Bangalore: The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) has announced the constituents of new format for NextGen GMAT, June 2012. Therefore, if you want to crack the exam for admission to world's best B-schools, you need to enhance your visual interpretation skills.

Integrated Reasoning, the new section will have four basic formats- Graphic interpretation, Multiple-source reasoning, Table analysis and Two-part analysis.

Graphical interpretation will be based on images and present as multiple-choice question, under Multiple-source reasoning, questions will be asked from same data, For table analysis, tables will have to be sorted in different ways.

For, the first time, an on-screen calculator will be provided to candidates for the fourth format named Two-part analysis.

The new section will consists of 12 questions to be done within 30 minutes. It has been introduced by removing an essay from the analytical writing assessment section. The other two sections, verbal and quantitative will not undergo any change. Therefore the score and timings of the exam (3 hours, 30 minutes) will remain same.

The format has been changed by the GMAC after 17 years, following a survey of B-schools in which they urged for new skills to be tested.

Data analysis is of key importance in business now. Most business schools include case study in their syllabi.

The new section will measure candidates' skills to interpret visual images, convert data from graphical and verbal representations, understanding relationships from graphs and integrate data from varied sources.

Sample questions can be seen on GMAC website and the test preparation materials will be available from April.

GMAT is gaining popularity among Indian students, as there has been a 10% increase in the number of students taking this exam in the past year. Besides, over the past four years, the number of business schools considering its scores in India has increased by 200%.