GMAT Total

Can you tell me about the Format of Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT)? Also tell me about total Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) score range?

[Shaleen]

The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is a computer adaptive test (CAT) intended to assess certain analytical, writing, quantitative, verbal, and reading skills in written English for use in admission to a graduate management program, such as an MBA.

GMAT Format

The current incarnation of the GMAT has four sections, given in this order:

Section #1 = Analytic Writing Assessment (30 minutes) — one essay, analysis of an argument.

Section #2 = Integrated Reasoning (30 minutes) — 12 multi-part problems on data interpretation and combined Verbal/Math reasoning.

Section #3 = Quantitative (75 minutes) — 37 questions, either standard five-choice multiple choice or Data Sufficiency.

Section #4 = Verbal (75 minutes) — 41 five-choice multiple choice questions, of three types: Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, and Sentence Correction.

Candidates are given three and a half hours to complete these four sections. The total score out of 800 is only for the verbal and quantitative sections. The remaining two sections receive their independent scores.

Scoring

The total GMAT score ranges from 200 to 800 and measures performance on the quantitative and verbal sections together (performance on the AWA and IR sections do not count toward the total score, those sections are scored separately).

Scores are given in increments of 10 (e.g. 540, 550, 560, 570, etc.). From the most recent data released by GMAC, the average GMAT score of all test takers is about 540.

The score distribution conforms to a bell curve with a standard deviation of approximately 100 points, meaning that 68% of examinees score between 440 and 640.

More precisely, the mean score is 545.6 with a standard deviation of 121.07 points.

The final score is not based solely on the last question the examinee answers (i.e. the level of difficulty of questions reached through the computer adaptive presentation of questions).

The algorithm used to build a score is more complicated than that. The examinee can make a mistake and answer incorrectly and the computer will recognize that item as an anomaly.

If the examinee misses the first question his score will not necessarily fall in the bottom half of the range.

After previewing his/her unofficial GMAT score, a GMAT test taker has two minutes to decide whether to keep or cancel the GMAT score.

A cancelled score can be retrieved within 60 days for a fee of $100. After 60 days a cancelled score is not retrievable