Timely Advice From The Guru Of The GMAT

POETS VS. QUANTS: WHO HAS THE ADVANTAGE?

Though the new section requires a good bit of data-driven analysis, Mitchell contends that it does not mean that quants are at an advantage in dealing with the new questions. “Some IR questions are a lot more like verbal questions on the GMAT,” he says. “There is a question type called multi-source reasoning and one example involves reading three emails and then drawing inferences from them. That particular format looks a lot more like verbal reasoning.

“It all hints at a broader theme, which is that integrated reasoning questions are more about pulling information together, be it quantitative or verbal or some mixture of both. If the poet has a particular kind of aptitude, that person might be stronger in integrated reasoning. The poet will still have to be able to use numbers. There might be a certain kind of test taker who does quite well in the quant section who might struggle with integrated reasoning.”

What follows are GMAC-provided samples for the four new formats of the integrated reasoning section.

GRAPHICS INTERPRETATION