Last Updated on May 12, 2023
If GMAT scoring is as mysterious to you as it is complex, you’re not alone. Students frequently ask me questions about how the GMAT is scored and whether they should adjust their test-taking strategies with the GMAT scoring algorithm in mind.
In this article, I’ll answer the most common questions about GMAT scoring and the GMAT computer algorithm, explain why percentile rankings matter, and give you some key strategies for using the GMAT scoring system to your advantage.
First, let’s review what the GMAT is and what it means that the GMAT exam is “computer adaptive.”
- What is the GMAT?
- The GMAT is Computer Adaptive
- GMAT Percentiles Explained
- GMAT Scoring Explained: The Total Score
- Other Factors Affecting Your GMAT Score
- GMAT Scoring for the Integrated Reasoning Section
- GMAT Scoring for the Analytical Writing Assessment
- GMAT Score Trends Over Time
- Avoiding Common Score-Killers
What is the GMAT?
The GMAT is a standardized, computer-adaptive exam designed and administered by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) and required for admission to most business schools. The GMAT tests skills necessary for success in the business world, skills such as critical thinking, logical reasoning, data analysis, and basic math and English skills. Business schools use GMAT scores as key indicators of how applicants will perform in their MBA programs, and employers sometimes look at GMAT section scores as indicators of whether job candidates have the skills necessary for performing in certain roles.
An integral part of the GMAT scoring system is the exam’s computer adaptivity. So, in order to understand how the GMAT is scored, you must understand how GMAT computer adaptivity works. Let’s take a look.
The GMAT is Computer Adaptive
The GMAT is made up of four sections: a Quantitative Reasoning section consisting of 31 questions, a Verbal Reasoning section consisting of 36 questions, an Integrated Reasoning (IR) section consisting of 12 questions, and an Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) consisting of 1 essay question. For now, we’ll focus on the Quant and Verbal sections, which are the two sections that are considered in the calculation of your GMAT Total Score (we’ll talk more about IR and AWA scoring later).
The Quant and Verbal sections are also the two sections of the GMAT that are computer adaptive. What the sections’ being computer adaptive means is that the test driver that presents the GMAT selects the difficulty level of the next question you see on the basis of your response to the previous question. In other words, the difficulty of the questions you see increases or decreases depending on whether you answer questions correctly or incorrectly.
So, we can see that the GMAT is computer adaptive at the question level. Let’s take a closer look at exactly what that means.
The GMAT is Computer Adaptive at the Question Level
We’ve just seen that the GMAT uses your responses as bases for choosing which questions you see on a question-by-question basis.
Specifically, there are easy, medium, and hard questions, and both the Quant and Verbal sections start off with a medium-level question. If you answer that first question correctly, the second question in the given section is a bit harder.
However, if you answer the first question incorrectly, the second question is a bit easier. As you answer more questions in the section correctly or incorrectly, the difficulty of the questions increases or decreases, respectively.
Importantly, the question-level adaptivity of the Quant and Verbal sections does not “cross-pollinate.” In other words, your performance on the Quant section has no effect on the difficulty level of the Verbal questions you see, and vice versa.
So, why does the GMAT function in this way, and how does question-level adaptivity affect your GMAT score? Well, in order to accurately assess your quantitative and verbal abilities — and provide a score that accurately reflects those abilities — the GMAT is designed and scored using a framework called Item Response Theory (IRT). Let’s talk about that next.
KEY FACT:
Computer adaptivity on the Quant and Verbal sections does not “cross-pollinate”; your performance on one section has no effect on the difficulty level of the questions you see in the other section.
Item Response Theory (IRT)
Item Response Theory is a method of analyzing responses to test questions that takes into account not only how many questions are answered correctly or incorrectly, but also what the difficulty of those questions is.
To see how IRT works, let’s consider a scenario featuring Test-Taker A and Test-Taker B.
Both test-takers correctly answer 31 out of the 36 questions in the Verbal section of the GMAT. So, so they each get about 86 percent of the Verbal questions correct and 5 questions incorrect. However, all 5 of the questions that Test-Taker A answered incorrectly were hard questions, while the 5 questions that Test-Taker B answered incorrectly were medium level.
Furthermore, Test-Taker A saw mostly a mix of medium and hard questions and only a handful of easy questions in the section, whereas Test-Taker B saw mostly a mix of easy and medium questions and only a handful of hard questions.
Consequently, even though both test-takers got the same number of questions correct in the section, Test-Taker A would earn a higher Verbal score than Test-Taker B did, since overall the difficulty of the questions Test-Taker A answered correctly was higher. In other words, although in terms of basic numbers their test performance was the same, their level of verbal proficiency is not calculated by the computer as the same.
KEY FACT:
In order to formulate your score, the GMAT uses Item Response Theory (IRT), which takes into account not only how many questions are answered correctly or incorrectly but also what the difficulty of those questions is.
Now that we know how computer adaptivity works on the GMAT and how it affects your score, let’s review the GMAT scoring scale and take a look at what the percentile rankings associated with GMAT scores mean.
GMAT Percentiles Explained
Your GMAT score is actually 5 different scores: an individual score for each of the 4 GMAT sections, and your Total Score, which factors in your performance in the Quant and Verbal sections but is not directly calculated from those scores.
Let’s take a look at the GMAT score ranges for each of the GMAT scores a test-taker receives:
- Total Score: 200 to 800
- Quant Score: 6 to 51
- Verbal Score: 6 to 51
- IR Score: 1 to 8
- AWA Score: 0 to 6
Again, we’ll talk more about the IR and AWA scores later, since those are not factored into your Total Score.
Now, as you may already know, every GMAT score is associated with a percentile ranking. So, when you receive your GMAT section scores and your Total Score, you will receive a percentile ranking for each.
Your percentile rankings tell you how your scores stack up against the scores of your peers. For instance, say you score 700 on the GMAT. According to GMAT percentile rankings, which are based on the test scores of every GMAT test-taker over a recent 3-year period (this data is compiled by GMAC), a Total Score of 700 puts you in the 88th percentile. Scoring in the 88th percentile means that you scored higher than 88 percent of all test-takers.
Likewise, a score of 49 on the Quantitative section of the GMAT, for example, puts you in the 74th percentile for Quant, meaning that you scored better than 74 percent of all test-takers on the Quant section.
It’s important to note that, although the Quant and Verbal sections are scored using the same score range of 6 to 51, the percentile rankings associated with those scores are not the same for Quant and Verbal. For instance, that same score of 49 on the Verbal section would put you in the 99th percentile for Verbal, rather than the 74th.
The reason for this difference is that, unlike your numerical scores, your percentile rankings are formulated on the basis of how other test-takers have performed. So, looking at our example of Q49 (74%) and V49 (99%), we can conclude that more GMAT test-takers score 49 on the Quant section than do on the Verbal section.
KEY FACT:
Your percentile rankings tell you how your scores compare with those of all GMAT test-takers in a recent 3-year period.
Current GMAT Percentile Rankings
Now that we know what the GMAT percentiles mean, let’s take a look at the current percentile rankings for GMAT Total Scores, Quant scores, and Verbal scores. These rankings are based on the scoring data of the 695,794 test-takers who took the GMAT during the period from January 2017 through December 2019.
Percentile rankings are important because they put you in direct competition with your peers. For instance, a score of 730 currently puts you in the 96th percentile, meaning that you scored higher than 96 percent of all test-takers in the past 3 years.
Now, if in the next 3 years, more test-takers score 730 than did in the past 3 years, a score of 730 may no longer put you in the 96th percentile. Perhaps your ranking will be a percentage point or two lower. Conversely, if fewer people achieve a 730 score, your percentile ranking could increase by a point or two. Your Total Score will remain the same, but depending on how your peers perform, that score may appear somewhat more or less impressive. Let’s explore this concept a bit further.
GMAT Scoring Explained: The Total Score
Contrary to a common misconception, GMAT total scores are not curved, and the calculation of total scores is not affected by aggregate test-taker performance. In fact, GMAT scoring is meant to remain constant over time, so that GMAT scores can be compared. In other words, a GMAT score from eight years ago and the same GMAT score today should represent a consistent level of performance.
So, if you achieve a certain level of performance, you will get a certain score, regardless of how other test-takers have been performing during the year when you take your test. In that respect, your Total Score is different from the percentile ranking associated with that score.
KEY FACT:
The calculation of your GMAT Total Score is not affected by aggregate test-taker performance.
Another common misconception is that the GMAT Total Score (200-800) is calculated using the Quant and Verbal section scores. In truth, the Total Score, while based on your performance in answering questions in the Quant and Verbal sections, is not calculated by using the numerical scores you earned on the Quant and Verbal sections.
Rather, once you complete the GMAT, the system separately calculates a Quant score, a Verbal score, and a Total score. To get the Quant score, the computer uses your performance on the Quantitative section; to get the Verbal score, the computer uses your performance on the Verbal section, and to get the Total Score, the computer uses your overall performance on all the non-experimental questions that appeared in the Quant and Verbal sections. (Several experimental questions, which don’t count toward your score and are used solely for GMAC’s research purposes, are mixed in with the other Quant and Verbal questions you see.)
To make matters even more complicated, those three scores are not exact representations of a test-taker’s performance. Rather, each score represents a range of test performance. For example, a test-taker could get 19 Quant questions correct or get 21 Quant questions correct and score Q47 in either scenario.
Likewise, that two people both earn a Total Score of 670 or a Verbal score of 38 indicates that their levels of performance were similar, but not necessarily exactly the same. In other words, a test-taker who scored V38 may have performed at the low, middle, or top end of the range of performance that generates a score of V38. This feature of the GMAT scoring system explains how it could be that two people who achieve the same scores on the Quant and Verbal sections may receive different Total Scores. Let’s explore this concept further.
KEY FACT:
Two people who achieve the same scores on the Quant and Verbal sections may receive different Total Scores because each of those scores represents a range of performance.
How Can the Same Quant and Verbal Scores Lead to Different Total Scores?
To better understand how these aspects of the GMAT scoring system come together to generate a set of scores, consider the following example:
A test-taker scores Q48 based on her performance on the Quant section and scores V40 based on her performance on the Verbal section. To generate the Total Score (200-800), the computer does not use the scores of Q48 and V40, which could indicate a variety of levels of performance. Rather, the computer uses the test-taker’s actual performance on the questions that appeared in Quant and Verbal sections.
Perhaps the test-taker scored Q48 with 24 questions correct in Quant and scored V40 with 30 questions correct in Verbal. Her Total Score would be based on 24 Quant questions correct and 30 Verbal questions correct and would likely come to 720.
Alternatively, the test-taker could get the same section scores of Q48/V40 with 23 questions correct in Quant and 28 questions correct in Verbal. In that case, her Total Score would be based on 23 questions correct in Quant and 28 questions correct in Verbal and could be 710.
So, the test-taker would earn the same section scores despite getting a different number of questions correct. Furthermore, the test-taker’s Total Score could be different despite her section scores’ remaining the same. Because not only the number of questions correct but also the difficulty of those questions is factored into a GMAT score, and because a GMAT score represents a range of performance, such scenarios are possible.
Let’s look at one more example. Say a test-taker receives section scores of Q47 and V33 but performed at the high ends of the performance ranges represented by those scores. Consequently, the test-taker receives a Total Score of 650. Another test-taker also scores Q47/V33 but performs lower in the ranges represented by those scores. Thus, that test-taker receives a Total Score of 640, ten points lower than the Total Score the first test-taker received.
So, the two test-takers received the same section scores via slightly different performance levels, and thus received different Total Scores. This of course means that, while both test-takers would receive the same percentile rankings for their Quant and Verbal section scores, their percentile rankings for their Total Scores would be different.
KEY FACT:
To generate your Total Score, the GMAT computer uses your actual performance on the 67 questions that appeared in Quant and Verbal sections, not your Quant and Verbal scores.
Other Factors Affecting Your GMAT Score
We’ve already discussed the two primary factors that affect your GMAT Total Score: the number of questions you answer correctly in the Quant and Verbal sections and the difficulty of those questions. However, there are some other factors that play a part in how your GMAT score is calculated.
Total Number of Answered Questions
Ensuring proper pacing throughout the GMAT is an essential part of earning a top score, but it sometimes happens that test-takers, for whatever reason, start to run out of time at the end of a section. So, they want to have a strategy in the event that the clock is ticking and they have to either guess an answer or leave a question blank.
It turns out that GMAC has done some research in this area, and their findings were somewhat mixed. The good news is that their analysis of thousands of actual GMAT records seems to show that regardless of whether you’re working on the Quant or Verbal section, if the clock runs out before you get a chance to even guess an answer for the last question or two, your score probably will not suffer severely.
This is great news for many GMAT students who worry that they bombed the entire exam if they leave a question blank at the end of a section. What’s worse, that feeling of doom can follow them into the next section of the exam and make performing at their best a serious challenge. So, if time runs out in a section and you are forced to leave a question blank, the best thing you can do is keep your cool. The evidence suggests that your score will not take a nosedive because of that issue.
Of course, when time is running out, making an educated guess on a question is always your best option, particularly in the Quant section. In fact, GMAC’s findings indicate that ANY guess, educated or not, is better than leaving a question blank in the Quant section. Remember, there are 5 fewer questions in the Quant section than in the Verbal question, so each Quant question “weighs” more in terms of your section score. So, a wise strategy for the Quant section is to do whatever you need to do to ensure that you select answers to all of the questions.
Even with this data from GMAC, it’s important to keep in mind that determining the value of guessing versus skipping questions is not a perfect science, because everyone gets a different set of questions and sees varying levels of question difficulty. Thus, random guesses at the end of a section will have different effects for each test-taker. Are you guessing on a hard-level question? Leaving a medium-level question blank? There is no way to know for sure. And in fact, GMAC’s own findings demonstrate that there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
In a perfect world, you would carefully pace yourself throughout each section of the GMAT, so that you have sufficient time to work systematically on the final questions in a section. But we all know that the world isn’t perfect. So, if you have more questions left than there is time to answer them, do your best to make educated guesses regardless of what section you’re working on, and particularly in the Quant section.
TTP PRO TIP:
If you have more questions left than there is time to answer them, do your best to make educated guesses regardless of what section you’re working on, and particularly in the Quant section.
Note that if you’ve selected an answer to the last question in a section but don’t hit submit before the clock runs out, your answer WILL be recorded. With that in mind, if you’re short on time when you reach the last question in a section, there really is no reason not to select an answer first, and then try to find the correct answer to the question. That way, even if the timer runs out as you’re solving the problem, you still have an answer recorded, despite not hitting “Submit.”
TTP PRO TIP:
If you’re very short on time when you reach the last question in a section, select an answer first no matter what, and then try to solve the problem. That way, even if the clock runs out before you hit “submit,” an answer will be recorded for that question.
Number of Correct Answers in a Row
Obviously, your goal in taking the GMAT is to get as many questions correct as possible. However, a long streak of correct answers could drive your score significantly higher. The reason long streaks of correct answers tend to drive your score higher is that getting correct answers in long streaks drives up the difficulty of the questions you see. Of course, as we have discussed, correct answers to more difficult questions are worth more when your score is calculated.
So, during your GMAT practice, shoot for long correct-answer streaks. By practicing getting as many correct answers as you can in a row, you’ll be positioning yourself to score high on the GMAT.
Furthermore, if you keep the importance of “streak length” in mind, you’ll be motivating yourself to consistently find correct answers to questions that you know how to answer. A question missed because of a careless error will go from being merely unfortunate to being the question that broke your streak. Thus, you won’t “kick a question to the curb” the minute something doesn’t make sense. Although you can’t spend 5 minutes trying to decipher every question, giving yourself an extra 15 seconds to think about the challenging component or step of a problem could be the difference between a correct answer and an incorrect guess.
Remember, the longer your streaks of correct answers on the GMAT, the greater potential you have to score high in a GMAT section.
TTP PRO TIP:
To drive up your score, practice increasing your “streak length” — getting as many correct answers as you can in a row.
Now that we have a thorough understanding of the factors that affect your Quant, Verbal, and Total scores, let’s take a quick look at how the IR and AWA sections are scored.
GMAT Scoring for the Integrated Reasoning Section
The Integrated Reasoning section is scored in 1-point increments on a scale of 1 to 8 and is not factored into your GMAT Total Score. Your Integrated Reasoning score is, however, associated with a percentile ranking:
As you can see, there is quite a large gap between the percentile rankings for each possible IR score, and with only 12 questions to prove yourself in the IR section, earning a top IR score can be quite a challenge for many test-takers.
GMAT Scoring for the Analytical Writing Assessment
Like the Integrated Reasoning score, the Analytical Writing Assessment score, which is given in half-point increments on a scale of 0 to 6, is not factored into the GMAT Total Score. In fact, your AWA score is not even included in the unofficial GMAT score report that you see on test day immediately after you finish your exam.
The reason the AWA score is not included in your unofficial report is that, unlike the other sections of the GMAT, which are scored by the computer, the AWA is scored by both a computer and a human scorer. A trained human reader scores your essay using whole points from 0 to 6, and a computer algorithm scores your essay using half-point increments from 0 to 6. Then, the two scores are averaged to produce your final score. If there is a large disparity between the human score and the computer score, a second human scorer evaluates your essay, and your score may be adjusted.
Although the AWA score is unique in how it is scored, there is still a percentile ranking associated with each AWA score. The current percentile rankings are as follows:
| AWA Score | Percentile Ranking |
|---|---|
| 6 | 88% |
| 5.5 | 81% |
| 5 | 56% |
| 4.5 | 46% |
| 4 | 18% |
| 3.5 | 11% |
| 3 | 4% |
| 2.5 | 3% |
| 2.0 | 1% |
| 1.5 | 1% |
| 1.0 | 1% |
| 0.5 | 1% |
| 0 | 0% |
As with other percentile rankings, the AWA percentile rankings tell us, for example, that if you earn a perfect score of 6.0 on the AWA section, then you have scored better than 88% of all GMAT test-takers.
Now that we’ve analyzed the various GMAT sections and scoring, and how section scores affect the GMAT Total Score, it’s useful to examine how GMAT scores have changed over time.
GMAT Score Trends Over Time
According to a 2018 report by GMAC, in the 5-year period from 2013 to 2017, not only did the number of people taking the GMAT increase, but also the scores of people taking the GMAT increased.
Specifically, from 2013 to 2017, the number of GMAT test-takers globally who earned a Total Score of 600 to 690 increased by nearly 5%, while the number of GMAT test-takers globally who earned a Total Score of 700 or higher increased by nearly 7%.
Given what we know about how GMAT percentile rankings are calculated, we can infer from this data that the percentile ranking for, say, a 700 score, decreased somewhat over that 5-year period. In other words, the competition has been getting steeper, so if you’re targeting top MBA programs, it’s more important than ever that you earn a top GMAT score!
KEY FACT:
From 2013 to 2017, both the number of people taking the GMAT and the scores of people taking the GMAT increased.
So, in addition to the strategies we’ve already discussed, what can you do to ensure that you don’t fall victim to the quirks and preferences of the GMAT computer? Let’s discuss.
Avoiding Common Score-Killers
There are a few of very common, score-eroding mistakes that GMAT test-takers tend to make time and time again. Some of these tendencies are just human nature, while others are the result of faulty information and myths that students hear through the “GMAT grapevine.” Knowing what these common score-killers are, and doing your best to avoid them, will help you ensure that the GMAT computer doesn’t get the better of you. Luckily, these pitfalls are relatively easy to sidestep.
Score-Killer #1: Guessing How You’re Performing
Many test-takers feel the urge to try to gauge how they’re doing as they’re working through a section. However, this is a game you won’t likely win. Never try to guess how you’re performing on a GMAT section. You may get a question that feels easy in the middle of your exam; that does not mean you are doing poorly. You may feel as if you bombed the Quant section, but you have no real way of knowing. Worse yet, if you get down on yourself because you assume you messed up on the Quant section, you may negatively affect how you perform on the Verbal section (or vice versa, if you choose to work on Verbal first). Students have told me many times that they thought they did poorly on the GMAT but in fact did really well.
You have no way of accurately interpreting the behavior of the GMAT computer or measuring what the GMAT considers an easier or more difficult question. Additionally, you have no way of identifying which questions are experimental (and thus won’t count toward your score) and which aren’t. Do you want to spend your time agonizing over your possibly wrong answer to a question that may not even be counted when all is said and done? Does that seem like a prudent strategy?
Worrying about your performance never improves your performance. So, do not waste your brainpower on guessing how you’re performing. Instead, focus only on finding a correct answer to the question at hand.
TTP PRO TIP:
You have no way of knowing how you performed on the GMAT until you get your score, so don’t waste your brainpower trying to guess how you’re doing on a section.
Score-Killer #2: Spending Extra Time on the First 10 Questions
There are many myths out there about the GMAT, and this is one of the most prevalent. Despite what you may have heard or read, however, you should not spend extra time on the first 10 questions of the Quant or Verbal section.
There are many reasons why overinvesting time in the first 10 questions of a section is a poor strategy. Chief among them is the fact that you most likely will not be left with enough time to answer all of the questions at the end of the section, and thus your initial gains will be lost.
Furthermore, if you answer all 10 of the first questions correctly, you should start seeing some pretty difficult questions. However, where will all of your time to answer those tough, high-value questions have gone? By using the lion’s share of your time on the first third of the section, you will have squandered much of your opportunity to send your score skyrocketing later in the section. Don’t make this mistake.
TTP PRO TIP:
Don’t believe the myth that spending extra time on the first 10 questions of the Quant or Verbal section will guarantee you a high score. Instead, pace yourself methodically throughout the exam.
Score-Killer #3: Sacrificing Questions to Catch up on Time
As we’ve already discussed, you have no way of accurately assessing whether the GMAT considers a question easy, hard, or something in between. A question that seems fairly straightforward to you may be difficult for many other test-takers. That reality makes blindly “sacrificing” questions in an effort to catch up on time a very risky strategy. After all, randomly guessing on an easy question — or multiple easy questions — can really hurt your score.
Unfortunately, this idea that you should jettison random questions if you find yourself behind on the clock is common in GMAT circles. For example, let’s say you’re on question 15 of the Quant section and you have 35 minutes remaining. The idea is that you’d sacrifice question 15 (and maybe question 16) to catch up on time. However, it isn’t prudent to throw away questions that you may be able to quickly answer. Furthermore, if you have the misfortune of throwing away an easy or medium question that the test expects you to get right, your score will be penalized heavily.
TTP PRO TIP:
Since you have no way of accurately assessing whether the GMAT considers a question easy, medium, or hard, blindly throwing away questions in order to catch up on time is a mistake.
Now that you know how the GMAT is scored, check out this article to learn what business schools consider a good GMAT score, including top business schools. And for more simple, effective tips for boosting your GMAT score, this article on the most common causes of a score drop can help.
