GMAT Written Test: Everything You Need to Know

By Kh. M. Haris Naveed

If you don’t know anything about the GMAT written test, then you are in luck. Today we are going to explain what the written part of the GMAT test holds. This explanation will be in detail regarding the written test so you don’t need to worry.

To start off first, we must be familiar with what is a GMAT test. This is basically a CAT test that stands for Graduate Management Admission Test. This test is basically for admission to some business school.

It consists mainly of 4 sections which are:

• Analytical Writing.
• Integrated reasoning.
• Quantitative.
• Verbal skills.

Each of the sections is very important and focuses on a specific part of your knowledge. Many famous schools use this admission test to select their candidates for master’s degrees.

The written test that requires any type of writing is the Analytical Writing Assessment section. So we are going to discuss only the Analytical Writing Assessment section in full detail.

Analytical Writing Assessment:

What does the analytical writing assessment mean? This is a specific part of the GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) which focuses on how analysis well can you analyze an argument.

An argument will be given to you and you will have to analyze it and write an essay explaining the argument. This measures your ability to think critically from the essay.

The total time limit allowed for the analytical writing assessment section is 30 minutes. During this time limit, we have to analyze the argument and give our point of view regarding it.

The topic of the argument can be anything but mostly business-related. There is no need for knowledge regarding a variety of topics for the argument. The main thing that is assessed is your ability to analytically write in the essay.

Now we will explain the 2 major parts of analytical writing assessment which are analyzing the argument and the essay evaluation.

Both will be explained one by one.

1) Analyzing Argument

This part is crucial because in this part you have to analyze the argument and determine how reasonable it is? This is a very important part because this will give direction to your essay.

To determine how reasonable the argument is, you first have to find the line of reasoning in it and find evidence that supports that line.

Keep in mind that while you determine the reasonability of the argument there is a time limit for this section that is 30 minutes. So we have to analyze the argument and write the essay within the time limit.

The management of time will be crucial for analyzing and writing the essay.

2) Essay Evaluation

The evaluation of your essay will be done by two independent scoring methods which will later compute a total score for Analytical Writing Assessment. These two scoring systems are as follows:

• An electronic system will evaluate the structure of the essay which includes the organization of the ideas and topical analysis.
• Specialized evaluators who have a variety of knowledge on various subjects will evaluate your essay. They will determine how well have you grasped the concept behind the argument. They will assess the overall quality of your analysis and writing on the essay.

The GMAT written test is very difficult and an important section of the test that is why it is necessary to properly prepare your grammar and improve your critical thinking.

The analytical writing assessment if properly prepared can give a great boost to the marks that you may acquire in the GMAT exam.

Hopefully, this has given you a good idea regarding your GMAT written test.