Beat The GMAT

14_of_spades · Mon Sep 18, 2006 2:48 am

Hi folks

my first post here. i'm not a business guy (i'm in health research), but i have a question.

i'm in Taiwan now - and I'm having a conversation with this well-educated MBA applicant. she tells me the following story - and gives me proof with the links below, all of which i absolutely can not believe. the story goes:

apparently in 1995, a famous TV-personality here in Taiwan wrote the GMAT, and subsequently attended Harvard (i don't know specifically for what - though most probably MBA). she apparently got 780 on it. according to my friend (and this part i do not have any reason to doubt), the score was widely reported in the Taiwanese media as having broken the WORLD RECORD GMAT score.

my friend went on to give me the following links, all of which say the same thing (albeit, in Chinese - and if u don't have the language packs installed, u might not be able to see the characters - if it would even matter - but i can read the pages and verify that they all state her GMAT score, and they all state how it broke the world record.)

http://www.cheers.com.tw/feature/leisure/bmark07.asp
http://www.angelibrary.com/essay/pao_jia_chin.html
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/dea-l/16804.html

i grew up in the north american system and understand about tests and percentile ranks etc. as such, this story - despite the links and my friend's repeated insistence that it's true - just has way too many holes in it. just off the top of my head:

1. 780 is not a raw score, but represents a certain percentile rank. how is it that someone can score 780 without someone scoring 790 or 800? afterall - the scores (they do don't they?) run to 800 - and therefore the 780-score-percentile is defined by the scores above it - and someone therefore must have received them.

2. even if she really did "break" the world record, would this type of information even be released to the public? i don't believe ETS (or whatever company does GMAT) has a mandate to reveal this kind of thing.

3. if she really DID break the "record" - the only way i could see it is if the GMAT started in 1994. it has a longer history than that right?

4. i see lots of claims online for scores of 770 etc. i can't believe that she was uniquely the only person in the world at the time to beat them all.

5. you can only take with a grain of salt, the Taiwanese media.

so tell me - this is an impossible story right? can anyone produce a link that can DISPROVE my friend's claim? apparently - it's a source of pride in Taiwan among business students that one of their own had the world record in the GMAT. i just don't believe it.

please prove this to be false to me!

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aim-wsc · Mon Sep 18, 2006 8:33 am

Welcome to the site.

NOt a single link you hv provided is working for me. so i couldnt figure out it in detail... but based on the story u hv presented... let me analyse the situation errr this topic certainly doesnt belong to GMAT Strategy forum though ...admin may shift it to lounge forum i think....
Anyways...
I dont find any problem with that lady breaking the world record. i hv not done googling before sending this post ..but if you are so keen to know whats the truth why dont you google-around .. Laughing

OK My comments on your points.

1: not necessary.

what you are talking is percentile score in that case the topper got to have 99 % tile . in GMAT its not necessary to have 800 as highest score

2. I dont know L&O. but you can claim anything in public until its challenged Wink

3. right

4. cant say

5. as you say/ Smile

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beatthegmat · Mon Sep 18, 2006 6:44 pm

There's no such thing as a "world record score" on the GMAT. A handful of folks each year get a perfect 800...it's just like any other standardized test.

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epony · Thu Sep 21, 2006 10:30 am

1. If the max is 800 then it's definitely attainable. Moreover, most top-10 B-schools attest to not accepting applicants who scored 800 on their GMAT every year!

2. If you look around the leading forums (Test Magic, ScoreTop, etc.) you'll find several 780 and 790 posts from recent months...

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