GMAT Focus Edition - Everything You Need to Know

Hi AnkurGMAT20,

Yes, we do. For example, I got 8 DS questions on my test. As for CR, you can expect to see 9-13 CR questions.

Data Insights:

From the several practice tests I've taken, the average distribution of question types in the Data Insights section typically looks like this:

• Data Sufficiency: 6 questions (from 5 to 7)
• Graphs and Tables: 5 questions (from 5 to 6)
• Two-part Analysis: 5 questions (from 5 to 6)
• Multi-source Reasoning: 4 questions (from 4 to 5, once 6)

Additionally, out of these, there are approximately 7 Non-Math Related questions (from 5 to 8) per DI section. None of the Non-Math Related questions were from Data Sufficiency.

Verbal Reasoning:

In the verbal section, I consistently encountered exactly 4 Reading Comprehension (RC) passages, each accompanied by either 3 or 4 questions. The distribution between Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning questions was:

• Either 13 RC and 10 CR questions, or 14 RC and 9 CR questions.

This meant I either faced 3 RC passages with 3 questions each and 1 RC passage with 4 questions, or 2 RC passages with 3 questions each and 2 RC passages with 4 questions.

Hope it helps.

Hello There,
Can anyone please let me know when do we get the official score card for GMAT Focus Edition? Like how many days after the exam is done? Also, are there any changes between the scores seen after the exam and the ones that appear on the official score card?

It comes in 3-5 days. I had the exam on 29th Nov, got the results on 2nd Dec. Yes my percentile remained the same but the scores reduced. After exam it was 665 (93 percentile). In the final report it was 655 (93 percentile).

Hopefully people will look at percentiles to compare the scores of both editions.

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Still confused. Is it safe to conclude that now in focus edition more no. of test takers will likely to score over 80th percentile as compared to classic version's ?

Hi ironman_97,

I got my official score a little more than 72 hours after the end of my test.

Hi Can,Will,

Do you have some reason to think that GMAC's percentiles are off? We won't get to know what's actually happening for some time.

Thanks Bunuel for the detailed break up. A follow-up question, will there be any calculator in DI section like we have in IR section of the classic version.

Yes. Check the instructions at the beginning of the DI section:


And her is how the calculator looks on the test:


Hope it helps.

If you would like to purchase a physical calculator that approximates the GMAT Focus Data Insights calculator, the classic Texas Instruments TI-108 (currently $9.50 on Amazon) is almost exactly the same.

https://www.amazon.com/Texas-Instruments-TI-108-Elementary/dp/B001F0271O

Keep in mind, of course, that you are not permitted the use of a physical calculator during the real GMAT. However, it can still be helpful for practice at home—and getting to know the calculator's functions / limitations.

I love this vintage stuff

For those who continue to claim that the GMAT Focus scoring is too easy / the percentiles are inflated, please consider this ESR I found yesterday.

The test-taker answered just 2 of 21 questions incorrectly on Quant (90.5% accuracy), but only earned an 80/90 Quant section score (66%).

In my opinion, losing 5 section points per question incorrect is indeed a very harsh curve—regardless of the difficulty of those 2 questions. Consider that for every 5 points lost in any section, your GMF total score will drop by exactly 33 and 1/3 points, rounded to the nearest multiple of 5 that ends in a 5.

In addition, there are only 30 available points per section! This means they lost 33.3% of the available section points, despite answering only (2/21) = 9.5% of the questions incorrectly.


UPDATE: another GMF test-taker has reported scoring only 74/90 on Quant (29%), despite answering just 4 of 21 correctly (81% accuracy). That's 4 section points lost per incorrect question.

Conversely, another test-taker reported scoring Q81 (71%) with 6/21 incorrect—though 3 of those errors were on the section's final 3 questions.

UPDATE, 12/17: On the other hand, I recently had a private student score 81 on DI with 8 wrong, Q83 with 6 wrong, and V83 with 6 wrong (composite 655).

In conclusion: although on average, questions on the GMAT Focus are worth about 1.5 points per question, this depends significantly on the scoring algorithm and difficulty of questions earned.

At the low end of GMAT Focus scores, each error is worth far more (up to 5 points lost per question incorrect), and at at the high end of scores, each error is worth worth less (around 1 point lost per question).­

UPDATE, AUGUST '24: another test taker has reported scoring Q82 (77%) with only one question incorrect.­

While it is helpful, useful, and also cool, I feel just a bit that it would be not quite representative of the GMAT experience... that online calculator is annoying

Agreed: the virtual calculator can be annoying to use. In particular, there are too many clicks and taps required. If possible, physical keys are always better and easier to use than awkward clicks of the mouse / taps on a trackpad.

Thus, if your computer has a full keyboard, you should utilize the numeric keypad to enter digits and decimal points directly into the DI calculator.

You can also use the following operation keys, instead of having to click / tap:

/ = division
* = multiplication
+ = addition
- = subtraction
enter = equals

I have heard back from GMAC about the question we asked to clarify on adaptivity of individual sections.

I think we know with confidence now that the test is question adaptive meaning as you answer questions correctly the difficulty goes up. The question we have been trying to ascertain is whether the test is also section adaptive, meaning that if you answer well on one section the difficulty of the other section is Higher or lower. (This is the approach used on the executive assessment).

I received the answer but it’s quite unsatisfying - they cannot disclose and confirm whether the test is section adaptive. The GMAC research team feels that it would provide sensitive information that they are not willing to publicly share.

How do you interpret this? 🤷‍♂️

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Cue the conspiracy theories in 3,2,1…

How classic of GMAC to publicly volunteer information—only to then backtrack so hard that the said information somehow turns into “confidential” and proprietary knowledge.

Although GMAC did not provide bb with explicit confirmation of section adaptivity on the Focus, some would consider its non-denial on the issue to be particularly telling.

The takeaway? If you earn a high score on any section of the GMAT Focus, don’t be surprised if the next section feels harder than usual.

However, the good news is that your section score should increase as a result of this increased difficulty level, respective to the total number of questions you answer correctly.

All of a sudden, I’m thinking that for high scorers, Data Insights might be better suited as the first section of the GMAT Focus, not the last. Why? No one wants an extra-hard DI section.

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Thank you for bringing it up. they did originally bring up that the test would be section adaptive. Do we have it somewhere in writing?

I’m wondering if we can try again since the bird is out of the cage so to speak…

PS. I also tend to believe that it likely is section adaptive but I wanted to share the official information without my perspective per se.

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