Set for launch in the 4th quarter of 2023, the GMAT Focus Edition several experts and stakeholders have raised their concerns and opinions on the changes. As more than 170 colleges and universities accept GMAT scores in India alone, the removal of the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) has taken.
According to media reports, GMAT aspirants stated that the AWA brings additional pressure on an already difficult exam. Therefore, the news of the removal of the AWA section was a welcome decision for many candidates, especially those planning to take their tests in the first quarter of 2024.
In their comments, test takers stated that even though the AWA section is not inherently difficult, spending 30-40 mins solving an argument can get exhausting. Some stated that the Quantitative, Verbal and Integrated Reasoning sections are already difficult and take a significant portion of the test time.
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However, industry experts cite failing popularity to be the cause for the drastic moves by GMAT. As per reports, there has been a significant drop in the programme revenue, where, in 2019 the programme revenue as per public filings demonstrated an income of USD 89.8 million, which dropped to USD 60.4 million in 2020.
In terms of the total number of tests taken a year, PoetsAndQuants conducted an analysis, where a drop of 42% had been witnessed in the number of tests taken in a year. In 2021, there had been 156,452 GMAT tests had been conducted, wherein, over 260,000 GMAT exams had been conducted in 2016, which was already significantly lower than the 2011 statistics, where 286,529 tests were taken.
Some experts spoke about the GRE exam, which had become a more attractive and competitive option for MBA aspirants. These experts also raised concerns regarding the impact of the changes that GMAC expects will make to the popularity of the test once again.
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Experts stated that the impact and the normalisation process of the new changes such as the removal of the AWA section take years. Citing the example of the IR section which was introduced several years, many institutions are yet to find ground with the section. Some experts consider the AWA section as a useful section for admission officers, helping them assess the real abilities of the candidates.
The shorter duration of the test has also not been well received, even by students. Currently, the GMAT exam takes 3 hours and 7 minutes to complete four sections, excluding the breaks. The new GMAT Focus edition will take 2 hours and 25 minutes to complete three sections, which students believe would not change the difficulty level of the test.
Some students highlighted the reduction of the overall preparation time and the number of questions in the question paper, however, the addition of the Data Insight can impact the time constraints, the students added. The new focus edition of the test will also see the removal of the sentence correction type of questions, which previously accounted for 40 per cent of the test, which would help the more vernacular students from India, experts claimed.
Acknowledging the data-driven focus that has been seen in the GMAT exams, some experts suggested that the alternatives to the AWA section must be holistic and complete. B-school professors spoke of a “writing module that focuses on the facets of storytelling in a data-driven context/business situation”. This would allow for a better balance of creative and critical skills, subsequently, ensuring a “holistic and complete test of analytical writing”, the experts concluded.
Source: FreePressJournal
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