Understanding and Interpreting GMAT Scores

On the GMAT Score Card you will find four scores — Verbal, Quantitative, Total, and Analytical Writing Assessment. The scores under each of these heads is reported on a fixed scale and will appear on the official GMAT score reports. The score report includes not only your current test scores but also that of your previous two most recent scores from tests you have taken in the last five years.

Scores on the Objective Sections - Verbal, Quantitative and Total

Total GMAT scores range from 200 to 800. According to the official GMAT site, two-thirds of test takers score between 400 and 600.

In addition to providing the overall scores ranging between 200 and 800, the GMAT score report also includes your Verbal and Quantitative scores in a range of 0 to 60. According to the official GMAT site, scores below 9 and above 44 for the Verbal section or below 7 and above 50 for the Quantitative section are rare. Both scores are on a fixed scale.

Against each of these scores - Verbal, Quantitative and Total, the report also mentions a percentile value. For example, if your percentile in the Quantitative section is mentioned as 93 it means that 93% of the test takers who have taken GMAT have a score below yours in the quantitative section.

Analytical Writing Assessment Score

Analytical Writing Assesment scores are computed separately from the scores for the multiple-choice sections of the test and have no effect on the scores of the multiple choice part. Scores for the AWA section range from 0 to 6 in half-point intervals.

The score presented is an average of the scores in the two writing assesment exercises - issue analysis and argument analysis.

Each of your essays in the AWA section will be given two, independent ratings, one of which may be performed by what GMAC and ETS call as the E-rater. E-rater is a computer system that evaluates your essay on more than 50 structural and linguistic features. If the ratings given by the two independent sources differ by more than one point, another evaluation by an expert reader is done to resolve the discrepancy and determine the final score.

According to the official GMAT website, readers who evaluate your essays are trained to be sensitive and fair in evaluating the responses of examinees whose first language is not English.

Time taken to get your scores and validity

Your unofficial GMAT scores are available as soon as you take the test. This will contain your scores on the multiple-choice sections - viz., the quantitative and verbal sections. It will contain all the details including your scaled score in the both the sections out of 60, your percentile in the respective sections and your overall score on a scale of 200 to 800 and the overall percentile.

The official scores which include your AWA scores will be sent by mail to you in two to three weeks time.

Most business schools and colleges require that a candidate has a GMAT score that is not more than 5 years old. In some cases, they might require you to produce GMAT scores that are not more than 3 years old.