{"id":1497,"date":"2009-12-07T11:10:41","date_gmt":"2009-12-07T19:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=1497"},"modified":"2010-12-15T07:23:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-15T15:23:00","slug":"knewton-knotes-the-gmat-or-the-gre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/knewton-knotes-the-gmat-or-the-gre\/","title":{"rendered":"Knewton Knotes: The GMAT or the GRE?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jose Ferreira is the Founder and CEO of Knewton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You may have heard that some business schools* have started accepting GRE scores in place of GMAT scores. And you may be thinking: \u201cAwesome! I hear the GRE is easier. I\u2019m taking that!\u201d<\/p>\n

After all\u2014there\u2019s no Data Sufficiency<\/a> on the GRE. Sounds great, right?<\/p>\n

The problem is: There\u2019s no Data Sufficiency on the GRE.<\/p>\n

The GMAT has been designed and perfected for business school students. GMAT questions mirror the tasks you will perform every day in business school. Reading Comprehension\u2014because you\u2019ll be reading 50 -100 pages in case studies every day. And Data Sufficiency\u2014because you\u2019ll be skimming each case\u2019s exhibits and financials to determine which numbers are key to cracking the case and which are irrelevant. What about Critical Reasoning<\/a>? Well, every day in class you will comment on other students\u2019 arguments. And they will comment on yours, sometimes in pretty snarky ways. So you need some facility in arguments, if only to protect yourself from that loudmouth ex-banker in the Skydeck.<\/p>\n

In fact, the GMAT is a great test. By that I don\u2019t mean that it will bring peace to the world, or spiritual enlightenment, or that a good time will be had by all. I mean it\u2019s extremely well-constructed, with very high scoring consistency. In short, the GMAT does an excellent job of testing the skills you need to excel in business school.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the GRE General Test is, well, general. It is designed to provide a sense of the fitness of a student for graduate-level work, whether one is interested in pursuing a PhD in English or a Masters in Psych. But the aptitudes needed to succeed in one discipline are very different from those of other disciplines, and no single test can measure them all well. Success in business, and success in business school, requires very specific skills that the GRE measures poorly, and the GMAT measures very well.<\/p>\n

\"\"Furthermore, the GRE has been a rather troubled test. (ETS might claim that I\u2019m the one who caused<\/em> their troubles; in fact, I merely shed light on them.) In the 1990s, I developed a strategy for one question type called Pattern Identification that was so devastating that ETS had to discard hundreds of thousands of printed test booklets, admitting that I \u201cbroke the code, so we are removing the questions from the test<\/a>.\u201d Later on, I reverse-engineered the security protocols<\/a> and scoring algorithm<\/a> of the early GRE computerized test, forcing them to pull the exam for months to fix problems I uncovered. They sued us, and took to calling me the \u201cantichrist.\u201d (Umm, do I at least get Connie Nielsen<\/em> with that?) Later still, they had serious scoring problems with the GRE analytical section, and consequently did away with that section entirely.<\/p>\n

So then why do any business schools accept the GRE? Ok, well for one thing the GRE is slowly but surely getting better, and it\u2019s about to be significantly revised so it will probably improve still further. But mostly, it\u2019s about access, especially internationally. The GMAT isn\u2019t available in as many locations, especially overseas. So business schools figure, \u201cHey, if we accept the GRE, we\u2019ll find some great candidates who might not have been able to apply to business school, or who might add an MBA application or two along with their Masters applications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bottom line: if you can take the GMAT, you should. The GMAT tests skills specific to business school. While admissions officers at schools accepting the GRE will accept<\/em> a GRE score in lieu of a GMAT score, they doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019ll will trust<\/em> GRE scores.\u00a0 And if you give them a GRE score when it\u2019s clear you could just as easily have taken the GMAT, it could hurt your application.<\/p>\n

Besides, Data Sufficiency is fun! Well, here at Knewton we think it\u2019s fun. (Though we also think puns about transfinite cardinality** are hilarious.) More importantly for you, Data Sufficiency is equally hard for everybody. It is also highly coachable, and Knewton\u2019s GMAT prep<\/a> experts have developed the most powerful Data Sufficiency strategies there are. Stay tuned and maybe I\u2019ll blog about them\u2026<\/p>\n

----
\n*MBA programs accepting GRE scores include Harvard, MIT, NYU, Stanford, Virginia, Yale, U Penn, and Berkeley.<\/p>\n

**One of our math guys\u2019 last name is Naul. And his middle name is Alan. Like I said\u2014hilarious!<\/p>\n

Click here to learn more about Knewton's GMAT prep course<\/a> or find more helpful articles on their GMAT blog<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jose Ferreira is the Founder and CEO of Knewton. You may have heard that some business schools* have started accepting GRE scores in place of GMAT scores. And you may…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[243],"tags":[304,174,346],"class_list":["post-1497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-gmat-prep","tag-gre","tag-knewton","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5583,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions\/5583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}