To celebrate GMAC’s 60th birthday, we’ve compiled the following fun GMAT facts from the GMAC site:
1. In 1953, nine b-schools met with ETS to create what would later become the GMAT. Those schools were Harvard, Rutgers, Columbia, Northwestern, Chicago, Seton Hall, Michigan, Washington University (St. Louis), and University of Pennsylvania.
2. Pre-1976 the GMAT was known as the Admission Test for Graduate Study in Business (ATGSB).
3. The question formats on the 1954 exam were Best Arguments, Quantitative Reading, Verbal Omnibus (Sentence Completion, analogies, Antonyms), and Quantitative Reasoning (Problem Solving, Data Interpretation). On today’s exam we have Integrated Reasoning, Verbal (Critical Reasoning, Reading Comprehension, Sentence Correction), and Quantitative (Problem Solving, Data Sufficiency). As you can see, Problem Solving is the only question format present on today’s exam that was also used on the original test.
4. In 1997 the GMAT exam became computerized.
5. The GMAT was the first standardized test to use palm vein readers – this analyzes specific hand vein patterns of users to ensure security and catch proxy test takers. This was introduced in 2008 and 2009.
6. The first five countries to offer the GMAT (which was then the ATGSB) were the U.S., Canada, England, France, and India.
7. The exam was offered in Hawaii five years before Hawaii became a state.
8. The GMAT is currently available in 113 countries – on every continent except Antarctica.
9. The Official Guide for GMAT Review was introduced in 1978. It’s now in its 13th edition.
