How Hard Is The GMAT? - Magoosh Blog

The GMAT is known to be significantly more challenging than the SAT and ACT, the high school exams. However, it is widely considered less challenging than the LSAT or MCAT, the law school and medical school exams, respectively. Of course, it’s always good to remember that test difficulty is a subjective matter. Individual opinions vary regarding which test is, in fact, more or less challenging. This is especially true when comparing the GMAT to the GRE: Students who excel at math and struggle with verbal, tend to find the GMAT easier to navigate. Conversely, students who are verbal dynamos but flounder a bit with quantitative subject matter, tend to find the GRE friendlier than the math-heavy GMAT.

Bottom line: Answering the question, How Hard is the GMAT, depends on a host of individual factors such as your background in math and reading, test-taking skills, and the schools you are targeting.

Table of Contents

• Comparing the GMAT’s Structure to Other Exams
• What Makes GMAT Test Content Hard
• What is a Competitive GMAT Score?
• How Can I Improve my GMAT Score?

Comparing the GMAT’s Structure to Other Graduate Exams

Length

The GMAT, including the optional 10-minute break, is 2 hours and 15 minutes long, significantly shorter than the previous GMAT version. It’s not quite as short as the GRE, which clocks in at just under 2 hours. Yet, it still requires less time than the LSAT, which takes almost 3 hours to complete and is much shorter than the MCAT, which lasts 7 hours! While this shorter GMAT reduces test fatigue, allowing for more focused performance throughout the exam, it’s still important to practice your pacing and build up your stamina.

Number of Questions

The GMAT has a total of 64 questions spread across three sections:

• Quantitative Reasoning: 21 questions
• Verbal Reasoning: 23 questions
• Data Insights: 20 questions

If we compare the number of questions you have to answer on the GMAT to other exams, the only test with fewer questions is the GRE, and there’s only a difference of 10 questions between the two. The other tests, both in the high school and graduate categories, have significantly more questions to slog through.

Time Per Question

The GMAT provides a different pacing challenge compared to other exams. Here’s a breakdown of the average time per question between the GMAT and GRE:

As you can see, the average time allotted per question for both verbal and quant questions on the GRE is noticeably less than the allotted time for GMAT questions. Yes, the total number of questions plays a part; however, that isn’t the whole picture. Rather, the average time allotted per question tells us more. In particular, it gives us an idea of how difficult the test makers think their own questions are. Because GMAT gives you nearly 2 (or more!) minutes per question, we can deduce that the folks who write GMAT questions know that many of their questions are highly complex, requiring advanced analytical thinking and higher-level computational skills.

Additional reading: GMAT Time Management Tips & Strategies

Section Adaptivity

One thing that sets the GMAT apart from other exams is that it’s “question adaptive.” This just means that, within a section, the question you see next is determined by your performance on all the earlier questions you completed. For example, if you’ve answered 4 hard math questions correctly in a row, your next math question is going to be even harder.

The GRE, on the other hand, is section adaptive. The first verbal section is 12 questions of a mix of difficulties. Depending how well you do on that entire section, the 2nd verbal section will either be easier, about the same, or harder. The other graduate exams, the MCAT and LSAT, are not computer adaptive tests (CATs).

If you want to dig deeper into the differences between question adaptivity (GMAT) and section adaptivity (GRE), check out this snippet of the conversation our GMAT expert, Erika, had with representatives from both ETS and GMAC:

More on the GMAT vs the GRE

Why so many mentions of the GRE? Because it’s a direct competitor to the GMAT: the vast majority of business schools accept either GRE or GMAT scores. Read