Testing on the redesigned GMAT began in November 2023 (bookings had opened that August), and on 31 January 2024 the older format was retired outright. That date matters, because a prep book printed before then is describing an exam that no longer exists. The essay is gone. Sentence Correction is gone. Geometry is gone. Integrated Reasoning stopped being a bolt-on and became a full scored section under a new name. Even the score scale changed, which is why quoted numbers from older forum threads mislead people constantly.
Everything below reflects the current GMAT, launched in late 2023 as the “GMAT Focus Edition” and simply called the GMAT since July 2024. The Graduate Management Admission Council does revise its exam, and section-level detail is usually what changes, so read the current pages on mba.com before you spend money on a course or a book.
Three sections, 64 questions, two and a quarter hours
| Section | Questions | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Quantitative Reasoning | 21 | 45 minutes |
| Verbal Reasoning | 23 | 45 minutes |
| Data Insights | 20 | 45 minutes |
Each section is scored separately on a 60 to 90 scale, and all three feed the total. You choose the order in which you sit them, which is a real strategic lever — decide it in advance, not in the test centre.
Quantitative Reasoning
Indian candidates usually find this the least intimidating section, and that instinct is correct for a specific reason: the content ceiling is low. Arithmetic, algebra, number properties, ratios, percentages and word problems, with nothing beyond ordinary secondary-school mathematics.
The difficulty sits in the reasoning wrapper. Questions are constructed so the obvious computational route is slow and a structural insight is fast, which means you are being tested on whether you can see what a question is asking before you start calculating. There is no on-screen calculator here, so mental arithmetic and estimation carry real weight. Data Sufficiency, the format most people associate with GMAT Quant, has moved out of this section entirely.
Verbal Reasoning
Two question types survive: Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. Sentence Correction, which defined GMAT Verbal for decades, was removed. If you are working from legacy material, a large share of the Verbal chapters no longer maps to anything on the exam.
Reading Comprehension uses passages from business, social science and natural science. They are dense but short. Questions target the main idea, inference, the author’s attitude, and the function of specific statements. The recurring trap is an answer that is true in itself and does not answer the question asked.
Critical Reasoning sits closer to formal logic than to English. You get a short argument and are asked to strengthen it, weaken it, name an assumption, spot a flaw, or draw a conclusion. Non-native English speakers frequently outperform expectations here, because structural thinking matters more than vocabulary range.
Data Insights
This is the newest section and the least understood, and it does more than any other to distinguish the current exam. It combines five formats:
- Data Sufficiency, relocated from Quant
- Table Analysis, sorting and interpreting sortable tables
- Graphics Interpretation, reading charts and completing statements from them
- Multi-Source Reasoning, synthesising across several tabs of text, tables and charts
- Two-Part Analysis, problems needing two related answers, which can be quantitative, verbal or both
Data Insights has an on-screen calculator; Quant does not. GMAC positions the section explicitly around the data-literacy skills business schools believe managers now need. Because it is new, good practice material is thinner than for Quant and Verbal, so budget more preparation time here than its share of the questions would suggest.
How the scoring differs from CAT
The current GMAT’s total runs from 205 to 805 in ten-point increments, always ending in a 5. The old exam ran 200 to 800. The two scales are not interchangeable, and a 700 quoted in a 2019 admissions blog does not mean what a 700 means now. GMAC publishes concordance tables for translating between them, and you should look at one before you set yourself a target number.
The bigger difference is what the score represents.
CAT is normalised and percentile-driven. Your raw score is converted to a percentile against everyone who sat that administration. Indian schools shortlist on percentile, and cutoffs move each year with the pool and the difficulty. A CAT score is a statement about your position in one particular year’s cohort.
The GMAT reports an absolute scaled score alongside a percentile, and schools mostly quote and evaluate the scaled score. Scores are valid for five years, and you can retake within published limits (a small number of attempts in a rolling twelve months, a lifetime cap, and a mandatory wait between sittings). Retaking is therefore normal and expected. CAT runs once a year, which changes the entire psychology of the preparation.
Adaptivity: the mechanical difference
CAT is a fixed-form test. Everyone in a slot sees the same questions, you move freely inside a section, and you can revisit anything until the timer expires.
The GMAT is question-level adaptive. The algorithm picks each question based on how you have performed so far, so answering well pushes difficulty up and struggling pulls it down. The practical fallout shows up in two places. You cannot skip and return the way CAT allows; the current GMAT lets you bookmark questions and change a limited number of answers at the end of a section, which is a bounded allowance and not open navigation, and the exact limit is worth confirming on mba.com. And pacing errors cost more, because burning six minutes on one question distorts your timing and the difficulty path of everything that follows.
Choosing between CAT and the GMAT
The choice follows your school list, since each test opens a different set of doors, and the relative difficulty of the two exams has little to do with it.
Take CAT if your list is Indian: the IIMs and the large tier of Indian schools that admit primarily on CAT. Those admissions also weigh your academic record, work experience and an interview round, and CAT is the gate into that process.
Take the GMAT if you are targeting programmes in the US, Europe, Singapore or elsewhere abroad. It is also accepted by a meaningful set of Indian institutions, most obviously ISB and the one-year executive programmes at the older IIMs, including IIM Ahmedabad‘s PGPX, IIM Bangalore‘s EPGP and IIM Calcutta‘s MBAEx.
Many candidates overlook that last point. With five or more years of experience and an eye on a one-year Indian MBA, the GMAT is often the more relevant test even if you never intend to study abroad. School policies change and several accept both, so check each programme’s own admissions page.
Preparation transfers between the two, but only partly. CAT’s verbal section overlaps with GMAT Verbal, quantitative fundamentals carry across, and CAT’s DILR has real kinship with Data Insights. Beyond that they diverge: CAT Quant goes deeper mathematically, GMAT Critical Reasoning is more formally logical than anything on CAT, and the adaptive format demands its own discipline. Using one as practice for the other works in the fundamentals phase and stops working in the final two months.
If you are weighing both, book one of the free official practice exams on mba.com before you commit to any prep course. Third-party material cannot really simulate the adaptive experience, and how you react to it — whether being unable to revisit questions rattles you or focuses you — will tell you more about your fit for this exam than any syllabus comparison.