GMAT Online

Realizing I had many clients who were considering taking the interim Online GMAT, I decided to sit for the test a couple of days after it was introduced (the test rolled out on Monday, April 20^th).   I have already posted some feedback from that experience on GMAT Club, both in the main Online GMAT thread and the Share Your Experience forum, but I thought I would write a more complete summary of my experience for those who are interested.

The Initial Experience

The initial experience with the test did not go that smoothly.  I am currently tutoring several people who have already taken the At-Home Online GRE and by comparison that sounds to be a much smoother experience.   As my GMAT was about to begin (during the instruction screen) I decided to do a little experiment and ask the proctor if I was allowed to use a plug in tablet and stylus to write on the online whiteboard.  I knew the answer was probably going to be no, but I thought I would just see what the proctor had to say.  Unfortunately this set off a chain reaction that turned out to be costly.  

The instruction screen ran out of time before the proctor could answer my question and the test froze.  What was worse was that I kept pinging the proctor to come back and help, and no one came for about 10 minutes.  Finally when the proctor did come back she said she would reboot the test, but then I waited another 10 or 15 minutes and again could not get the proctors attention.  This was very stressful because I didn’t know if anyone was ever coming back or if the entire system had frozen up, so I was left in limbo wondering if I should try to force quit the program or even shut down my computer.  This was not the kind of start I wanted!  Also, be aware that you cannot actually see the proctor or talk to him/her….it’s just a chat box that pops up (this is different from the GRE, where there is a live proctor with whom you can speak).

Thankfully the test did finally reboot, but when I started the test was already 2-3 minutes in!  And then the proctor kept opening the chat box to ask if everything was ok, so I was a solid 3 minutes behind by the time I actually began the Quant section.  This is not how you want to start the test!  So if you take the online test, DO NOT ask any questions as you are getting started!  

The Online GMAT Itself: Quant

Because I am so used to doing Math in my head while I tutor people (I am very rarely writing things down and often have to work out full questions in my head while my students work), I thought I had a chance of getting a perfect score without really writing anything down.   Prior to the test I practiced for about 5 minutes with the online whiteboard, just to get used to the tools and to figure out which I might use. But I was pretty unprepared for what I faced.  I think in part because I was rattled by the initial experience and the fact that I was 3 minutes behind right out of the starting gate, I was much less able to do the kind of mental math that I am usually able to do.  The very first question took me about 3 minutes when, even with mental math alone, I would normally be able to do a question like the one I saw in 1 or maybe 1.5 minutes.

I was also just not comfortable with the whiteboard, so I spent a lot of time wavering as to whether I should just try to write some stuff down or do all the Math in my head.  The indecision itself was toxic…I almost would have been better off without the whiteboard at all!  And then on top of that, I didn’t realize that you could resize the whiteboard, so I literally had to move the thing around on every single question because I couldn’t position it such that I could select an answer, click next, and then confirm my answer.

So I was really in a bit of a panic throughout most of the Math section.   The questions themselves were pretty predictable, and there was a wide range of questions from some pretty hard to many very easy ones.  But some of the hard ones really were writing intensive and, because I was already behind, I didn’t have time to fiddle with the whiteboard and properly do them.  So I had to make educated guesses on a couple and then there was one crazy lines and angles question that I just decided there was no way I could complete without an actual pen/marker so I pretty much just dumped that one.  Unfortunately for me the easier questions mostly came at the end of the section, so although I was behind for most of the section and rushing through questions, I ended up finishing 7 minutes early and wishing I could go back to some of the ones I sped through!  GRE anyone?  (On the GRE you CAN go back to questions!!!)

The Online GMAT Itself: Verbal

Overall the Verbal section felt very easy to me and I did not think the online whiteboard was much of an impediment.  There were really only 2 questions that I was at all unsure about and even those I was about 90% sure on.  Many people have posted on GMAT Club that the Verbal section felt hard, and I realize that for me things may feel easy but for other not so much, but I see full Verbal sections of official tests nearly every day when I am reviewing tests with students and even objectively speaking (not subjectively speaking) it felt like an easy Verbal section.  

There were a few surprises in terms of what I saw.  I had 3 boldface questions – I don’t think I have ever seen that on a practice test!  And I had 2 explain questions on CR and no inference questions.   On RC I had one passage that felt like it was written for the test (as opposed to being sourced from a genuine published work)…the 2020 edition of the Official Guide has a similarly feeling passage, so maybe that is a trend.  And I had one question that almost felt like a GRE Vocab-In-Context question.  But otherwise the section felt relatively straightforward and pretty much every question felt like it had a clear right answer and 4 clear wrong answers.

The Result

I walked out of the test feeling like there was a good chance that I had gotten on perfect score on Verbal, but it was pretty clear that I had not done well enough on Quant for a 51.  But I expected that despite all of my woes with the whiteboard, the late start, etc., I had probably done well enough to get a 50 or maybe at worst a 49.  And in fact I did get a 50Q and a 51V for a 790.  So I was obviously pretty happy with that score, but if I am being honest I really thought, prior to taking the test, that I had a chance to get an 800 and the fact that I didn’t and especially the fact that I felt so handicapped on the Quant section with the online whiteboard and felt like I could have had them all correct if I had been able to write on a physical whiteboard is making me eager to take the GMAT again at a test center!!!  I am hungry for more!  I want that 51Q!

Takeaways and Recommendations

Initially GMAC’s policies regarding the test implied that if you took the Online GMAT, that score would automatically end up on your score report and you could not hide it from schools.  But GMAC later changed some of its policies and the upshot is that now the Online GMAT can be thought of as almost a free shot, a practice test of sorts (albeit a $200 one).  So I am now recommending it to most of the people I tutor.

First of all, the score lives on a separate score report that you can either send or not send (in addition to or instead of the score report for the regular, in-person GMAT).  GMAC is essentially treating the Online GMAT as a separate test entirely – it has a separate question pool, a separate score report, etc.  So it doesn’t even count towards the 5 times per year limit or the 8 times in a lifetime limit for taking the actual GMAT.  And because it has a separate question pool, you can even take the online version and then 1 day later take the in-person GMAT (assuming you live near a test center that is open).  So the Online GMAT isn’t even subject to the 16-day waiting period that the actual GMAT is subject to.

So the Online GMAT really can be thought of as a free shot at the GMAT, one that doesn’t need to count (score-wise) and one that doesn’t even affect one’s ability to take the in-person GMAT in terms of when it can be taken or even how many times!

That said, based on my experience and the reports of others that I have read on GMAT Club, I think one should expect to not perform as well on the Online GMAT, at least on the Quant section.  There is just no getting around the fact that the online whiteboard is a pretty significant impediment.  But, I think with practice one can mitigate the effects of it and I already have one student who has been practicing with it and who has reported that she already feels moderately comfortable with doing questions and using the online whiteboard!

So what I would suggest is as follows:  

First, obviously practice using the whiteboard just to get used to the different tools it offers and how to use them.  There is a sample one on mba.com (the test maker’s official site) and one that I sampled on Manhattan Prep’s site.  But do yourself a favor and do more than I did!  You need to actually practice using it on real questions.  Learn when it’s effective and when it’s not.   And learn when a question may just be too difficult or too writing intensive to be attempted.

Second, you may want to experiment with typing Math out using the text tool.  I never tried it because I am not a fast typer and the way I think about Math is too visual and amorphous and non-linear, but I have read some posts on GMAT Club from people who indicated that they felt ok just typing out the Math they were doing.  So if it is something you can get used to, I think typing on the online whiteboard could really dampen its negative effects.

Lastly, practice using the whiteboard in a simulated testing environment (i.e. on an actual practice test).  For one thing, it’s good to feel what it’s like to use the whiteboard under the stress and time pressure of the actual test – I was definitely unprepared for this and paid the price!  But it’s also a matter of getting a feel for how it functions on the screen in the context of the test.  There is actually some advantage to having the whiteboard right there on the screen in the same visual field as the question itself.   But I didn’t realize during my test that the thing could be resized (which I feel silly about now), so I wasted a lot of time moving it around and trying to figure out its optimal positioning.  Obviously that is something that I could have worked out in advance!

So if you go in with sufficient practice and the right expectations, the Online GMAT really presents itself as an opportunity to fire off a free shot at the GMAT!