GMAT Strategy

I'm confused about how the Quant and Verbal scores are combined to give you the total score.

For example, on a practice test I got:
quant 48 = 85th percentile
verbal 37 = 82nd precentile
total 690 = 90th percentile

How do 85th and 82nd percentiles add up to 90th percentile?

How exactly do the scaled scores work?

@joannabanana,

The raw score of VERBAL is valued MORE than that of QUANT score while calculating OVERALL score.
(GMAC thinks that average test-taker performs poorly in verbal than in quant.)

joannabanana wrote:I'm confused about how the Quant and Verbal scores are combined to give you the total score.

For example, on a practice test I got:
quant 48 = 85th percentile
verbal 37 = 82nd precentile
total 690 = 90th percentile

How do 85th and 82nd percentiles add up to 90th percentile?

How exactly do the scaled scores work?

Verbal is usually tougher since about 50% of GMAT takers live outside the US and for the majority of them, english is not their first language.

I wouldn't say it is tougher, because the percentile is not an arbitrary number like 95% or higher means A+ like it was back in grade schools. Your supporting evidence that close to half of the test takers are from non-English speaking countries is actually weakening your conclusion that verbal is tougher than quant.

It is always the case that if a test taker has quant and verbal percentiles that are close to each other like yours are the overall percentage will be higher than either of the sub sections.

This is because most test takers find that either the verbal or the quant is significantly weaker than the other. You could say that consistency is rewarded - but so is excelling in one phase or the other. As mentioned by a few people above, verbal scores are, on average, lower than quant scores and there is more room at the top end of the verbal to really excel so a verbal score can get your to 700 even with an average day on the quant - but one cannot get a really high score with one section alone.

As to the mechanics of the scaled scores - they work this way, the computer figures out how you compare to others based on whether you answered all of the questions, the number that you got right, and the difficulty of those questions. The scaled scores just correspond to the percentage of people that the computer feels you are above and below. Please also keep in mind those insidious "experimental questions" that do not count. If you get lucky and lots of the questions you missed don't count that can help your score -- if you get unlucky and happen to ace the experimentals and all the ones that you missed count against you -- well that is why the GMAT is not purely skill based but does have an element of chance...

Hey David,
As per my knowledge, I understand that Percentile is a number which shows how many percentage of test-takers who scored below ME.

But does this definition apply to GMAT? I mean my score is compared with which test-takers? test-takers taking test with me? or test-takers taking that DAY? I really don't understand with which group of test-takers the comparison is being made?

Can you please explain how

David@VeritasPrep wrote: As to the mechanics of the scaled scores - they work this way, the computer figures out how you compare to others based on whether you answered all of the questions, the number that you got right, and the difficulty of those questions. The scaled scores just correspond to the percentage of people that the computer feels you are above and below.

You are compared to all GMAT test-takers.

Who all?

uwhusky wrote:You are compared to all GMAT test-takers.

...

Everyone that took the GMAT...

I am not sure if the percentile is calculated per season, per year, or per whatever, but I am certain that the percentile isn't calculated per day nor per room.