People are still studying for LSAT logic games, a section that stopped existing after June 2024. That is the tell for this whole category. Three of the four big graduate and professional exams were rebuilt between September 2023 and August 2024, and a lot of the prep material in circulation is teaching a test nobody sits any more.
Here's what each exam is now, how they differ in ways that change how you should study, and which prompts generate practice for the current versions.
What Each Exam Looks Like Now
| Exam | Length | Sections | Changed | Best for | Skip if |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GRE | ~1h 58m | Analytical Writing, Verbal, Quant | Sept 2023, cut from ~4h, argument essay removed | Most master's and PhD programmes, and law or business schools that accept it | Your target school prefers a specialist exam |
| GMAT Focus | 2h 15m | Quant, Verbal, Data Insights | Feb 2024, replaced the 10th Edition | MBA and business master's, especially where Data Insights signals fit | You want the broadest school acceptance |
| LSAT | 2h 20m, plus writing | Logical Reasoning x2, Reading Comprehension, one unscored | Aug 2024, logic games gone | Law school, and the safer choice even where the GRE is accepted | You dislike reasoning-only formats and your schools take the GRE |
| MCAT | ~7h 30m seated | Bio/Biochem, Chem/Physics, Psych/Soc, CARS | Unchanged | Medical school. There is no alternative | Not applicable, it is required |
The MCAT is roughly 3.8 times the length of the shortened GRE. That gap alone should tell you these exams cannot be prepped the same way.
The Three Changes That Make Old Prep Wrong
The LSAT lost logic games. LSAC sunset Analytical Reasoning after the June 2024 test and replaced it with a second scored Logical Reasoning section, so the only question types left are Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension. The cause was a 2019 settlement with two blind test takers who could not use the diagrams the section demanded.
If you're worried that made the test easier or harder, LSAC ran the numbers. Across more than 200,000 test sessions, the mean score moved by one hundredth of a point.
The GRE got shorter. From September 22, 2023 it runs about 1 hour 58 minutes instead of nearly four. The "Analyze an Argument" essay is gone, leaving one 30-minute "Analyze an Issue" task. The unscored section and the scheduled break were removed too. Score scales did not change, so a 2022 score and a 2026 score mean the same thing.
The GMAT became the Focus Edition. From February 1, 2024 it's three 45-minute sections, 2 hours 15 minutes total. Sentence correction is gone and so is the Analytical Writing Assessment. Data Insights combines data sufficiency with integrated reasoning. Scoring moved to 205 to 805, which is why a 705 Focus score is not the old 700.
- Preparing for the GMAT's newest section is where old material fails hardest, because Data Insights did not exist in this form before. The GMAT Data Insights Practice Generator builds items in that format.
- The GRE's remaining essay is the Issue task, and only that one. The GRE Issue Essay Practice Generator produces prompts for it, so you don't waste sessions on an argument essay that was retired.
The LSAT and the MCAT Want Opposite Things From You
This is the part that generic grad-exam guides miss, and it matters more than any format detail.
Julian Sarafian, who took his own score from 142 to 170, names the difference in one sentence: "there's no memorization that's required for other exams like the MCAT or the bar exam. Instead, the way that you get your score up on the LSAT is by practicing and practicing and practicing."
So his method starts untimed, which is the reverse of what works for the SAT or ASVAB. Do one question at a time with no clock, check it, and if you got it wrong work out why before you move on. Then whole sections untimed, "for at least 15 exams worth." Speed comes last, once the reasoning is reliable.
His six-month shape: one month building a foundation, two months ramping up untimed questions, three months drilling timed sections with occasional full tests.
- LSAT Logical Reasoning Practice Generator now covers two of the exam's scored sections rather than one, so it takes more of your hours than it used to.
- Reading Comprehension is the other half, and the LSAT Reading Comprehension Practice Generator is the most-used LSAT prompt in the library. Run it untimed first.
- Full sets belong at the end of a cycle, not the start. That's the LSAT Practice Test Generator.
- Six months only happens on a calendar, so give the LSAT Study Plan Generator your real available hours.
The MCAT sits at the other extreme. Seven and a half hours seated, four content-heavy sections, and a genuine memorization load that no amount of reasoning practice substitutes for.
- MCAT Psych and Soc Practice Generator is the most-used MCAT prompt here, which tracks with a section people underestimate because it looks like the easy one.
- MCAT Biology and Biochemistry Practice Generator and the MCAT Physics and General Chemistry Practice Generator cover the two heaviest content sections.
- CARS is the section that behaves like the LSAT, reasoning over a passage with nothing to memorize, and it's where pre-meds lose the most points. Drill it separately with the MCAT CARS Practice Generator.
- Mixed full-length sets come from the MCAT Practice Question Generator, and the MCAT Study Plan Generator handles the months of content review that precede them.
- Facts that refuse to stick need retrieval rather than rereading. Turn your misses into a deck with the Flashcard Generator and set the intervals using the Spaced Repetition Guide.
GRE or GMAT for Business School
gre vs gmat carries a $19.62 cost per click, which tells you admissions consultants make real money on this question. The short version: most business schools now accept both, the GRE keeps more doors open because it also works for non-MBA master's programmes, and the GMAT Focus signals business-specific quantitative fit through Data Insights.
Best for the GRE: applicants hedging between an MBA and another master's, anyone whose verbal is stronger than their quant, and anyone applying broadly.
Skip the GRE if: your target programmes state a GMAT preference, or your quantitative profile is the strongest thing in your application and you want a section that showcases it.
- GRE Quant Practice Generator and the GRE Verbal Practice Generator drill the two scored reasoning measures.
- GRE vocabulary lives inside context rather than on a flashcard, and the GRE Vocabulary Builder teaches each word in the sentence shapes the test uses. The underlying skill, reading a word's meaning off its context and roots, is the subject of our vocabulary guide.
- For the full experience under the shorter format, the GRE Practice Test Generator assembles sets, and the GRE Study Plan Generator maps the weeks.
- On the GMAT side, the GMAT Quant Practice Generator and the GMAT Practice Test Generator handle the scored sections, with the GMAT Study Plan Generator for the schedule.
Law School Will Take the GRE, and You Should Probably Still Sit the LSAT
Many law schools now accept a GRE score in place of the LSAT, which looks like an easy way out if you find the LSAT harder. Sarafian's argument against it is about how committees behave rather than about the tests: "admissions committees know what they know and they are biased towards the things that they understand and that they're used to evaluating." The LSAT is what they have read for decades.
His conclusion, and it's a reasonable one: if you are indifferent between the two, sit the LSAT.
One more thing worth using. You can cancel an LSAT score you're unhappy with, and his advice is to take that option seriously. If you have been scoring consistently in the 170s and something goes wrong on the day, a cancelled score beats a 165 sitting in your file.
What You Write Matters as Much as What You Score
Every one of these applications turns on a personal statement, and unlike the exams that document has no scoring rubric to reverse-engineer.
- The Personal Statement Writer is the most-used prompt in this entire set, which says something about where applicants feel least certain. Use it to see structure, then write your own version. The story-first method in our Common App essay prompts guide carries over to graduate statements too.
- Reading dense passages faster helps CARS, LSAT Reading Comprehension, and GRE Verbal alike. The Reading Comprehension Passage Generator produces practice material at a difficulty you set.
If the writing side is where you're stuck, our 21 AI writing tools rundown covers which ones help with a draft you have to own, and the prompts for students and teachers collection covers the studying side more broadly.
Worth checking the date on any prep book or video before you trust it. Material recorded before mid-2024 will teach you logic games, GMAT sentence correction, or a GRE argument essay, and none of those will appear on your exam. The ACT went through the same kind of rebuild, which our enhanced ACT guide covers. Our own generators were built against the current formats, which is why there's no logic games prompt in the list above.
Keep your missed-question log, your section timings, and your draft personal statement in one document across the whole cycle. The Dock Editor is free for 7 days and keeps that beside the practice you generate.
Pick your exam, then generate one untimed set tonight for whichever section you're weakest in. If you're sitting the LSAT, do it with no clock at all and spend the time on why the wrong answers are wrong. Browse every test-prep prompt for the SAT, ACT, GED, and certification exams.