Interpreting Kaplan Free test score

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Interpreting Kaplan Free test score

by vinaylathi » Thu Jul 11, 2013 2:59 am
I took Kaplan's free full length GMAT test today, and got the following result:
Overall: 720
overall % below-94
quant % below-98
verbal % below-35

My doubt is that is the verbal score displayed correct? as in a percentile as low as 35 cannot generate an overall percentile of 94, right. please let me know if I am understanding it correctly.
I would greatly appreciate your help.
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by [email protected] » Thu Jul 11, 2013 8:19 am
Hi vanaylathi,

A percentile represents "where you are in line". The 35th percentile might not seem all that impressive, but if most of the Test Takers performed even a little bit better than you, then your percentile would drop. So, your performance in the verbal could have been strong, but the performance by the other people who took the test was stronger. Also, the percentiles on a Kaplan CAT won't match the pool of Test Takers from the real GMAT, so the data could be skewed.

The easiest way to check if your performance is consistent is to take another CAT (you can get 2 for free from mba.com) and see if your Overall Score matches up.

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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Fri Jul 12, 2013 12:31 pm
I wouldn't trust those numbers - an overall 94th percentile score with a 35th percentile score in verbal seems very unlikely. Some quick Googling reveals that a score of Q51 (98th percentile) V24 (35th percentile) has resulted in a 640 (73rd percentile), which seems about right.