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The computer-adaptive format takes some getting used to---in fact, it’s pretty weird at first. Here’s how it works. You will see only one question at a time. Instead of having a predetermined mixture of basic, medium, and hard questions, the computer will select questions for you based on how well you are doing.
The first question will be of medium difficulty. If you get it right, the second question will be selected from a large pool of questions that are a little harder; if you get the first question wrong, the second will be a little more basic.
If you keep getting questions right, the test will get harder and harder; if you slip and make some mistakes, the test will adjust and start giving you easier problems, but if you answer them correctly, it will go back to the hard ones. Ideally, the test gives you enough questions to ensure that scores are not based on luck. If you get one hard question right, you might just have been lucky, but if you get ten hard questions right, then luck has little to do with it. So the test is self-adjusting and self-correcting.

Because of this format, the computer-adaptive GMAT is structurally very different from a paper-based test. After the first problem, every problem that you see is based on how you answered the prior problem. That means you cannot return to a question once you’ve answered it, because that would throw off the sequence. Once you answer a question, it’s part of your score, for better or worse. That means you can’t skip around within a section and do questions in the order that you like.

Another major consequence of the GMAT format is that hard problems count more than easy ones. It has to do this way, because the very purpose of this adaptive format is to find out at what level you reliably get about half the questions right; that’s your scoring level.

Seven Annoying Things about the Computer-Adaptive Test

•You cannot skip around on this test; you must answer the questions one at a time in the order the computer gives them to you.
• If you realize later that you answered a question incorrectly, you can’t go back and change your answer.
• If the person next to you is noisy or distracting, the proctor cannot move you or the person, since your test is on the computer.
• You can’t cross off an answer choice and never look at it again, so you have to be disciplined about not reconsidering choices you’ve already eliminated.
• You have to scroll through Reading Comprehension passages, which means you won’t be able to see the whole thing on the screen at once.
• You can’t write on your computer screen the way you can on the paper test (though some have tried), so you have to use scratch paper they give you, which will be inconveniently located away from the computer screen.
• Lastly, many people find that computer screen tire them and cause eyestrain—especially after four hours.
The following chapters of this book provide an overview of the different sections you’ll encounter on the GMAT exam. But before you move on to them, take note of the GMAT Registration Checklist opposite. This checklist will serve as a useful resource for you when it’s time to sign up for the test.