Is It Hard to Get 655 on the GMAT?

Many MBA aspirants consider a GMAT score of 655 or higher a key part of a strong business school application. A GMAT score of 655, which is at about the 90th percentile, stands out for many schools, and a score of at least 655 is all but required for gaining admission to top business schools. As a result, MBA applicants often wonder, “Is it hard to get 655 on the GMAT”?

So, in this article, I’ll discuss both how difficult a 655 GMAT score is to get and some ways to make scoring 655 as easy as possible.

Here are the topics we’ll cover:

• What Quant/Verbal/DI Breakdown Do You Need to Get a 655 GMAT Score?
  • How Difficult Is It to Get the Quant, Verbal, and DI Scores Needed for Scoring 655?
• How Long Do Students Normally Prepare to Score 655 on the GMAT?
  • Some Interesting Comparisons
• What Percentage of GMAT Test-Takers Score 655+?
• What About People Who Find the Quant or Verbal Section Easy?
• Is It Hard to Get 655 on the GMAT?: The Bottom Line
• How to Make Scoring 655+ on the GMAT as Easy as Possible
  • Understand What the GMAT Tests
  • Master the GMAT One Topic at a Time
• Can an Average Student Crack GMAT 655?
• Can You Get a 655+ GMAT Score Without Coaching?
• In Summary: How Hard Is It to Get a 655+ on the GMAT?
• What’s Next?

Let’s begin by discussing the type of Quant/Verbal breakdown you need to score 655 on the GMAT.

What Quant/Verbal/DI Breakdown Do You Need to Get a 655 GMAT Score?

Business schools tend to want to see relatively strong GMAT Quant section scores from applicants. Thus, Quant scores tend to dictate the type of Quant/Verbal/DI breakdown you need to get 655. So, for the purposes of this discussion, we’ll assume that you get a Quant score of at least 80.

Let’s consider a few Quant/Verbal/DI breakdowns that produce a 655 GMAT total score. (I’ve discussed this topic in depth in a post on how many questions you can get wrong and score 655 on the GMAT.) These scenarios are shown in the following table. 

An interesting observation is that no matter which section is your strong one, the total number of questions you can miss and still score 655 remains pretty much constant, ranging from 15 to 18.

There are many other score combinations that will earn you a 655. You can use our GMAT score chart to explore them.

So, what does this information tell us about how hard it is to get 655 on the GMAT? Let’s discuss.

How Difficult Is It to Get the Quant, Verbal, and DI Scores Needed for Scoring 655?

Looking at the above table, we quickly notice that we can miss a fair number of questions and score 655 on the GMAT. In our Balanced scenario, we can miss 3 out of 21 Quant, 6 out of 23 Verbal, and 7 out of 20 Dl questions. In other words, we can miss about 15 percent of the Quant questions, 26 percent of the Verbal questions, and 35 percent of the Data Insights questions and still score 655.

Also, looking at the last column of the table, we see that we can miss between 15 and 18 of 64 questions and score 655. In other words, we can miss roughly 25 percent of all the questions on the GMAT and still score 655!

Now, 25 percent is a relatively high percentage of questions. So, it’s possible for test-takers to score 655 while missing a relatively high percentage of questions. Thus, going on this information alone, we could get the impression that scoring 655 on the GMAT is not particularly difficult.

KEY FACT:

We can miss a fair number of Quant, Verbal, and Data Insights questions and score 655 on the GMAT.

We’re starting to get the picture of how difficult scoring 655 is. However, we need more information to truly answer the question of whether it’s hard to earn this score. So, let’s next consider how long people prepare for the GMAT.

How Long Do Students Normally Prepare to Score 655 on the GMAT?

Every GMAT aspirant is different. People have different starting points and different speeds at which they learn. So, each person who scores 655 on the GMAT prepares for a different length of time. Still, we can get a sense of how hard the GMAT is by considering how long people who score 655 prepare on average.

There isn’t a lot of reliable information on how long GMAT 655-scorers typically prepare. However, here’s what I’ve seen during my many years working in the GMAT preparation space. To score 655, people typically prepare for 200 to 300 hours over around two to four months.

Once again, we’re talking about a typical amount of time to prepare. Many people spend much more time preparing for the GMAT to score 655, and some spend much less time. Also, people who want a very high GMAT score, such as 685, often spend another few months preparing. So, 200 to 300 hours is not a perfect standard.

Still, this information gives us a sense of how hard a 655 score on the GMAT is to achieve. If people who score 655 typically need 200 to 300 hours of GMAT preparation, then scoring 655 is somewhat hard, but not brutally difficult.

KEY FACT:

A person needs to spend roughly 200 to 300 hours to earn a 655 GMAT score.

Some Interesting Comparisons

For comparison, people preparing for Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Level 1 prepare for around 300 hours on average. People preparing for the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Exam typically spend 300 to 500 hours preparing. So, GMAT test-takers who score 655 typically take less time than people spend preparing for either of those exams.

So, from this information, we get the sense that scoring 655 on the GMAT is somewhat hard, but not quite as hard as passing some major tests that are known to be hard.

KEY FACT:

People who score 655 on the GMAT typically prepare for less time than people typically need to study to pass CFA Level 1 or the CPA Exam.

We’re getting a clearer picture of how doable scoring 655 on the GMAT is. To make the picture even clearer, we can consider one more statistic, the percentage of GMAT test-takers who score 655+.

What Percentage of GMAT Test-Takers Score 655+?

To determine what percentage of test-takers score 655+, we can start with GMAT percentile information provided by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). According to the information provided at the time of this writing, 655 is a 91st percentile score. In other words, in scoring 655+, GMAT test-takers score higher than 91 percent of GMAT test-takers overall.

However, this information doesn’t mean that only 100 – 91 = 9 percent of GMAT test-takers score 655+. According to GMAC, nearly 30 percent of test-takers take the GMAT exam two times or more. So, there are many more GMATs taken than GMAT test-takers. Also, most people score higher on retakes than they do the first time they take the GMAT. So, it seems likely that around 20 percent of GMAT test-takers score 655+ on the GMAT.

Twenty percent is a pretty significant percentage of test-takers scoring 655+. Also, many people who take the GMAT are satisfied with below-655 GMAT scores. Thus, the percentage of test-takers truly aiming to get 655+ scores who achieve them is higher than 20 percent.

So, what does this information tell us? It fits with what we’ve discussed regarding the percentage of questions you can miss and how long you’ll need to prepare to score 655. Once again, we get the sense that scoring 655 on the GMAT is somewhat but not extremely difficult for MBA applicants.

KEY FACT:

Information on the percentage of GMAT test-takers who score 655+ indicates that scoring 655+ is somewhat hard, but not extremely difficult.

There is another interesting fact about the GMAT to consider: many people find the Quant or Verbal section easy. So, let’s consider what that fact indicates in the context of how difficult 655 on the GMAT is to achieve.

What About People Who Find the Quant or Verbal Section Easy?

Many people come to the GMAT ready to score in the mid-80s (90th percentile) or higher on the Quant section, before studying for the GMAT. These people, many of whom are from countries where math education is emphasized, find the GMAT Quant section relatively easy.

Some people find the Verbal section of the GMAT relatively easy. These people, who often have studied English or the humanities in college, can achieve the kind of GMAT Verbal section scores (in the mid-80s) needed for scoring 655 with little preparation.

It is more difficult to make a similar generalization about the Data Insights section, as it contains a combination of both Quant and Verbal content.

So, why am I bringing up these people who have previously studied material tested on the GMAT? Well, they help to illustrate a key point.

These people don’t find the Quant or Verbal section of GMAT relatively easy for some strange or unknown reason. Rather, they find these sections relatively easy because they have learned some of the material in the course of their education. Thus, we can see that, through having learned much of the GMAT material previously, some students find scoring 655 on the GMAT relatively straightforward.

So, regardless of whether test-takers studied math or English in college or put in 300 hours of GMAT-focused study, by preparing effectively, they can achieve the Quant, Verbal, or Data Insights section scores necessary for scoring 655 on the GMAT.

TTP PRO TIP:

No matter what your educational background, you can achieve a 655+ score on the GMAT!

So, what does everything we’ve considered indicate about the difficulty of scoring 655 on the GMAT?

Is It Hard to Get 655 on the GMAT?: The Bottom Line

Given everything we’ve discussed, from the number of questions you can miss to the amount of time people prepare and the percentage of people who score 655+, the bottom line is this. For MBA applicants, scoring 655 on the GMAT isn’t easy, but it’s totally doable with effective preparation.

Now that we have a sense of the level of difficulty of scoring 655 on the GMAT, let’s discuss how to make it as easy as possible.

How to Make Scoring 655+ on the GMAT as Easy as Possible

Two key things we can do to make scoring 655 on the GMAT as easy as possible are understanding what the GMAT tests and mastering the GMAT material one topic at a time. Let’s discuss each of these.

Understand What the GMAT Tests

Understanding what the GMAT tests helps us to score 655+ because, through understanding what the GMAT tests, we’ll prepare optimally. So, what does the GMAT test?

We can get some clues regarding what the GMAT tests by considering the full names of the sections. They are the Quantitative Reasoning section, the Verbal Reasoning section, and the Data Insights section. These names clue us into the fact that, more than anything else, the GMAT tests your reasoning and analytical skills.

Thus, when preparing for GMAT Quant, we can go beyond reviewing math topics to learning how to reason our way through the intricacies of GMAT quant questions to arrive at correct answers. Similarly, for best results in GMAT Verbal, keep in mind that the Verbal section isn’t simply testing our knowledge of literary elements or our ability to identify keywords in reading passages. Rather, GMAT Verbal tests our skill in using reasoning to determine what makes sense and understand logical relationships between statements. Similarly, as its title suggests, the Data Insights section doesn’t test your ability to calculate or organize data. It tests your ability to analyze and interpret data to make significant inferences and conclusions from the data.

So, we can see how understanding what the GMAT tests will make a big difference in the results we get from our GMAT study.

TTP PRO TIP:

To prepare optimally for the GMAT, understand that the Quant, Verbal, and Data Insights sections test reasoning and analytical skills.

Master the GMAT One Topic at a Time

The fastest and easiest way to master the GMAT is to work on one topic at a time. This study approach works best for a variety of reasons.

One reason is that it allows us to focus on one topic’s set of concepts and strategies at a time. By focusing on one set of concepts and strategies at a time, we can learn and understand them well.

Another reason is that this study approach allows us to answer many similar practice questions in a row. By answering many similar questions in a row, we imprint the question type in our brains and can efficiently become skilled in answering each type of question.

To master a topic, we first learn the concepts and GMAT strategies involved in that topic. Then, we practice by answering questions involving that topic untimed until we’re getting them correct consistently. Finally, we work on answering questions involving that topic faster until we’re answering them correctly at the test pace. Then, we move on to the next topic and do the same thing.

By using the study strategy of mastering topics one at a time, we can eventually master all the material covered on the test. Also, preparing this way, we’re never overwhelmed during our GMAT prep because we’re learning one thing at a time.

TTP PRO TIP:

To master the GMAT efficiently and effectively, work on one topic at a time.

Let’s now answer some questions that often come up concerning scoring 655 on the GMAT.

Can an Average Student Crack GMAT 655?

If you’ve been an average student and you’re wondering whether you can score 655+ on the GMAT, the answer is yes. With effective preparation, students of all levels score 655+ on the GMAT. In other words, regardless of your starting point, by learning one thing at a time, you can develop the knowledge and skills you need to score 655+.

KEY FACT:

Many people who consider themselves average students score 655+ on the GMAT.

Can You Get a 655+ GMAT Score Without Coaching?

People also often wonder whether they can get a 655+ GMAT score without a course or any type of coaching. The answer is that it’s possible to prepare for the GMAT and score 655 without a course or coaching. However, preparing for the GMAT entirely on your own will likely take much longer than preparing with some support.

That said, you don’t have to sign up for an expensive class or hire a tutor to master the GMAT in a reasonable amount of time. There are a variety of resources available that are both relatively inexpensive and powerful. One such resource is the Target Test Prep self-study online GMAT prep course, which gives you a free 5-day trial.

TTP PRO TIP:

With the support of a good GMAT preparation resource, you can achieve a 655+ score faster and more easily than you would without that support.

Let’s now wrap up with the key takeaways from what we’ve discussed.

In Summary: How Hard Is It to Get a 655+ on the GMAT?

In exploring how difficult it is to score 655 or higher on the GMAT, we’ve seen the following:

• It’s possible to score 655 on the GMAT while missing relatively high percentages of the Quant, Verbal, and DI questions.
• To score 655, people normally spend around 200 to 300 hours preparing for the GMAT.
• It’s likely that as many as 20 percent of GMAT test-takers score 655+.
• Some people who have studied math or verbal topics before preparing for the GMAT find the GMAT Quant or Verbal section relatively easy.
• Scoring 655+ on the GMAT is not easy, but it’s reasonably straightforward to do with effective preparation.
• To make scoring 655+ on the GMAT as easy as possible, understand what the GMAT tests and use the strategy of mastering the GMAT one topic at a time.

What’s Next?

Now that you better understand the level of difficulty of scoring 655 on the GMAT, you could learn more about how to achieve a 655+ GMAT score by reading this post on how to prepare for GMAT Quant and this one on how to master GMAT Verbal.

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