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AWA Scoring Explained ~ My first post

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AWA Scoring Explained ~ My first post

by ChrisK » Mon Jun 20, 2011 4:19 am
Hello BeattheGMAT Community,

I have a question related to the AWA. I took the test and received a score of 5.0 on the AWA. I thought this was a somewhat decent score, considering 6.0 is the maximum score. However, I was surprised to see I ranked in the 56th percentile (56%) according to my score report.

I have two questions:

1) Is it true the only scores above mine are 5.5 and 6.0 and
2) Is everyone that receives a 5.0 on the AWA in the 56% percentile?

I thought the assessment was scored in .5 increments starting at 1.0.

I feel as if I am misunderstanding something.

Thanks to anyone who can shed a little bit of light on this for me.

Best,
Chris
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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:38 pm
ChrisK wrote:Hello BeattheGMAT Community,

I have a question related to the AWA. I took the test and received a score of 5.0 on the AWA. I thought this was a somewhat decent score, considering 6.0 is the maximum score. However, I was surprised to see I ranked in the 56th percentile (56%) according to my score report.

I have two questions:

1) Is it true the only scores above mine are 5.5 and 6.0 and
2) Is everyone that receives a 5.0 on the AWA in the 56% percentile?

I thought the assessment was scored in .5 increments starting at 1.0.

I feel as if I am misunderstanding something.

Thanks to anyone who can shed a little bit of light on this for me.

Best,
Chris
Yes, the only scores above you are 5.5 and 6.0.

Yes, the table at the end of the official guide 12th edition allots only a 55 percentile for a score of 5.0.

Yes, i am as surprised by that statistic as you are.

But -

No, it doesn't matter much. All this actually means is that the AWA is not a very good differential tool - Almost half of the population manage to get a 5.5 or a 6.0, so it doesn't really say much (from the B-school's perspective). If a candidate comes in with a 700 score or a 550 score, the difference can be used by the B-school as a guide - they have an idea what those scores say about the candidates. but if both candidates come in with a 6.0 score in the AWA, the B-schools don't really know what that means - there's too big a range of percentiles this score applies to.

Which brings me to my final point - don't worry about it. The B-schools, as a general rule, do not set much store by the AWA, probably because of the above issue. A score of 5.0 is enough to clarify to the school that you can form a coherent argument and express it in written English, which is all they really can learn from this. If you got a lower score (say a 3.0), that would've sounded alarm bells that your command of the written language may not be enough to prove a valuable contribution in the classroom, but a 5.5 or a 6.0 won't necessarily help your application much more than that 5.0. It's more of a pass/fail score than a scaled score.
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