Every GMAT test taker is awarded four scaled scores:

• a Quantitative score (on a 0-60 scale)
• a Verbal score (on a 0-60 scale)
• a Total score (on a 200-800 scale)
• an Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) score (on a 0-6 scale, in half-point increments)

For each scaled score every test taker is also awarded a corresponding percentile rank. This page explains how GRE scaled scores and percentile rank are determined.

Your Scaled Quantitative, Verbal and Total Scores

Your Quantitative and Verbal scores are each based on three factors:

• the number of questions to which you responded correctly
• the difficulty level of the questions to which you responded correctly
• the range of cognitive abilities measured among the questions to which you responded correctly

The computerized testing system employs a complex algorithm to account for each of these three factors.

Your Total score is based on your Quantitative and Verbal scores, which are combined (given equal weight) and converted to a different scale.

NOTE: The GMAT test makers have employed the same rather arbitrary numerical scales (0-60 and 200-800) for decades. These scales are likely to remain unchanged in the foreseeable future, and so older GMAT scores can easily be compared with newer ones.

Your Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) Score

You'll receive a single Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) score for both of your GMAT essays. Here's how the scoring process works:

1. Each of your essays is graded, on a scale of 0-6, by a human reader and by a computerized writing evaluator called E-Rater.

2. If E-Rater's grade for an essay differs from the human reader's by more than one point, then a second human reader reads and grades the essay.

3. Your final grade for each essay is the average of two grades — one awarded by a human reader and the other by E-Rater (or by the second human reader).

4. Your AWA score is the average of two final grades — one for each of your two GMAT essays — rounded up to the nearest half-point.

Test-taker Response Required for Score Tabulation

For each of the two multiple-choice sections the testing system will tabulate a score regardless of the number of available questions you've answered, except that if you don't respond to at least one question during a section an "NS" (no score) will appear on your score report for that section only.

For either of the two AWA sections (the two writing tasks), if you fail to key in (type) at least one character using the word processor, you'll automatically receive a score of 0 (on a scale of 0 to 6) for that writing task, and that score of 0 will be averaged with your score for the other essay to determine your AWA score.

GMAT Percentile Rankings

For each of your GMAT scaled scores you'll also receive a corresponding percentile rank — from 0 to 99 percent. Your percentile rank indicates how you performed relative to the entire GMAT test-taking population during a recent three-year period. For example, a percentile rank of 70% means that you scored higher than 70% (and lower than 30%) of all other GMAT test takers over that three-year period.

Percentile rankings are provided in order to help you, the test taker, and the schools gauge your GMAT performance relative to other test takers. Each school decides for itself whether to compare your scores to those of the entire GMAT test-taking population or only to those of other applicants to that school.