Is the GMAT hard?

What makes the GMAT hard

• Time: 45 minutes for 21, 23 or 20 questions, a little over two minutes each by our arithmetic.
• Adaptivity: each question is picked based on how you’re doing.
• Multi-part Data Insights questions, where one wrong part means no credit.

What scores do test takers get?

By our reading of GMAC’s August 2026 table, the middle score is about 565, which is the 50.4th percentile. GMAC’s testing report puts the worldwide mean at 558 for exams taken from July 2024 to June 2025.

GMAC calls six to eight weeks of focused study a minimum for most test takers.

What the hardest GMAT questions test

Not obscure facts. GMAC’s Quant topics stop at high school math, and it says Verbal tests reasoning rather than English skill. Its tips for all three sections come back to the same habits: read the question carefully, keep an error log of what you miss, and practice under time pressure.

Is the GMAT harder than the GRE?

GMAC says there’s no simple answer: it depends on your background. The two tests are built differently, and the GRE side of the comparison is on our GRE vs GMAT page.

How to find out how hard it is for you

Take GMAC’s free Official Practice Exam 1 under real timing. It uses the same algorithm and scoring as the real exam, so the result tells you how far you are from your target, and the percentile page shows how that score compares.