GMAT Scoring

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edwardbeshers: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 2; Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 6:46 am

by edwardbeshers » Thu Dec 13, 2012 1:03 pm

I'm working through the 60 day GMAT study plan (although I'm doing it over 3+ months, can't keep up with the pace), and I just took the GMAT practice test #1 for the first time. When I started my course of study, I took the Princeton Review practice test and scored a 700 (41 Verbal, 46 Quant), getting 35 out of 41 on verbal and 33 out of 37 on quant.

After today's test, the GMAT software is giving me a score of 760 (45 Verbal, 49 Quant). Sounds great, right? The thing is, I got 35 out of 41 again on the verbal section, and 24 out of 37!! on quant. Why the improves score when my performance dropped so much. Did I just take a freakishly hard test this morning, or is there something wrong here? I'm not sure how to fee about the 6 weeks I just spent studying math based on this result. Thoughts?

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Source: Beat The GMAT — GMAT Strategy | Thu Dec 13, 2012 1:03 pm

GMAT/MBA Expert

Brent@GMATPrepNow: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 16207; Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2008 6:26 pmFollowed by: 1268 members; Location: Vancouver, BC; Thanked: 5254 times; GMAT Score:770

by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Fri Dec 14, 2012 6:19 am

First of all, congratulations on the great practice test score.

Your scores are not based on how many questions you answer correctly; they're based on the level of difficulty of the questions you answer correctly.

To illustrate this, I'll share an experiment I performed.

When I was writing the article Taking the GMATPrep Practice Tests Multiple Times (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/03/ ... iple-times), I took GMATPrep Practice Test #1 four times, and each time I answered every second question correctly (I did this for the quant section only)

Given that I correctly answered exactly half of the questions each time, you'd expect my quant scores to be roughly the same for all 4 tests.

My 4 scaled scores were: 19, 23, 26 and 42

This represents a percentile range from approximately 8th percentile to the 63rd percentile.

So, don't worry about how many questions you answered correctly. It has nothing to do with your score.

Aside: If you're interested, we have a free video explaining the GMAT scoring algorithm: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gener ... es?id=1251

Cheers,
Brent

Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com

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edwardbeshers: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 2; Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 6:46 am

by edwardbeshers » Fri Dec 14, 2012 11:50 am

Brent,

Thank you for both the kind words and the thorough answer. The video answered all my questions about the scoring of the test, and I went on to watch some of the others. Now I can stop wondering and get back to studying - thanks!

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