M.B.A. hopefuls take note: Starting June 2012, the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) will feature a new 30-minute reasoning section, the Graduate Management Admissions Council announced Friday.

“The new integrated reasoning section of the GMAT will be a microcosm of today’s b-school classroom,” said Dave Wilson, president and CEO of GMAC. “These questions will provide critical intelligence to schools about the ability of prospective students to make sound decisions by evaluating, assimilating or extrapolating data.”

Questions in the new section will require test-takers to examine and analyze information from a variety of sources including charts and spreadsheets, identify data relationships and draw conclusions, GMAC said in a statement.

The overall length of the GMAT exam will remain at three and a half hours, as the reasoning section will replace one of the two analytical essay prompts. The exam’s verbal and quantitative sections and scoring scale will also be unaffected, the organization said.