Executive Assessment (EA) Integrated Reasoning Section

Integrated Reasoning: Assessment of Analytical Skills

The Integrated Reasoning section is the first section of the EA you will be asked to complete. Test takers are not given a choice in deciding which of the three sections of the exam to start with, and every EA administration will always begin with the Integrated Reasoning sectioning. There will be 12 questions, and you will have 30 minutes to complete this section, meaning you have an average of 2 ½ minutes per question. It is best to familiarize yourself with the types of questions you will encounter in this section, as not every question will require you to spend the same amount of time answering it. Almost all the questions given will present data or graphics followed by at least two questions about the information presented. There are four types of questions in the section: Graphics Interpretation, Two-Part Analysis, Multi-Source Reasoning, and Table Analysis. Each are discussed below.

Graphics Interpretation

The Graphics Interpretation questions will involve a graph with multiple-choice questions about the graphic information. The questions will be in the form of sentences, and you will use drop-down menus and fill-in-the-blank to accurately answer the questions. The types of graphs can vary widely, from Venn diagrams to bar charts, line graphs and several other types of graphs.

In some cases, the charts might be particularly complex. One part of a graphic might be a magnification of another part of a graphic, for example. For this reason, it is important to read the short synopsis under the graphic before answering the questions.

Two-Part Analysis

The types of questions in the Two-Part Analysis section vary greatly. They can involve mathematical equations, or text-based reasoning problems that can look more like reading comprehension. What is unique about this section is the way the multiple-choice part of the problem is formatted.

If it is a math problem, for example, the questions following the equation may ask the test-taker to solve for X and for Y. There would then be a bar chart with one column listing several different numbers that could possibly be values for X or Y. Next to the column listing values, there would be a column labeled X and another column labeled Y and the test taker would have to click the appropriate button corresponding to the correct value in each column. It is relatively straightforward as long as the test taker pays careful attention to which column is which.

Table Analysis

The Table Analysis section includes some form of a table, often with a short accompanying text, and asks you to answer questions pertaining to it. You will be asked to use the provided information to determine the accuracy of the data. The questions will all be yes-no, true-false, or some other form of 50-50 choice.

Multi-Source Reasoning

Problems in the Multi-Source Reasoning section generally have three tabs of information that need to be read. Following the question, there are either multiple-choice or yes-no type questions (or both) pertaining to the data in the three tabs. Often the answers can be derived by piecing the data from the different tabs together. In other cases, information on some of the tabs is relevant, while information on other tabs is not. This portion of the test evaluates the test taker's ability to discern which data is needed as well as the ability to integrate and compare data from different sources.

It is recommended that you familiarize yourself with all types of questions you might encounter on the Integrated Reasoning section. Some questions might appear relatively straightforward and require less time to solve, while others will be quite complicated and required more than 2 ½ minutes to solve. The faster you can identify the type of question being asked in this section, the faster you can decide how best to allocate your limited time.