Reading Comp Passage Distribution - MGMAT CAT

[mattbieniek]

Hello,

I was a student in the Ann Arbor Spring B class (ended on June 15), and took my 4th MGMAT CAT this past weekend. On the verbal portion of the exam, the reading comp questions all seemed to be of the long passage variety. In the scroll-able window, the passages measured as follows:

3 paragraphs - 57 lines
3 paragraphs - 54 lines
3 paragraphs - 73 lines
3 paragraphs - 58 lines

Maybe the size of the screen relative to the space allocated for questions in the OG guides is skewing my perception (i.e. same size passage takes up more lines on the CAT screen), but it seems as though I was given 4 "long" passages, as opposed to 2 "short" & 2 "long".

First of all, based on those passage lengths, were some of those considered short passages? If not, is it typical to see 4 long passages on the GMAT?

I'm asking just to make sure that I know what to expect. By the time I hit my third passage, and it seemed like another long one, I started to worry that I wasn't going to finish the section and I rushed through the questions (and subsequently got one passage's questions all wrong).

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[tim]

The big issue in determining the difference between long and short passages is structure. Long passages are considered long passages because they have an intro paragraph and then body paragraphs; short passages don't have an intro. Any other characteristics are irrelevant, as only the structure of the passage will help you decide whether to go with a headline list or a skeletal sketch. And as long as you give yourself three minutes to read/sketch the passage and then one minute for each of the questions, you should have no timing trouble - in fact, the longer the passage and the more questions, the more you'll find yourself ahead of the game if you can keep up the pace of one minute per question..