The analytical writing section consists of two separate essays. The first essay presents test takers with two opposing positions on an issue. The first part of a question might assert that the salaries of athletes are too high for the value of their services; the opposing position might be that the entertainment that athletes provide is fundamental to a healthy society. The prompt then asks which position you agree with more and to support your position using examples and facts. The GMAT does not test your specific knowledge of the issue, but only your ability to write coherently and analytically. Graders score the essays according to your essay's overall clarity and organization. There is no correct answer to an analytical writing essay.
Similar to the analysis of an issue essay, the analysis of an argument has no correct answer. Instead, graders look for the test taker's ability to understand and critique a given argument. Test takers must identify underlying assumptions, present alternative reasoning and counterexamples and present evidence that affects the strength of the argument. One question might present the statement that health insurance costs form a large expense, that those costs are higher for employees in ill health and, therefore, employers should not insure those employees so as to increase profits. The test taker must examine this argument.
Quantitative questions come in two forms--problem solving and data sufficiency. Problem-solving questions require test takers to use their skills in math to solve quantitative problems. A sample question might be that a company has increased its profits from $12,000 to $17,000 and ask by what percentage these profits increased. Answer options are multiple choice and list five possibilities. The correct answer for this example is 41.7 percent.
Data-sufficiency questions ask a question and provide two statements. Test takers must decide from five answers whether the question can be answered using the information from the first statement, the second, both, either or neither. An example could ask how much a salesman earns in a given month if he receives a three percent commission on each item he sells. The first statement provides how many items he sold in the month, the second provides the average sale price during the same month. The correct answer is that the two statements together are sufficient but neither statement alone is sufficient.
The verbal section consists of three types of questions--reading comprehension, critical reasoning and sentence correction. Reading comprehension presents a passage, then asks a question such as what the topic of a following paragraph would most logically be, then presents five potential answers.
Critical reasoning questions present a statement; for example, an item is five percent cheaper to produce in one country than another, and even after taxes and shipping costs it is cheaper to import the product. The question then asks test takers to select which of five options the statement best supports, e.g., the shipping costs are less than five percent of the manufacturing cost of the product in the other country.
Sentence correction questions present a statement with a word or phrase underlined. Test takers select from five options the word of phrase that completes the sentence using the best English. The first answer option is always the same, being the way the word or phrase appears in the statement.