On the bright side, you don't really have to understand any of that. You only have to understand it better than 98% of the other people writing the test to get a 700. And, realistically, I bet a lot of idiots write the GMAT.
I was reading how its calculated and the scores are based on an average sample of 100 people over the last 3 years.
Regardless, your percentile isn't important its the raw score. Schools don't care how you did against all other GMAT takers, just against ones applying to the same school.
This doesn't bode well. "The overall performance of the GMAT testing population has been improving gradually over the last several years. The reason for this trend has to do with the fact that the MBA degree has become increasingly popular, and that as a result the B-schools have become increasingly selective in admitting new students."
I wonder how they get scores between 700 and 800 if you're only marked against 100 other people...
I've read that the mean hovers around 500, and the standard deviation is about 100. That means that 700 would be the second standard deviation, which is 98% of the population. 800 is the third standard deviation, which is 99.7%. So marked against 100 people that create this curve, If you score better than 98 of them you get ~700, if you better than 99 of them you get like 750, and if you score better than all of them you get 800. But that means only 3 people out of every 100 who write the test will score >= 700. I kind of hope my stats are wrong.
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I was reading how its calculated and the scores are based on an average sample of 100 people over the last 3 years.
Regardless, your percentile isn't important its the raw score. Schools don't care how you did against all other GMAT takers, just against ones applying to the same school.
This doesn't bode well.
"The overall performance of the GMAT testing population has been improving gradually over the last several years. The reason for this trend has to do with the fact that the MBA degree has become increasingly popular, and that as a result the B-schools have become increasingly selective in admitting new students."
Reply
I've read that the mean hovers around 500, and the standard deviation is about 100. That means that 700 would be the second standard deviation, which is 98% of the population. 800 is the third standard deviation, which is 99.7%. So marked against 100 people that create this curve, If you score better than 98 of them you get ~700, if you better than 99 of them you get like 750, and if you score better than all of them you get 800. But that means only 3 people out of every 100 who write the test will score >= 700. I kind of hope my stats are wrong.
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