![\"Manhattan](\"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2018\/04\/big-news-gmat-getting-shorter-stacey-koprince.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding! <\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Exciting news on the GMAT front: Beginning April 16<\/span>th<\/span>, the exam will be more than 20 minutes shorter! The scoring will stay exactly the same and the test will still contain all of the usual question types and content areas.<\/span> The Quant and Verbal sections will each have fewer questions. The overall section time will get shorter as well, but average timing is essentially the same. The IR and Essay sections are staying exactly the same. Everything that you\u2019re studying still applies and you don\u2019t have to learn anything new.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s what it will look like:<\/span><\/p>\n They are going to accomplish this change by getting rid of a bunch of experimental questions in each section, so the scored part of the test is literally not going to change at all\u2014what they need to figure out your score will all still be there. It will just be shorter for us test takers because we won\u2019t have to answer as many experimental questions (that never counted towards our scores anyway). Yay!<\/span><\/p>\n Standardized tests are basically a mental marathon, so chopping off 10 to 13 minutes for each section is a <\/span>big<\/span><\/i> deal. I talk to students all the time who do just fine for the first two-thirds or three-quarters of a section but then run out of steam and crash. Now, you won\u2019t crash\u2014the section will be over!<\/span><\/p>\n This is a great change. I just announced this to my Tuesday night class (shoutout to Spring D!) and everyone was excited to hear this after asking certain \u201cWait\u2026let me just make sure\u2026\u201d questions. The studying you have done to date was not wasted. The test isn\u2019t going to get harder or require you to learn something you didn\u2019t have to learn before. The average timing for each question type is the same.<\/span><\/p>\n Everything is the same! It\u2019s literally just going to get shorter, and shorter is better. There\u2019s zero drawback to this announcement. <\/span><\/p>\n And it\u2019s pretty exciting that a standardized test organization is actually instituting changes to make it <\/span>easier<\/span><\/i> for us to take the test. That\u2019s not typical in this industry\u2014so props to GMAC (the organization that makes the GMAT) for doing this!<\/span><\/p>\n By the way, here\u2019s the <\/span>official FAQ page<\/span><\/a> for this change if you want to get into all of the nitty-gritty details.<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re already scheduled to get in there before this change is implemented, you have a choice to make.<\/span><\/p>\n If you feel ready to go and are prepared for the current version of the test, then you may want to keep your test date as is.<\/span><\/p>\n If, on the other hand, you\u2019re excited about taking advantage of this change, you can reschedule your test for a later date without paying the normal change fee by <\/span>calling GMAC<\/span><\/a>; you have to <\/span>reschedule on or before April 11<\/b>th<\/b>. State that you are rescheduling due to this change and they will waive the change fee.<\/span><\/p>\n Anyone<\/span><\/i> scheduled to take the exam on or before May 6<\/span>th<\/span> can reschedule for a later date without paying the test fee. Click that link in the prior paragraph and <\/span>call GMAC on or before April 11<\/b>th<\/b>. State that you are rescheduling due to this change and they will waive the change fee.<\/span><\/p>\n GMAC has announced that their official practice exams will be updated by the end of April. We\u2019re hard at work on updating our exams right now.<\/span><\/p>\n So, right this instant, you can\u2019t practice exactly what the real test will be. But the good news is that by taking the \u201cold\u201d version, you\u2019re <\/span>over<\/span><\/i>training. If you can get your desired score answering 37 Quant questions and 41 Verbal questions, then you should be fine to do the same on a 31-Quant, 36-Verbal test.<\/span><\/p>\n And you\u2019ll be able to practice the new format soon!<\/span><\/p>\n This is the one thing that will change\u2014whatever strategy you currently use to track your time across the entire Quant and Verbal sections will need to change to adjust for the new details in these two sections. I\u2019m still working on exactly what to do here. <\/span><\/p>\n I was happy already with our Yellow Pad Quant strategy (discussed <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>) and we can tweak that strategy just a little bit to fit the new numbers. If you\u2019re already familiar with the existing strategy, here\u2019s the new way to set up your paper. You\u2019ll do 3 problems on the first page and 4 on every page after that\u2014plus you get an extra page of scratch paper at the end\u2014like so:<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re not already familiar with the above, just wait a few days to give me time to update the full article and then you can take a look at that.<\/span><\/p>\n On the Verbal side, I haven\u2019t been super-thrilled with our current way of tracking time, so I\u2019m going to take more time there to brainstorm some new ideas. If you are already using the current Yellow Pad method, though, and it\u2019s working for you, here\u2019s your tweaked version of that for the updated test:<\/span><\/p>\n That tweak actually does make the Yellow Pad method easier for Verbal\u2014so I might end up sticking with this. I just want to take some time to think about it first and practice some other possible ways.<\/span><\/p>\n When you\u2019re preparing to take a test like the GMAT, any change can feel stressful, even when it\u2019s a good change. (And this one is definitely a good change!) So if your immediate reaction was, \u201cOh, no, the test is changing?? WHYYYY are they <\/span>doing<\/span><\/i> this to meeeee?\u201d then take a deep breath (or two or three). <\/span><\/p>\n First, you may want to use this as a sign to look into some ways to better <\/span>manage your stress levels<\/span><\/a>. (That\u2019s useful for life, not just the GMAT!) And then tell yourself, \u201cThis is a good change. In fact, it\u2019s going to make the test easier to take, so this is a <\/span>great<\/span><\/i> change! I\u2019m lucky I\u2019m taking the GMAT now!\u201d And then get back to your studies. <\/span>\u263a<\/span><\/p>\n Questions, comments, or concerns? Let us know what you\u2019re thinking, right here in the comments of this post or on our <\/span>forums<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Good luck and happy studying!\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n Can\u2019t get enough of Stacey\u2019s GMAT mastery? Attend the first session of one of\u00a0her upcoming GMAT courses<\/a>\u00a0absolutely free, no strings attached. Seriously.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here. Exciting news on the GMAT front: Beginning April 16th, the exam will be more than 20 minutes shorter! The scoring will stay exactly the same […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,52892,21,52877,9],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-15509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmac","category-gmac-news","category-gmat-announcements","category-in-the-news","category-taking-the-gmat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15509"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15548,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15509\/revisions\/15548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15509"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n<\/p>\nSeriously? How?<\/b><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2018\/04\/gmat-shorter-table.png\")
<\/p>\nWhat if I\u2019m already scheduled to take the test before April 16<\/b>th<\/b>?<\/b><\/h4>\n
I\u2019m already scheduled to take the test after April 16<\/b>th<\/b>\u2026but now I want more time to prepare!<\/b><\/h4>\n
How can I practice this?<\/b><\/h4>\n
How should I manage my time in each section?<\/b><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2018\/04\/gmat-shorter-tsb1.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2018\/04\/gmat-shorter-tsb2.png\")
<\/p>\nOne More Thing: This Change is a Good Change!<\/b><\/h4>\n
\n
\n![\"stacey-koprince\"](\"https:\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/stacey-koprince-150x150.png\")
<\/a>Stacey Koprince<\/a>\u00a0is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California.<\/strong>\u00a0Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests.\u00a0Check out Stacey\u2019s upcoming GMAT courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"