How to Get a Perfect 800 GMAT Score

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Last Updated on May 13, 2023

Many people wonder how to score a perfect 800 on the GMAT, and often they hear that scoring 800 will not help their MBA applications or is virtually impossible. However, while I agree that business school admissions officers generally don’t view an 800 GMAT score much differently from how they view, for instance, a 770 GMAT score, I think scoring 800 on the GMAT is totally doable.

Also, much of what applies to scoring 800 on the GMAT can be used for achieving any relatively high GMAT score. So, in this article, I’m going to discuss some key aspects of scoring 800 on the GMAT, and if you use the information to score 680, 730, or 770 instead, we’ll still have a win. Let’s begin by discussing the GMAT performance required for scoring 800.

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The Performance Required for Scoring a Perfect 800 on the GMAT

As you likely know, your GMAT total (200 to 800) score is based on your performance on the Quantitative Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning sections of the GMAT. What’s less well known is that, to earn a total score of 800, you have to get all the counted questions on the Quant and Verbal sections correct.

In case you don’t know about counted questions on the GMAT, here’s the deal. Of the 31 Quant questions and 36 Verbal questions on the GMAT, only 28 and 30 questions respectively count in the calculation of your GMAT total score. The rest of the questions are experimental questions included on the GMAT for the purpose of testing them. So, there are 58 counted questions, and to get a GMAT total score of 800, you have to get all 58 of those counted questions correct.

Of course, on test day, you won’t be aware of which questions count and which are experimental. So, as a practical matter, to score 800 on the GMAT, ideally you’d get all 67 of the Quant and Verbal questions you see correct, though it is true that you could miss some experimental questions and still score 800.

KEY FACT:

To score 800 on the GMAT, you have to get all of the counted questions on the Quant and Verbal sections of the GMAT correct.

So, we can see why, according to the Graduate Management Admissions Council, fewer than 50 people out of the over 200,000 people who take the GMAT each year score a perfect 800. Getting all the questions on the GMAT correct is not easy. At the same time, with the right mindset, it is doable. So, let’s continue by discussing developing the type of mindset that’s conducive to acing the GMAT.

Developing a Winning Mindset

As we discussed earlier, people often feel that scoring 800 on the GMAT is virtually impossible. Of course, if you believe that, it’s going to be pretty challenging to score 800  because you’ll be attempting to do something that you yourself believe likely can’t be done. Accordingly, to set yourself up to score 800, or close to 800, on the GMAT, you have to develop a mindset conducive to doing so.

One way to develop such a mindset is to consider the fact that people regularly get all the Quant questions or all the Verbal questions on the GMAT correct. So, to score 800 on the GMAT, you just have to put together two aspects of what a fair number of people do and get all the questions on both sections correct. Furthermore, as we just discussed, some people do score 800 on the GMAT. So, you can take the attitude that you too are a person and therefore can achieve what other people have achieved.

Another aspect of developing a mindset conducive to acing the GMAT is adopting a growth mindset. The  concept of a growth mindset, which was developed by psychologist Carol Dweck, involves the idea that our most basic abilities, such as basic quantitative and verbal reasoning skills, are not fixed but, rather, can be developed.

What this idea means in the context of preparing for the GMAT is that, if you’re, for instance, strong in quant but weak in verbal, or vice versa, you can develop strong skills in the other area as well. Similarly, if you don’t feel particularly strong in either quant or verbal, you can develop your abilities in both areas, and the clearer you are about the fact that you can develop yourself, the more confident you’ll be and the more energy you’ll have for your test prep.

TTP PRO TIP:

To set yourself up for GMAT preparation success, adopt a growth mindset.

Of course, in order to achieve a perfect score on the GMAT, along with a winning mindset, you’ll need an effective approach to preparing. So, let’s now discuss the most effective approach to preparing for the GMAT.

The Most Effective Way to Prepare for the GMAT

Regardless of whether your goal is an average GMAT score, an above average score, or a 99th percentile score, the most effective way to prepare for the GMAT is to work topic by topic, mastering one topic at a time. To master a topic, you first learn the concepts involved in that topic and then do dozens of practice questions involving that topic until you get them correct consistently. Once you’ve mastered one topic, you move on to the next and do the same thing. By proceeding in this way, you eventually master the entire GMAT.

So, for instance, if you were working on rate questions, you’d first study the concepts involved, such as the rate, time, and distance formula. Then, you’d answer dozens of rate questions, starting with easy questions and working your way up to harder questions, until you virtually couldn’t get them incorrect. Similarly, if you were working on Sentence Correction questions involving modifiers, you’d learn all the concepts involved in answering those questions and then answer SC practice questions involving modifiers until you totally understood how to get them correct consistently.

This approach to GMAT prep works super well because it gives you an opportunity to focus on understanding a set of concepts, you go directly from learning concepts to applying them to answering questions, and you can apply what you learn in the process of answering one question to answering subsequent similar questions.

TTP PRO TIP:

To master the GMAT, master one topic at a time until you’ve mastered the entire test.

Now that we’ve discussed what’s generally the most effective way to prepare for the GMAT, let’s discuss some specific things you can do to score a perfect 800 on the GMAT, starting with learning topics from the ground up.

Learn Topics from the Ground Up

As we’ve discussed, in order to achieve a perfect GMAT score, you have to get all of the counted questions correct. One aspect of doing so is learning topics from the ground up, and here’s why.

If you’re OK with occasionally being stumped by a question when you take the GMAT, you can prepare by learning formulas or approaches to answering questions while not being 100 percent clear about the theory underlying the formulas or approaches. As long as you can generally apply the formulas or approaches, you’ll be able to get most questions correct.

However, if you want to get every question correct when you take the GMAT, then you have to go beyond learning formulas and approaches to fully understanding the concepts underlying them, so that, no matter what the GMAT throws at you, you’re ready to handle it. 

So, for instance, to ensure that you’re ready to get any kind of Permutations question correct when you take the GMAT, you’d go beyond learning the permutations formula to learning exactly why the formula works. You’d also learn the basic theory underlying how permutations are counted. That way, if you were to see a Permutations question to which the formula was not really applicable, you could answer the question by applying the theory that underlies the formula.

TTP PRO TIP:

To prepare to get every question correct when you take the GMAT, learn the topics from the ground up.

We’ve just discussed that, to score 800 on the GMAT, you have to be prepared to handle whatever the test might throw at you. Let’s now discuss another aspect of becoming prepared in that way: developing skill in finding a way to get to the answer to virtually any GMAT question.

Develop Skill in Finding a Way to Get to the Answer to Any GMAT Question

Since to achieve a GMAT 800 score, you have to get every question correct, you can’t guess on any questions. So, if you see a question that you find particularly challenging, you don’t have the option of deciding to guess and move on to the next one. If you want to achieve your score goal, you have to find a way to answer that question. Accordingly, your GMAT study plan must include training to get to a correct answer basically every time, and here’s one way to do so.

You can follow the rule that, when practicing, you don’t look at an explanation for a question until you’ve come up with a way to answer the question. In other words, regardless of whether you have to spend an hour estimating, hacking or, doing long division to answer a question, you do whatever you have to do to answer that question before you read the explanation of how you could have answered it in under two minutes.

Now, I’m not saying that it makes sense at the beginning of your GMAT prep to proceed in this manner. The point is that, once you have a decent grasp of how to answer questions, you should start fighting your way to a correct answer almost every time.

The purpose of training this way is to get into the mode of succeeding under any circumstances. In other words, you are developing a skill that goes beyond quant and verbal reasoning skills: you are developing skill in winning against all odds. You can see how this skill will serve you well when you’re taking the GMAT. No matter how unclear you  initially are about how to answer a question, you’ll have skills you can use to come up with a way to answer it.

TTP PRO TIP:

To ace the GMAT, develop skill in winning against all odds.

Now, you might wonder how you’ll have time to apply this skill when taking the GMAT. After all, the GMAT gives you only about two minutes to answer each question. So, here’s an approach you can use. You become so fully prepared for the GMAT that you can answer most questions in well under two minutes. Then, when taking the test, you’ll answer most questions quickly, thus leaving yourself lots of extra time to find your way to the correct answer to any question you find challenging.

In addition to developing skill in winning against all odds, to achieve a GMAT 800 score, you’ll have to develop another key skill, achieving 100 percent accuracy. Let’s discuss that skill now.

Develop Skill in Achieving 100 Percent Accuracy

So far, we’ve discussed developing skill in answering GMAT questions, both under normal circumstances and in situations in which you have to fight your way to a correct answer. However, it’s one thing to understand in theory how to answer a question you see on the GMAT and another to avoid making any missteps and arrive at the correct answer. So, another key aspect of training to score 800 on the GMAT is training to get every question correct.

Accordingly, as you prepare, you should place a high priority on accuracy. Any time you miss a question, your move is to analyze what went wrong, similarly to how you would review  a concept that you didn’t know. Did you become excited and careless part way through answering the question? Did you forget to consider 0? What did you have to do differently to get the question correct? You have to become an expert in doing things correctly every time.

Also, you can shoot for streaks of correct answers when practicing. In other words, whereas normally you might be excited to get 90 percent of practice questions correct, to train to score 800 on the GMAT, you can shoot for getting questions correct in long streaks, starting with 10 to 15 correct in a row and working your way up to getting 31 Quant questions and 36 Verbal questions correct in a row..

TTP PRO TIP:

To develop skill in achieving 100 percent accuracy in answering GMAT questions, shoot for long streaks of correct answers when practicing.

Now that we’ve discussed focusing on accuracy for GMAT mastery, let’s discuss a sophisticated move you can make to improve accuracy and your GMAT performance in general, tuning your unconscious aspects.

Tuning Your Unconscious Aspects to Maximize GMAT Performance

Basically everyone studying for the GMAT has had the following experience. You miss a question only to then read the explanation and realize that you could have gotten the question correct. Then, you wonder why you didn’t just get it correct in the first place. So, let’s discuss a key factor that can cause us to experience such issues: we’re unconsciously sabotaging ourselves. Here’s what I mean.

We can have all kinds of things going on unconsciously that cause us to miss questions we could have gotten correct. Here are some of the things GMAT students have told me about. One person was happy in his current situation. So, he kept unconsciously sabotaging his GMAT performance because his scoring high on the GMAT would mean that he was going to change his life by going to business school. Another person didn’t want to score high on the GMAT because he didn’t want to seem arrogant. Others have felt that they didn’t deserve to score high on the GMAT.

So, what can happen is that, if you have unconscious conflicts with scoring high on the GMAT, things go wrong, and you wonder why. Accordingly, one thing you can do to reduce careless errors and achieve high accuracy on the GMAT is to consider what you might have going on unconsciously and address it. For example, the person who was happy in his current situation addressed that issue and quickly achieved his GMAT score goal after scoring below his goal on multiple occasions.

The topic of how to tune your unconscious aspects is a big one that goes beyond the scope of this article. However, you can start to tune your unconscious aspects by asking yourself why you might want to miss questions that you could get correct and seeing what kinds of answers you come up with.

TTP PRO TIP:

To reduce careless errors and achieve flawless accuracy on the GMAT, consider what you might have going on unconsciously that could be sabotaging your GMAT performance and address it.

Let’s now discuss one more thing you can do to support your scoring 800 on the GMAT: take care of your health and wellness.

To Maximize Your GMAT Performance, Take Care of Your Health and Wellness

Your level of health and wellness is a huge factor affecting how you perform in any activity, including test taking. So, along with preparing for the GMAT in the conventional sense, mastering the GMAT requires taking care of your health and wellness. 

Accordingly, as you study for the GMAT, be conscious of also taking care of yourself in general by doing things such as eating well and getting sufficient sleep and exercise. Also, be sure to take care of your emotional health. So many times, I’ve seen people have trouble with the GMAT, not because their GMAT specific skills were not strong enough for hitting their score goals, but because something they had going on emotionally was undermining their efforts. In particular, issues related to anger or anxiety can make succeeding in any endeavor difficult.

TTP PRO TIP:

To maximize the results you get from your GMAT study and your GMAT test performance, take care of your health and wellness.

By employing the above approaches, you can come close to or succeed in scoring a perfect 800 on the GMAT. Also, to gain some more insights into how to maximize your GMAT score, you could read these posts on how to increase your GMAT quant score and how to score high on GMAT verbal.

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