So you started preparing for the GMAT and you are wondering, “What is a good score?” While there is no simple answer to the question of what a “good score” is, here are two ways to evaluate your GMAT score and assess how much preparation you should do (or if you have taken the test already, whether you should apply with the score you have).
Personal Best Effort
Your personal best effort means that you have done all that you can do to achieve your highest possible score. Defining your best effort can be tricky, but you must consider whether you have invested all the resources at your disposal to help you achieve your score. You will have to look critically at what you have done in preparation for the GMAT and what you could have done. You have to consider what you have invested (not just financially but also mentally) in preparing for the test and whether that is all you could have invested.
The chart below shows the correlation between time invested preparing for the test and GMAT score. 
Over a period of 6 – 10 weeks this would mean investing no less than 10 hours per week working on the improvement of your GMAT score. Assessing whether you have given your personal best effort requires that you ask yourself, at the very least, the following questions:
1. Have I done all the homework and attended all the classes that were in the syllabus?
2. Have I taken all the practice tests that were recommended?
3. Have I evaluated my results and identified specific areas to improve?
4. Have I made my best effort to learn and implement the approaches described?
5. Have I sought out additional help (tutoring, extra classes, email or other online support)?
6. Have I allowed myself enough time to learn, digest, review, and practice the things I was taught?
If you know you did not prepare as well as you should have, then it makes sense to continue to prepare and to take the test again. However, if you know you have put in all the time, money, and mental energy you could into preparing and achieved a score that reflected your best effort, then you should put the GMAT aside and work on improving the other areas of your application.
School Range
Given that the GMAT's only purpose is to help admissions committees (adcom) evaluate candidates for admission, a “good” score can also logically be defined as the score that doesn’t eliminate you from consideration at the school you want to go to. A high score is generally thought to indicate that a candidate possesses the quantitative, analytical, and verbal skills needed for the academic rigor of typical MBA programs. Submitting a score that does not force the adcom to question whether you can handle the work at their school will demonstrate that you are serious about applying to the school and have done your due diligence on the program. When asking yourself if your GMAT score is a “good” score, you should know the range of scores for admitted students at the school you are targeting. For example, consider the table below, which contains several of the top 30 business schools in the country.
If you had a GMAT score of 680 and applied to Stanford, which has a mean GMAT of 720, you would still have a "good shot" at admission, since you would fall within the range of applicants. If you were to apply to Kelley, your GMAT score would place you above the mean but would not necessarily make you a better candidate for Kelley than for Stanford. At both schools your appeal to the adcoms will be based more on your other criteria than on your GMAT since your GMAT would be in the acceptable range. Your goal should be to get a GMAT score that makes the GMAT fundamentally irrelevant in your admissions decision (which means that it does not raise questions about your ability to handle the work). If your GMAT score is within the range of the school you would like to go to, then you probably have a “good” score.
Understanding what is needed and setting realistic goals will allow you to make more informed decisions about your continued preparation for the GMAT or whether it is time to move on to the other components of your application. No matter what, you must realize that getting a good GMAT score generally requires a significant commitment of time, energy, and money. This is especially true for those who are starting significantly below the mean score of 535. You should be ready to invest all that you can in your GMAT score and business school future.
Greetings and welcome to round 2 of Akil’s GMAT blog. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts and advice on how to study for the test. It seems more and more I encounter people who are studying wrong (oops I mean incorrectly, since I need an adverb to modify ‘studying’ rather than an adjective).
First, to understand how to study properly you have to understand the nature of the GMAT. The GMAT is an adaptive test that tests quantitative and verbal REASONING. As such the GMAT is not a test you can memorize, since a reasoning test requires you to use logic supported by facts to derive answers rather than to simply regurgitate facts. Regurgitating facts will most likely only allow you to get a score in the low to mid 500s. If you are satisfied with a score in the 500s, you should just get a list of formulas and rules tested and memorize them. [My marketing department requires that I insert a shameless plug here for Bell Curves flashcards which give you a nice succinct list of the rules that are tested on the GMAT in a pretty package.] If you want to have a realistic shot at the higher scores, you will need to memorize the facts necessary for success on the test and then, more importantly, develop your ability to use those facts in context.
Are you Flashcard Guy/Girl?
Flashcard Guy/Girl can recite every rule when asked but cannot apply it when presented a problem that utilizes that rule in an indirect or unobvious way. Your goal is to first learn all the rules (you will need to embrace Flashcard Guy/Girl for a little while), but you must quickly transition away from reciting rules to a true understanding and application of those rules.
Let's run a quick test to determine your level of Flashcard Guy/Girlness.
Complete the statement below
Rule: |
If your response was that you cannot add numbers with exponents, you are only partially correct. You should not make it a habit to learn only things you cannot do, as you must also learn what to do instead.
If you said "To add numbers with exponents one must have the same base and the same power then add the coefficient of each number," you would be correct.
Now, do this question before continuing to read:
Example 1: |
If you realized how this directly connects to the rule above, you are on your way to GMAT mastery. The correct answer here is 7x^2 .
Now, let’s make the previous question GMAT appropriate and try again to answer it:
Example 2: |
Again this is a direct connect to the above rule we began with, but the additional twist that it hides the coefficients. The correct answer is 2x^2 .
Now let’s make it a medium GMAT question (the above questions are probably considered easy, or the steps required would be part of a more difficult problem). Try this example:
Example 3: |
If you were able to answer either of the two previous examples, but you were hesitant or unsure on this problem, you have some Flashcard Guy/Girl in you. You were given a rule and its application never varied, but as that rule was presented in a slightly unexpected manner you struggled, and that’s what Flashcard Guy/Girl does. The correct answer is B, because when adding numbers with exponents if your bases and exponents are the same you add the coefficients. Thus the question requires you to add (1)3^4 + (1)3^4 + (1)3^4 which can be expressed as (3)3^4 which is also 3^5 .
Proper preparation
To properly prepare for the test you must accomplish the following:
- Learn the knowledge tested
- Learn to recognize when/where that knowledge is tested
- Learn the tendencies of the GMAT
- Develop personal efficiencies
- Develop a personal pacing plan
to leave behind Flashcard Guy/Girl. Learn to understand each rule, not to simply recite
them. Learn to recognize each rule being tested. Learn to apply a rule to a given problem.
Doing these things will help you gain an amazing GMAT score, admissions to your top
school, and an opportunity to be at the helm of America’s greatest financial institutions
like Lehman, AIG, Enron, and WaMU.
Resource list
I’ll try to remember to add to each of my blog entries a resource list of products that will help support your studies. Of course as founder of Bell Curves, I’ll have a bias for our materials but I will always be honest about products I, and my students, find helpful.
- GMATPrep – the best practice tests, hands down, no question!
- GMATFocus – a GMAC adaptive diagnostic tool. It’s a great source of adaptive questions. I would only use at the end of my prep cycle.
- MathSmart – good basic math review created by the Princeton Review. If you have not seen fractions since 7 th grade and they terrify you, this is a good starting point.
Akil Bello
The GMAT Expert
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Bell Curves offers you more ways to prepare for the GMAT so you can achieve your best score. From our wider range of course structures to our detailed self-study resources – Bell Curves preparation options are designed with the working professional in mind. Whether you need only a couple hours of one-on-one tutoring on the toughest topics or a high school math refresher followed by a detailed GMAT course, we have a product to perfectly suit your needs.
Quite often I get calls about preparing for the GMAT and one of the first questions asked is “How do I start to prepare?”, invariably my answer is the same “Take a test." Before you decide to sign up for any course or tutor undertake any type of study it only makes sense that you find how much study you will need. Far too many people make assumptions about their scores. Whether you assume your score will be good or bad is irrelevant, it makes no sense to guess if you have the resources to find out the truth!
Everyone considering applying to business school (and thus by nature considering preparing for the GMAT) must immediately and without delay go to www.mba.com, download GMATPrep, and take a practice test under as realistic conditions as possible. This is the only practice tests created by the writers of the GMAT, and it will give you a highly reliable assessment of your current level of readiness to take the test.
Once you’ve taken the test you must spend some time analyzing your performance and understanding what you need to do to achieve the score you want. Below is some information that will help you understand your practice test score.
Your practice test score will give you an approximate range for your current GMAT score. Think “if I took the GMAT today, I would have received a score within 30 points of this score.” Based on this score you should have a strong sense of how much time and work you will need to make a significant improvement in your score (significant meaning a score increase that will get you from one range to the next, i.e. from 200 – 400 range to 400 – 480 range)
Consider the following when you look at the score results from your practice test:
| Prep Plan |
| If your score is between 200 and 400 | · Prior to attending a general prep course you should: - devote a few weeks to self-study in order to review the basic rules - consider hiring a tutor or taking a basic math or grammar class to focus on the fundamental rules (subject verb agreement, fraction rules, geometry formulas, etc) before taking a GMAT course which will focus on how to apply those rules · Start your prep today and give yourself a head start! |
| If your score is in the 400 – 550 range | · Review the basic rules and formulas that will be tested on the GMAT using either GMAT specific flashcards or books. · Take a GMAT prep course that will finish early enough so you can do some self study following the course and take the test two times before any deadline you are trying to meet. · Consider tutoring after or during your course. |
| If your score is in the 560 – 640 range | · Take a GMAT prep course that will finish early enough so you can do some self study following the course and take the test two times before any deadline you are trying to meet. · Consider tutoring after or during your course. |
| If your score is between 650 and 800 | · Review your mistakes and learn from them. · Take another practice test within 2 weeks to determine whether your score is consistently in that range - if your score is consistently within the range you want take the GMAT within the month - if your score is inconsistent, review the inconsistency and consider working with a tutor to resolve those inconsistencies |
| If your score in one section is 15+ points higher than your score in the other | · Consider doing some preliminary work in your weaker area before taking a class · Consider hiring a tutor to develop your weak area before, during or after taking a class |
Akil Bello
The GMAT Expert
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>> About Akil
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