Executive Assessment vs GMAT: What is the Difference?

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The Executive Assessment (EA) is a relatively new exam compared to the GMAT, but nowadays, many business schools accept both. So, why do some people take the Executive Assessment instead of the GMAT for entrance into MBA programs, and which exam is right for you?

In this article, I’ll break down the key differences between the Executive Assessment and GMAT exams and give you some criteria for determining which test you need to take.

First, let’s do a quick review of what the GMAT and the Executive Assessment are.

• What is the GMAT?
• What is an Executive Assessment?
• EA vs. GMAT: Which Test Should I Take?
• EA vs. GMAT: Key Differences
  • Exam Structure and Format
    • Run Time
    • Section Order
    • Section Structure
    • Adaptivity
  • Exam Content
  • Exam Cost
  • Registration and Testing
• Quick Reference: Executive Assessment vs. GMAT

What is the GMAT?

The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is a computer-adaptive, standardized exam that for more than 60 years has been used as a measure to assess applicants to graduate-level business and management programs.

Designed (with the help of business schools) and administered by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the GMAT is accepted by thousands of MBA and related master’s programs worldwide. Although most MBA programs now also accept the GRE (Graduate Record Examination), the GMAT remains the more commonly taken exam for admission to business school. Every year, about 200,000 people sit for the GMAT.

What is an Executive Assessment?

A relative newcomer, the Executive Assessment (EA) was introduced in 2016 and is accepted by admissions to many Executive MBA programs, including programs at many top business schools. Like the GMAT, the Executive Assessment is a computer-administered, standardized test designed and administered by GMAC, which gathers input from business programs around the world when creating the exam.

Now, let’s take a look at why people choose to take one exam over the other.

EA vs. GMAT: Which Test Should I Take?

If you are applying to standard, full-time MBA programs, chances are you’ll need to submit either a GMAT or GRE score with your applications. However, if you are applying to an Executive MBA program, you may need to take the Executive Assessment.

The Executive Assessment test was originally designed for applicants to Executive MBA (EMBA) programs. So, while people with relatively limited work experience applying to full- or part-time MBA programs would take the GMAT, experienced professionals applying to EMBA and select other part-time, weekend, or evening MBA programs would take the Executive Assessment exam.

Now, not every Executive MBA program requires an Executive Assessment score for admission, and schools have varying requirements regarding which entrance exams are required. The GMAC website lists schools and programs that accept the Executive Assessment test, but of course, you should always check the individual websites of the programs you’re interested in to get the most up-to-date information about admissions requirements. In other words, you shouldn’t assume that because GMAC doesn’t list a particular program on their website, you can be sure that program doesn’t require Executive Assessment scores for admission.

It’s also important to note that while anyone can sit for the Executive Assessment, business schools have various minimum work experience requirements for EMBA program eligibility. That said, in general, EMBA programs tend to require applicants to have anywhere from 5 to 10 years of full-time work experience. However, different programs may have different requirements for how many years of that experience have to be at the management level.

Again, since every program is different, be sure to do your research on the individual program websites, and if you need clarification on anything, don’t hesitate to reach out to the school admissions offices by email or phone.

So, we know what the Executive Assessment and the GMAT are and who should take each exam. Next, let’s look at the key differences between the two exams.

EA vs: GMAT: Key Differences

In simple terms, you can think of the Executive Assessment as a “mini version” of the GMAT. For one, the EA exam is much shorter than the GMAT. And as I’ll discuss in further detail shortly, the EA doesn’t test quite as many topics as the GMAT does. The EA measures MBA program readiness and uses more “business-focused” questions to test critical reasoning and higher-order thinking skills.

The EA is specifically designed for busy, working professionals who have already acquired many management-level business skills during their careers. Thus, the people taking the EA likely don’t have as much time to devote to preparing for and sitting for an entrance exam and already have a certain baseline of skills that test-takers with less work experience may not have.

So, let’s take a look at how exactly the two exams differ, starting with how each exam is structured.

Exam Structure and Format

The look and feel of the Executive Assessment vs. GMAT are basically identical. In other words, a computer screen displaying an EA exam won’t look noticeably different from one displaying a GMAT exam. Both exams are navigated in essentially the same way, and many question formats overlap, but the two tests do not draw from the exact same question pool.

Now, as I already mentioned, the question types you see are not exactly the same on both exams — I’ll discuss that more later — but for any question type tested on both exams, the format of that question will be identical. For example, both exams include multiple-choice Problem-Solving questions in their Quantitative Reasoning sections.

So, in what respects do the two exam structures diverge? Let’s discuss.

Run Time

For most test-takers, the most notable difference between the Executive Assessment and the GMAT is the run time of each exam. The EA is 90 minutes long and contains 40 questions, whereas the GMAT is 2 hours and 15 minutes long and contains 64 questions. Thus, the GMAT is about 50 percent longer than the Executive Assessment.

The GMAT Focus Edition, like the EA, no longer includes an Analytical Writing Assessment. So, the difference in run time between the two exams comes down to fewer questions and shorter section times on the EA, rather than the presence of an essay task on the GMAT. Furthermore, the EA does not permit any breaks, while the GMAT includes one optional 10-minute break. In fact, the EA does not permit any breaks at all, so if for some reason you need to leave your desk during the exam, the exam clock will keep ticking.

Section Order

Another important difference between the structures of the two exams is that, unlike on the GMAT, on the Executive Assessment, you cannot choose your section order.

The 3 sections of the Executive Assessment — Integrated Reasoning (IR), Verbal Reasoning, and Quantitative Reasoning — always appear in that order. When you sit for the GMAT, you can complete Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Data Insights in any order you choose.

Section Structure

Both the GMAT and the Executive Assessment have three sections, although the section names, question counts, and timing differ.

As you can see, the GMAT Data Insights section contains 20 questions and lasts 45 minutes, while the Executive Assessment’s Integrated Reasoning section contains 12 questions and lasts 30 minutes. The EA Quantitative and Verbal Reasoning sections are also shorter than the corresponding GMAT sections.

However, there is another very important difference between the section structures of the two exams: unlike GMAT sections, each section of the Executive Assessment is actually broken down into 2 successive subsections, or “modules,” containing an equal number of questions, for a total of 6 modules on the exam.

So, when the Quant section, for instance, is presented to you on the EA exam, you will see 7 of the 14 Quant questions, and then a review screen (more on that in a moment), and then the final 7 Quant questions.

Essentially, each section on the Executive Assessment is divided in half — however, those halves are not separately timed. So, the 30 minutes you have to complete the Quant section is all of the time you have to complete both Quant “modules” (the total of 14 Quant questions on the exam). Now, you don’t have to split your time evenly between the 2 modules just because the questions are evenly split. In other words, you could spend 15 on each Quant module, or you could spend 10 minutes on the first Quant module and 20 on the second, etc.

Now, what really makes the EA structure different from that of the GMAT is that you are given the opportunity to check and edit your work at the end of each EA module. So, let’s take our example of the Quant section. You are presented with 7 questions in the first Quant module and 7 questions in the second Quant module, for a total of 14 questions that must be completed in a total of 30 minutes. After completing the 7 questions that make up the first Quant module, you’re presented with a review screen from which you can check and change your responses or return to any questions you may have skipped within that module. Once you move past that review screen to the second Quant module, you can no longer go back and edit or add any answers in the first module, even though you’re still technically in “the Quant section.” At the end of the second module, you will be presented with a review screen for just the 7 questions in the second Quant module.

Note that any time you take reviewing and editing answers in a section counts toward your total time for that section. In other words, the clock doesn’t stop when you’re on a review screen, or when you return to previously answered questions from that screen.

Nevertheless, some test-takers see the ability to review questions after the fact as an advantage of taking the EA over the GMAT. The GMAT also allows you to review questions at the end of each section. You can review as many questions as you like and change up to three answers per section, provided you have time remaining. Unlike on the EA, however, you must answer each GMAT question before moving to the next one.

Adaptivity

All three GMAT sections are computer-adaptive at the question level, meaning that the questions you see are selected partly on the basis of your responses to earlier questions. Moreover, the difficulty of GMAT questions increases or decreases depending on whether you answer questions correctly or incorrectly, respectively. So, you can see why it’s impossible for the GMAT to allow test-takers to skip questions — how would the test know what level of question to present to you next?

The Executive Assessment, on the other hand, is not adaptive at the question level, so the difficulty of each successive question you see will not increase or decrease depending on whether you answered the previous question correctly or incorrectly. However, the EA is adaptive from one module to the next within the Quant and Verbal sections.

Let’s take the Verbal section of the EA as an example. Because the EA is adaptive at the module-level, your performance on Verbal module 1 will influence the difficulty level of the questions you see in Verbal module 2. So, if you perform well in Verbal module 1, the questions you see in Verbal module 2 should be more difficult overall than those you saw in module 1. Again, this computer-adaptivity applies only to Quant and Verbal, not to IR.

It’s also important to note that on both the GMAT and the EA exam, the computer-adaptivity does not “cross-pollinate.” In other words, your performance in the Quant does not affect the difficulty level of the Verbal questions you see, and vice versa.

Now that we know how the structure and format of the GMAT and EA exams differ, let’s delve a little deeper into the content of the two exams.

Exam Content

Both the GMAT and the Executive Assessment assess skills relevant to graduate business education, including critical thinking, logical reasoning, data analysis, quantitative reasoning, and verbal reasoning. Although the exams cover overlapping skills, their section structures and content are not identical.

Let’s take a look at the question types you’ll see on both exams.

The exams assess overlapping verbal, quantitative, and data-analysis skills, but the GMAT includes Data Insights, while the Executive Assessment includes Integrated Reasoning. The Quantitative Reasoning sections overlap in several areas, but the question types and topic coverage differ. The GMAT Quantitative Reasoning section contains only Problem-Solving questions, while the Executive Assessment includes both Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency questions.

Specifically, topics such as permutations and combinations, statistics, and probability are less common on the EA (though not completely absent). And most notably, there are no geometry questions on the EA. Note that questions involving coordinate planes can appear on the EA, but GMAC classifies those as algebra questions, not geometry questions.

For the most part, EA Quant tests topics in arithmetic and in freshman-level high school algebra. So, it’s safe to say that EA Quant is, overall, somewhat easier than the GMAT Quant section.

Now that we understand how the Executive Assessment and the GMAT compare when it comes to structure and content, let’s take a look at the different ways the two exams are scored.

Exam Scoring

The Executive Assessment and the GMAT have very different score scales and also somewhat different ways of calculating a test-taker’s total score. First, let’s compare the score scales of the two exams.

For both exams, you receive an individual section score for each exam section and a total score. However, in addition to the obvious differences between the two exams’ score scales, each exam has its own way of calculating total score.

On the GMAT, your total score reflects a unified calculation across all three sections Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Data Insights each weighted equally. However, on the EA, your Quant, Verbal, and IR scores are all weighed equally in calculating your total score.

As with GMAT scores, EA scores are valid for 5 years from the test date associated with a score. And, of course, neither exam allows you to mix and match section scores from different exams when sending scores to schools.

Now, let’s take a look at how much it costs to take each exam.

Exam Cost

The Executive Assessment may be the “little brother” of the GMAT in many ways, but cost isn’t one of them. Executive Assessment registration costs US$350 plus applicable taxes. GMAT pricing varies by location and test format; check mba.com for current registration fees in your region. However, because the EA exam caters to business professionals with hectic schedules, the policies around test rescheduling and cancellation are more lenient than those for the GMAT — and that’s reflected in the cost. Let’s take a look.

Check out this article for a more detailed breakdown of GMAT fees. In the meantime, let’s go over a few important differences between the GMAT and the EA exam when it comes to registration and testing.

Registration and Testing

Fortunately, for both the GMAT and the Executive Assessment, you can register and schedule your exam easily on the mba.com website. Both exams are available online and at test centers, subject to availability in your location.

There are some differences, however, in the number of times you can take each exam and how long you must wait between attempts. You can take the Executive Assessment up to six times in your lifetime: three times at a test center and three times online. You must wait at least 24 hours between EA attempts.

EA attempts taken online are counted separately from attempts completed at a test center. Thus, you may take the EA up to three times in each format, for a maximum of six lifetime attempts.

Now, I’m not sure why anyone — particularly a working professional with a full-time job — would want to take a $350 exam 6 times. Clearly, any test-taker would be much better off properly preparing and taking the exam when he or she was truly ready to do so. Nevertheless, you have multiple retake opportunities if you need them.

You must wait at least 24 hours between Executive Assessment attempts, regardless of whether you take the exam online or at a test center. Of course, depending on why you didn’t hit your goal score on your first try, you may want to take more than 24 hours to prepare for your retake.

The GMAT retake policy allows five attempts within a rolling 12-month period. Online and test-center attempts count toward the same limit, and there is no lifetime limit.

Additionally, you must wait at least 16 calendar days between GMAT attempts, regardless of whether you take the exam online or at a test center.

Technical issues that prevent completion of an online GMAT or EA are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. If you do happen to encounter a technical issue that is beyond your control when you’re taking an online exam, your remote proctor should be able to verify that the issue occurred. Depending on the circumstances, GMAC may authorize a replacement appointment.

Quick Reference: Executive Assessment vs. GMAT

Now that you know the key differences between the Executive Assessment and GMAT exams, you can refer to the handy chart below anytime to quickly compare the two exams. Additionally, check out this in-depth guide to the Executive Assessment.