How is the total GMAT score calculated?

Scoring in the GMAT Exams

GMAT exam scores are officially broken up into five parts. Each of your five GMAT exam scores is reported on a fixed scale and appears on the Official GMAT Scorecard. The Analytical Writing Assessment is scored on a scale of 0-6; in half-point intervals, Integrated Reasoning on a scale of 1-8, while the Quantitative and Verbal are scored on a scale of 6-51 each. The “total GMAT score” comprises Verbal and Quantitative scores that range from 200 to 800. The student might be tempted only to consider the total score of GMAT but apart from the verbal and quantitative reasoning, other sections are also equally important as the scores clearly scope out the areas of improvement for the student.

Verbal & Quantitative Reasoning Score

The final Verbal, Quantitative and Total GMAT scores are calculated on the basis of a complex mathematical procedure, which combines:

• The number of questions answered
• The number of questions answered correctly or incorrectly
• The level of difficulty and other statistical features of each question

The mean score for Analytical Writing is 4.4, Integrated Reasoning is 4.2, Verbal is 27, while the mean score for Quantitative is 39. MBA programs weigh most heavily on combined Verbal and Quantitative scores for admission. In this case, GMAT applies its algorithm to the Verbal and Quantitative scores, converting them to the familiar 200–800 scale, where the mean score is 552. Two-third of the test takers score between 400-600.

Analytical Writing Assessment(AWA)Score

The AWA essays are scored independently on the scale of 0-6 in half-point intervals. Each essay receives two independent ratings, one of which may be performed by an automated essay-scoring engine, which evaluates more than 50 structural and linguistic features.

If the two ratings differ by more than one point, an expert reader provides a third evaluation to determine the final score. The readers are exceptionally trained university faculty members who look for the overall quality of the ideas of the reasoning response given by the student for the argument presented.

Integrated Reasoning(IR) Score

Integrated Reasoning (IR) scores range from 1 to 8 in 1-point intervals.

More than one response is required for most Integrated Reasoning questions. The student must respond to all the questions to receive credit as the questions are designed to measure how well a student is able to integrate data to solve complex problems.

To have a better understanding of the GMAT scoring process, have a look at the table below

Please note that there is a penalty for not completing each section of the exam. If the students fail to finish the sections in the allotted time, his/her scores will be calculated based upon the number of questions answered. Therefore, the GMAT score tends to decrease significantly with each unanswered question.