Starting April 16. 2017, the number of questions on GMAT will be reduced:
- Quant questions will be reduced by 6: from 37 to 31.
- Verbal questions will be reduced by 5: from 41 to 36.
GMAT exam will be reduced by 30 minutes. This includes a 23-minute reduction in the exam sections, as well as 7 minute reduction across several non-exam screens at the test center (e.g. Tutorial, Section Instructions).
They say that it "will be the same and comparable across time." Given how the GMAT is very much a test of endurance, I wonder how they factored in the fact that test takers of the new GMAT will be less fatigued during the latter portions of each section. Even though the previously unscored questions didn't directly contribute to your score, they indirectly affect your performance on subsequent questions because you would be more tired than if you didn't have to do the unscored questions. So it's very like that, all else being equal, a test taker who might've gotten a question wrong on the old GMAT might get that same question right on the new GMAT simply because their mind is less fatigued.
I see your point, but I am not sure if becoming fatigue has been a huge factor lately as you can select the order of your test sections (not like the old GMAT). If GMAC concluded that changing the order of test sections doesn't have any impact on people's scores, I am not sure if reducing the number of questions from 78 to 67 will.
For example, people in the past generally complained that they used to be tired by the time the last section (Verbal) started, which resulted in lower scores. But apparently, per GMAC, there was no correlation found between the order of sections and the grades.
GMAT score inflation is real. It's an arms race out there.
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