GMAT syllabus: what is in it now, and what was removed

Quantitative Reasoning: what is in scope

• Arithmetic — integers, factors and multiples, percentages, ratios, fractions, powers and roots.
• Algebra — expressions, equations and inequalities, functions, simultaneous equations.
• Word problems — rates, work, mixtures, interest, sets.
• Statistics — mean, median, mode, range, standard deviation.

No geometry, and no calculator. Mental arithmetic is therefore a scoring skill rather than a virtue: know your fraction-decimal-percentage equivalents, your squares to 25 and your powers of 2, because the section is decided in ten-second units.

1. Translate before you solve. Most word problems are one English sentence that becomes one equation. Write the equation.
2. Estimate, then eliminate. With five numeric options, rounding hard usually leaves one or two.
3. Know the set-ups cold — rate × time, sum = average × count, ratios as 3k and 4k, weighted averages lying nearer the larger group.

Verbal Reasoning: two item types, not three

Sentence correction was removed. What remains is reading comprehension and critical reasoning, and critical reasoning is the higher-yield of the two to practise.

• Critical reasoning — strengthen, weaken, assumption, flaw, inference, evaluate. Name the question type before you read the options. That single habit is worth more than any other technique in the section.
• The negation test for assumption questions: if denying an option destroys the argument, it is the assumption. It is the most reliable tool available and almost nobody uses it.
• Reading comprehension — shorter passages than the GRE, with more weight on *function* questions: why is this sentence here, what job does this paragraph do.
• Watch absolute words in the options — *all*, *never*, *only*. A passage that said "many" does not support an answer that says "all".

Data Insights: the section that decides most scores

A third of your Total Score, and the section least like an Indian engineering or commerce degree. Five item types:

• Data sufficiency — you are not asked to solve, only whether the statements are *enough*. Stop the moment sufficiency is established. The classic error is choosing "both together" when one alone was enough.
• Table analysis — sort and read; the question is usually about a subset you have to define.
• Graphics interpretation — read the axes, units and legend before the sentence, and read the whole sentence before opening the first dropdown, because the second blank often constrains the first.
• Multi-source reasoning — two or three tabs. Survey them, then let the question route you. These sets very often contain a figure that is superseded in another tab, and finding it is the point.
• Two-part analysis — two columns, one answer each, usually not independent. Solve the more constrained column first. No partial credit.

Data Insights has the only on-screen calculator on the GMAT. It is slower than you expect — use it to confirm, not to explore.

What was removed, and why it matters

• Sentence correction — so grammar drilling no longer pays on the GMAT.
• Geometry — so circle theorems and solid volumes are wasted study.
• The Analytical Writing essay — so there is no writing to prepare.
• The 200–800 scale — so any target expressed in old numbers needs re-reading.

Check the edition of every book and course you buy. A great deal of GMAT material still on sale prepares for the retired format, and three of the four things above are entire chapters in it.

A six-week shape

1. Week 1 — one full official practice exam to find your real starting point, and daily mental arithmetic.
2. Weeks 2–3 — Data Insights, every day. It is a third of the score and the furthest from what you already know.
3. Week 4 — critical reasoning by question type, with the negation test on every assumption question.
4. Week 5 — timed sections in your chosen order, with deliberate bookmarking (four or five per section).
5. Week 6 — two full exams, then time spent on why each wrong answer was wrong.