The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is a standardised multiple-choice entrance exam that is taken by candidates who wish to pursue a postgraduate degree in management in India or abroad. The GMAT exam is administered by the Graduate Management Admission Council, or the GMAC for short, and is taken by thousands of students all over the world every year. The exam evaluates your proficiency in the English language, measures your knowledge of basic mathematical concepts and your ability to reason logically and analytically.

The GMAT exam is a computer-adaptive exam, which means that the exam adapts to your ability to answer the questions correctly in real time. If you are thinking of taking the GMAT this year, you should also know that in light of the pandemic, GMAC is now offering the GMAT exam online as well. So you can now take the  GMAT 2021 from the comfort of your home. To take this exam, you will have to pay a fee of USD 250 (price of GMAT exam in India). Do note that the fees can change depending on what part of the world you are looking to take the test from.

Once you have registered for the exam and paid your fee, the next and most important thing you need to know is the GMAT exam structure and the sections that it consists of. The GMAT exam consists of four sections — Verbal Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning, Integrated Reasoning, and the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) section. The AWA section of the exam is the only one that demands a subjective response and you will be expected to write an essay for this section. 

Reattempting the GMAT

You can choose to reattempt the GMAT exam if you are unsatisfied with your score. This is not something to feel bad about, as some of the best students around also retake the exam in order to improve their score. The exam can be taken up to five times in a twelve-month period, with a minimum gap of sixteen days between each attempt. The maximum number of attempts possible in a lifetime is 8. If you happen to have gotten a perfect score of 800, you will have to wait five years before you can attempt the exam again.

GMAT Score 

The Quant and Verbal sections are computer-adaptive, and your final GMAT score will be calculated primarily based on the marks you obtain in these two sections. However, that does not mean that the AWA and Integrated Reasoning (IR) marks are unimportant – quite the contrary. Many b-schools even look through your IR and AWA scores too. This brings us to the question, what is a good GMAT score? Every school on your dream business schools list will have a certain range of GMAT scores that you should aim for when preparing for the GMAT. The maximum GMAT score possible is 800. Ivy League B-schools in the United States of America typically expect prospective students to have an average GMAT score of 730. The average score in European business schools is usually 690.

There is no definite GMAT score that is the ‘ideal’ score, and several other factors apart from your GMAT score will have an impact on how your application is viewed by the admissions committee. Conduct thorough research to know what is the range of GMAT scores you should aim for, for your dream B-school. Draw up a plan for your study and preparation, and stick to it to ensure your success. Good luck.

3% from Careerlabs itself, basic information like the number of attempts for the exam and information cannot be changed.