GMAT Focus vs the old GMAT: what actually changed.

If you started GMAT prep before late 2023, you started on the old test. If you're testing now, you're testing on the GMAT Focus Edition. The two share a name and a logo, but the format, the scoring scale, and even the section list changed enough that old prep needs to be re-mapped — not thrown out, but re-targeted. This guide walks through what actually changed, what didn't, and how to translate anything you've already learned into the new test without starting over.

Quick context first: GMAT Focus is the official replacement for the legacy GMAT. The legacy test was retired in early 2024 and Focus is the only version of the test now offered. If you're shopping for a test date, it's Focus. If you're buying prep, it should be prep that targets Focus. Old prep that hasn't been updated will teach you things that no longer matter on test day.

The GMAT Focus Edition is shorter, more flexible, and scored differently. The underlying skills it tests are mostly the same. The biggest mistake is treating it as a different test entirely — or as exactly the same test with a fresh paint job. It's neither.

The five biggest changes at a glance

1. Total length dropped.Old GMAT was roughly 3 hours 7 minutes (plus breaks). Focus is 2 hours 15 minutes — one of the most-asked-about changes, and the most consequential for pacing strategy.
2. Sentence Correction was removed. The old Verbal section had Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, and Sentence Correction. Focus Verbal has only the first two. Sentence Correction is gone from the test entirely.
3. Data Insights replaced Integrated Reasoning.Old IR had four question types and didn't count toward the Total Score. Focus DI has five question types (including Data Sufficiency, moved from Quant) and counts equally with Quant and Verbal toward the Total Score.
4. The AWA essay was removed.The old test had an Analytical Writing Assessment that didn't count toward the Total Score. Focus has no essay.
5. The scoring scale changed from 200–800 to 205–805.The new scale was deliberately shifted to make old and new scores non-interchangeable — a 700 on the old test and a 705 on Focus are not equivalent. Conversion requires the official concordance table, not arithmetic.

Section-by-section: what changed

Quant

The Quant section is the most stable. Same content topics (algebra, arithmetic, number properties, geometry, etc.). Same scoring scale per section (60-90 on Focus, formerly 6-51 on the old test). Same general difficulty distribution.

What changed:

• Length: 21 questions in 45 minutes (was 31 in 62 minutes). Per-question time is roughly the same (2:08 vs 2:00).
• Data Sufficiency moved out. DS is now in Data Insights, not Quant. Quant is Problem Solving only.
• The bookmark / review feature was added.You can now flag and revisit questions within a section, and change up to three answers at the end. This is a real strategic change — old test was strictly forward-only.

Verbal

The biggest content change of all sections. Sentence Correction is gone, which means the entire grammar-heavy half of old Verbal study is now off the table.

What changed:

• Length: 23 questions in 45 minutes (was 36 in 65 minutes).
• Question types: Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning only. Sentence Correction removed.
• Section weighting shifts. RC and CR each now make up roughly half the section instead of a third each.

For non-native speakers in particular, removing Sentence Correction is a significant change. SC was the section where grammar fluency mattered most directly. Without it, the Verbal section now rewards comprehension speed and logical structure recognition almost exclusively.

Data Insights (new section)

Data Insights is the section that requires the most mental re-mapping. It's a fresh section in name, but it's built from pieces of the old test.

What it includes:

• Data Sufficiency (formerly in Quant)
• Multi-Source Reasoning (formerly in Integrated Reasoning)
• Table Analysis (formerly in IR)
• Graphics Interpretation (formerly in IR)
• Two-Part Analysis (formerly in IR)

What changed for you:

• Length: 20 questions in 45 minutes.
• It now counts toward the Total Score— equally with Quant and Verbal. This is the biggest single implication of the change. On the old test, IR was a side section schools could mostly ignore. On Focus, DI is a third of your score.
• Section ordering is your choice.Same as the old test — you can take Q, V, DI in any order — but the sections themselves are different.

What was removed entirely

• The Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) essay.Gone. No replacement. If you spent any time on essay prep, that time is now sunk cost — reallocate it to DI.
• The 30-second “tutorial” before each section— small, but adds up to a few minutes of total exam time savings.

Scoring: 200-800 to 205-805

The Focus Edition uses a 205-805 total score, scaled in 10-point increments. This was deliberately offset from the old 200-800 scale so that scores from the two tests are not directly comparable. A 700 on the old test is not the same as a 705 on Focus — they happen to land in different percentiles.

Approximate concordance (from official GMAC tables):

• 805 (Focus) ≈ 800 (old)
• 745 (Focus) ≈ 760 (old)
• 695 (Focus) ≈ 720 (old)
• 645 (Focus) ≈ 680 (old)
• 595 (Focus) ≈ 640 (old)
• 545 (Focus) ≈ 600 (old)

The takeaway: if you scored 720 on the old test and you want the equivalent on Focus, you're aiming at roughly 695. If you scored 680 on the old test, the Focus equivalent is roughly 645. If you're translating an admissions target like “730+” from old-test terms, the rough Focus equivalent is in the 705-715 range.

For an interactive version that handles arbitrary scores, see the GMAT score converter tool.

Per-section scoring

Per-section scores on Focus run from 60 to 90, in 1-point increments. The old per-section scale was 6 to 51 for Quant and Verbal, with no per-section score for IR. The new 60-90 range applies identically to Quant, Verbal, and DI.

A common rough mapping:

• 87+ Focus per-section ≈ 99th percentile (very high)
• 83-86 ≈ 90th-99th percentile (excellent)
• 78-82 ≈ 75th-90th percentile (strong)
• 73-77 ≈ 50th-75th percentile (mid-range)
• 68-72 ≈ 25th-50th percentile (entry level for top schools)

Per-section percentiles for Focus aren't identical to the old test's percentiles — the population taking the test is different, the scale is different, and GMAC recalibrates over time. Use the table above as a rough anchor; check current percentiles on your actual score report for the official number.

The Total Score percentile is what admissions actually looks at. The 60-90 per-section scores are useful for studying, but a 705 Focus is a 705 Focus regardless of how it splits across the three sections.

How to translate old GMAT prep into Focus prep

If you have old prep materials — books, courses, question banks — here's the rough mapping:

Old Quant material

Mostly still useful. Problem Solving content transfers directly. Data Sufficiency content also transfers but practice it as part of DI, not Quant. Pacing practice should be re-done at the new 45-minute, 21-question budget.

Old Verbal material

Sentence Correction: stop using it. Time spent here is wasted now.

RC and CR: still fully relevant. The question types and the underlying reasoning are unchanged. Re-pace at the new 45-minute, 23-question budget.

Old Integrated Reasoning material

Useful for the format,but the section now includes Data Sufficiency. If your old IR material covers MSR / TA / GI / TPA, that's still relevant. You'll need new DS material to fill out the section.

Old AWA prep

Discard. No essay on Focus.

Pacing: the single biggest practical change

Old test pacing was easier to bluff. The longer sections gave you slack to recover from a slow start. Focus removed that slack. Three sections of 45 minutes each leaves no room for getting bogged down on any single question. The bookmark / review feature partially compensates — you can now flag three questions per section to revisit — but the per-question budget is tighter than it looks on paper.

Practice rules I'd adopt:

1. Per-question soft caps.2:00 for Quant, 1:55 for Verbal, 2:15 for DI. If you cross the cap and you're not 80% of the way through, flag and move on.
2. Bookmark strategically.Save your three flags for the questions where you have a 50/50 between two answers. Don't flag questions you have no idea on.
3. Time individual sections in practice.Full 45-minute timed sets, not untimed sets followed by review. Pacing is the part of the skill that doesn't transfer from old prep.

Section order: choose Quant first if you can

You can take the three sections in any order. The choice isn't obvious, and there's real strategy in it. For most students, the rough advice is:

• Quant first:if you find Quant the most demanding section, do it when you're fresh.
• DI second: the format-heavy section in the middle gives your reading-stamina muscles a rest.
• Verbal third: for most students Verbal is less mentally taxing per question and benefits less from freshness.

Test this in practice mocks. The right order is the one that produces your highest combined score across multiple mocks — not the order any guide tells you.

The short version

Focus is shorter (2:15 vs 3:07), removed Sentence Correction and the AWA essay, moved Data Sufficiency into a new Data Insights section that now counts toward your Total Score, and uses a 205-805 scoring scale that doesn't map arithmetically to the old 200-800. Most old prep content is still useful — remove SC and AWA, re-pace everything to the tighter section budgets, treat DI as a real section. The pacing change is the one that gets underestimated. Practice timed full sections from week one.

The platform

Zakarian GMAT was built for the Focus Edition specifically. All content targets the current section structure, the scoring scale is 205-805 throughout, and the diagnostic uses the new 60-90 per-section ranges. If you're moving from old prep to Focus prep, the diagnostic will tell you in 30 questions which of your old skills carried over and which need re-targeting.