Hi,
Your friend is right. GMAT exam pattern is going to change. GMAT 2012 has been scheduled to launch in June 2012. The registrations for GMAT will be open from December 2011.
The new pattern will consist of four sections comprising Analytical Writing Assessment, Integrated Reasoning, Quantitative and Verbal. Apart from these, Analytical Writing Assessment will now comprise only one essay i.e., Analysis of Argument instead of two.
Although, total time for the exam has remained unchanged but division of time among the sections have some alterations. The former two sections will be of 30 minutes each whereas verbal and quantitative will be of 75 min each.
The Integrated reasoning will add new dimension of judging management skills. This new section will consist of 12 questions comprising of graphs and tables. Thus, to get the results one will have to assimilate, integrate, interpret, recognize and evaluate the problem. The test takers will be given 2 or 3 sources of information to evaluate the results.
Further, the scores of the integrated reasoning section will be separately given and will not be counted in total scores. Apart from this, criteria of other sections have remained unchanged. However the changed pattern has certainly assured the high standards of screening managerial skills of the test takers.
Manjari Shukla