Converting quant question difficulty to actual score?

Post your questions about customer service issues, GMAT exam policies, and GMAT exam structure. Get an official answer from GMAC, the organization behind the GMAT test!
This topic has expert replies
User avatar
Official Company Rep
Posts: 669
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:06 pm
Location: Washington DC
Thanked: 143 times
Followed by:270 members
GMAT Score:800

by OfficialGMAT » Tue Nov 27, 2012 12:43 pm
Hello, dchan. There is not a conversion guide like the one you are looking for. Your score calculations are a bit more complicated than that. Total score is based on raw performance on both the Verbal and Quantitative sections. A range of raw scores will map onto a single scaled score, but since the Total score is based on the raw performance, greater differentiation is possible, meaning the same Quant and Verbal scores can map to different Total scores. It is much like rounding error. Consider scaled scores of 40 for Quant and 35 for Verbal. Say, on the first test, the 'unrounded' scores were actually 39.51 and 34.51, and on the second test the 'unrounded' scores were 40.49 and 35.49. The difference is only apparent when the scores are combined (sum of 74.02 compared to 75.98). In practice, Total scores up to about 30-40 points apart are considered very similar and should be interpreted as nearly equivalent.

I hope that makes sense.
Leah
Official GMAC Representative

Have a question about customer service issues, GMAT exam policies, or GMAT exam structure? Post your question in our Ask the Test Maker forum!