to respond to individual needs. On the whole, however, a GMAT course offers a good introduction into the GMAT preparation for those who’d rather study in class than do private studies.
Do GMAT prep courses replace books?
The often emerging presumption that such a course presents the complete GMAT preparations is wrong. You can only achieve a good GMAT score through persistent practise. By familiarising and getting acquainted with the GMAT-world you will learn more and more what the makers of the test expect. Furthermore you train your language related sensitiveness and fast mental arithmetic. Thus a GMAT preparatory course can’t in any way replace a persistent private study.
- Tip: GMAT courses held at universities
A hint at this point: Some universities offer GMAT preparation courses free of charge or GMAT info sessions for applicants. Information about this can be found on the websites of the universities.
GMAT prep books are a must
While you can do without a course to the best of one’s knowledge sufficient preparation reading is all the more important. There are many books which explain the main features of the test as well as mathematical and linguistic-logical concepts and train of thoughts. Besides they have a multitude of exercises available through which you should work through consistently. Not all books are error-free therefore you should not worry if there are discrepancies in the solution in some cases.
Towards the GMAT test date:
- Dates for the test are scarce goods
If you can estimate when you want to take the GMAT you should try to agree on a date soon, because depending on the test location it takes several weeks until you get a free time slot in the test centre. Furthermore the number of test centres is decreasing in some countries and they are reducing their opening times. - A “date” with a test
The participation for the GMAT costs 250 US Dollars worldwide. The easiest way to agree on a date for the test is to go online onto www.mba.com. It is also possible to arrange this by phone; you will find the phone numbers for the countries in question on the named internet page as well. - Liability can save you cash
It is also possible to postpone or cancel your GMAT appointment on the website or with a phone call. However you should consider that this is not free of charge. If you change your appointment up to seven days in advance you have to pay a rescheduling fee of 50 US Dollars on top of the fee for the test. If you want to change the date less than seven days in advance you have to pay the full amount for your old appointment as well as for your new one. - Illness doesn’t count
If you want to cancel a GMAT appointment completely you will get a cancellation refund of 80 US Dollars – but only if you cancel it with seven days notice if you want to cancel on short notice you won’t get any refund at all. Especially in very severe cases of illness this is very annoying and is therefore criticised by many candidates.
Source: Master in Management Compass
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