How to calculate and understand GMAT score

How to Calculate GMAT Score - Admission to top business schools around the world is very competitive and requires aspirants to have strong academic profiles. Among other aspects like essays and resume, how to calculate GMAT score is a very vital point of intake for the selection panel. Some of the top ten business schools have cut-offs as high as 780 out of 800. Further, there are some universities which make their decision based on the section-wise score in GMAT. So it is important for GMAT test takers to know how to calculate and understand GMAT scores. Another interesting point in how to calculate GMAT score is, it is also provided as a percentile to help the admission panel to assess candidates’ performances against their peers in the same test. Before you send your GMAT score to your dream university, you have to understand how to calculate and understand your GMAT score. Read further to know more on this.

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Know the GMAT score terms

Before we take you through the nitty-gritty of how to calculate GMAT score, we explain some terms used in the GMAT test to help you understand your GMAT score and how it is calculated.

Computer adaptive -

GMAT is a computer adaptive test, which basically means that the difficulty level depends on your performance through the test. So, the computer analyses the candidate’s responses on the problems and produces the end result on that basis. The difficulty level of the GMAT test depends on the candidate’s responses to the questions. So, the next question in the test will be harder if your estimated score is higher and you were able to correctly answer most of the previous questions. However, the next question will be easier if your estimated score is less. An important aspect of How to calculate GMAT score is that the final GMAT score is calculated depending on the difficulty level of questions that the student had attempted. Correct answers to difficult questions will result in higher scores while correct responses to easier questions will result in lower scores.

Percentile score -

Besides raw scores, GMAT score card also includes percentile rank of the students against the verbal, quantitative and total score. Percentile rank reflects your performance against other candidates and hence the percent of candidates you performed better than. So, if your percentile is 70, it means that 30% of the test takers performed better than you and you performed better than 70% of the candidates. The percentile, therefore, does not just depend on your performance, but your performance against your competitors. This is another aspect of how to calculate GMAT score.

Understanding your score

To know how to calculate GMAT score, firstly start with understanding the score for each section in the test. GMAT candidates receive five GMAT scores – one for each section i.e. Analytical Writing Assessment, Integrated Reasoning, Quantitative, Verbal and the total -- after they take the test. On the Quantitative and Verbal sections, candidates are measured on a scale of 0-60, while on the Analytical writing section, the scale is 0-6. Integrated reasoning is scaled on a range of 1-8.

Section Wise GMAT scores

Elements in the GMAT score card

The GMAT score card has five score categories based on the GMAT pattern - Verbal, Quantitative, Analytical Writing, Assessment and Integrated Reasoning. We bring you a break-up of the sectional scores, which explains how to calculate and understand GMAT score:

Verbal: It is scored on a raw scale of 0-60. However, the score card also has the relative percentile against the Verbal score. According to GMAC, students rarely get GMAT scores below 9 and above 44 in the Verbal section.

Quantitative: Like Verbal, quantitative section is also scored between 0-60 and has a relative percentile ranking against it. According to GMAC, test takers do not usually score above 50 and below 7 in this section.

Total: The total section carries the sum total of the Verbal and Quantitative sections and the percentile against the score. GMAT is scored on a total scale of 200-800 and test takers are given percentile accordingly.

Analytical Writing Assessment: The Analytical Writing Assessment section scores on a different scale from Verbal and Quanta. Test takers score between 0-6, though this section also includes a percentile score.

Integrated Reasoning: The integrated reasoning section is scored on a scale of 0-8. Like the other sections, this too has a percentile attached to it.

When do you get your GMAT score?

There are two ways of getting your GMAT result -- Unofficial and Official. Test takers can get their Unofficial GMAT scores at the end of their test. The Unofficial GMAT report card covers only Verbal and Quantitative scores. However, candidates are only showed their unofficial scaled scores, not their percentile.

Here’s is a break-up of an Unofficial score card:

The Official score of GMAT are available after 20 days from the test date. Test takers are emailed a link through which they are directed to the GMAT Score Reporting website. Candidates can check their GMAT result by entering the authentication code stated on the Unofficial Score Report.

How to convert your GMAT score into percentile ranking

GMAT scores are also represented as percentile ranking in the process of how to calculate GMAT score. As mentioned above in the article, a percentile ranking means the percentage of candidates that performed better than you in the GMAT exam.So this means when you are understanding how to calculate GMAT score, you have to consider that though your GMAT score will remain the same, your GMAT percentile ranking may change as the GMAC calculates the percentile rank every summer using the GMAT exam date from the previous three years. So suppose your GMAT score is 700 and you are in the 90th percentile, it means that your GMAT score remains constant as 700, while you performed better than 90% of candidates who took the GMAT exam. Here is a table that depicts the GMAT score with their corresponding GMAT percentile.

GMAT score and GMAT percentile

How is the GMAT exam scored?

As far as the computer adaptive sections, i.e. the verbal and quant sections are concerned, the number of questions you answer combined with the number of correct answers and the difficulty level of questions you attempted and got correct will decide your final score. If you are short of time and because of which, you do not complete all the questions in the GMAT, you will be levied a penalty. You have to understand this if you are wondering how to calculate GMAT score.

It is crucial that you make an effort to respond to each question in each section. The GMAT score range of 0 to 60 is applied to both the verbal and quantitative raw scores. In 1-point increments, the verbal and quantitative parts' scores are provided. Although the GMAT score scale actually has a 0 to 60 range, in reality the quant and verbal scores only have a range of 6 to 51. The final scaled score, which ranges from 200 to 800, is created by adding the verbal and quantitative values (both out of 60).

Therefore, if you respond to more questions, do so correctly on a greater number of those questions, and are eligible for questions of greater complexity, you will score better. But before, during, or after the exam, you are unable to determine the level of difficulty of a question.