The new GMAT design ignores a really critical business skill

I recently discovered that the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the international organisation which designs and conducts the GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test), has implemented a new examination structure to cater to the needs of the modern organisation in the age of AI. Among these, some of the most significant are described below:

1. The number of questions in both the verbal and quantitative sections has been reduced
2. Consequently, the duration of the test has shrunk from three hours to two hours and fifteen minutes (with a ten-minute break)
3. Sentence correction has been dropped from the verbal section
4. The separate section called Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) has also been done away with

While some may view fewer GMAT questions as a relief, and others the shorter duration and fewer breaks as constituting a little more pressure, the removal of two segments that constitute core language skills is profound enough to warrant some debate.

To begin with, the ability to write correctly and clearly is not some “nice to have” soft skill, the lack of which can be developed either at an institution of higher learning (like a Business School) or on the job at some future date. It is a core skill, necessary for efficient and effective communication, the lack of which cannot be substituted by quantitative brilliance or pragmatism on the one hand, or replaced by AI assistance on the other. Too often, the inability to write and review correctly, and critically, causes confusion in the mind of the reader and leads to interminable follow ups in the workplace or, worse still, results in the gross misunderstanding of a message, which can be both expensive and time-consuming.

Even more concerning is the fact that the entire Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) section has been removed. Instead, GMAC now offers a separate 30-minute proctored test called Business Writing Assessment (BWA), which may be taken online for an extra $30 at any time. So far, only Harvard Business School has made this mandatory. We have no doubt that other schools will most likely follow suit, unless they choose to implement writing assessment tests of their own devising.

In the words of Adam Witwer, GMAC’s Chief Product Officer, the BWA “gives test takers the flexibility – and option – to demonstrate their writing ability in today’s AI-affected world, and can be utilised by candidates to prove their communication prowess to support their school – and job – application process.” We couldn’t agree more. Which is why we are left wondering why the AWA section was expunged in the first place.

There’s a prevailing misconception in certain academic circles that quantitative skills are somehow more critical than others. The truth is that while basic quantitative skills are necessary to understand the nature of operational and financial arithmetic, much of work life today consists  of interpreting quantitative forecasts and results churned out by machines and algorithms, and interpreting and communicating business recommendations and decisions based on the same. It is in the formulation of the latter, rather than in the  analysis of the former, that management ability is trained, honed and perfected.

As long as organisations are about people – and activities like collaboration, negotiation, leadership, mentoring and vision-sharing are important – they will be managed through the dexterous use of language and communication skills. By catering to easier credentialling methodologies, which focus on the speed of pattern recognition above all else, the GMAC may be doing B-School applicants a disservice in the long run.

Being able to write correctly, clearly, critically and compellingly, is part of both personal and professional development, a necessary skill that each one of us should cultivate in order to be persuasive, authentic, credible and, ultimately, successful.