The GMAT™ Focus Edition has a new score scale, resulting in a renewed focus on percentile rankings.
About GMAT™ Focus Edition Scores
The GMAT™ Focus Edition’s Total Score ranges from 205 to 805. All Total Scores now end in a 5.
If you’re familiar with the previous version of the GMAT, you’ll notice the total score scale is different. This change has been made to ensure you and candidates can easily distinguish between a GMAT™ Focus Edition and GMAT™ Exam score.
Total Score
-
GMAT™ Focus Edition: 205–805
- GMAT™ Exam: 200–800
Additionally, the GMAT™ Focus Edition Total Score is no longer based on just Quantitative and Verbal Reasoning scores. It’s now based on all three sections: Quantitative, Verbal, and Data Insights. Section scores range from 60 to 90, with each section equally weighted towards the Total Score.
Evolving the Score Scale
The score scale for the GMAT™ Focus Edition has been adjusted to reflect changes in the test-taking population, which has become more diverse and global. Over the years, scores have shifted significantly, resulting in an uneven distribution. The updated score scale fixes that, thus allowing schools to better differentiate candidate performance on the exam.
In addition to the score scale recalibration, the following key changes distinguish GMAT™ Focus Edition:
- The Total Score is now comprised of all 3 section scores (as mentioned above)
- The content areas and test constructs have been refined to narrow scope to focus on data literacy, critical thinking, and problem solving skills
- The scoring algorithm has been updated
- The new Question Review & Edit feature will have implications for testing behavior
Get an in-depth look at GMAT™ Focus Edition scores in our newest video:
Interpreting GMAT™ Focus Edition Scores
After receiving a GMAT™ Focus Edition Official Score Report, your immediate question will likely be how you can understand the relative competitiveness of a candidate with a GMAT™ Focus score as compared to one with a score from the previous version of the GMAT™ Exam. Because the score scales AND the score scale distribution have both changed, it is not possible to directly compare total scores or section scores from a previous version of the exam to the GMAT™ Focus Edition, as it would not result in a meaningful comparison of performance. However, exam scores can be linked and compared using percentile information. Let's review how to interpret percentile information next.
Percentile Rankings
Percentile rankings indicate what percentage of test takers a candidate performed better than. For example, a percentile ranking of 75% means that a candidate performed better than 75% of other test takers.
If you are trying to understand a candidate’s relative competitiveness, you can use the percentile tables below to show score distributions between the two versions of the exam by percentile.
Total Score Percentiles
The GMAT™ Focus Edition Total Score is composed of the Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Data Insights sections of the exam. The contribution of each section score to Total Score is equally weighted across sections. Total Scores for the GMAT Focus Edition range from 205 to 805.
Mean Score: 546.01
Sample Size: 866,6640
Standard Deviation: 89.08
Data Period: July 2017 – June 2022
Quantitative Reasoning Score Percentiles
The Quantitative Reasoning score is based on three factors: 1) the number of questions you answer, 2) whether your answers are correct or incorrect, and 3) the difficulty and other parameters of the questions you answered. Scores range from 60 to 90.
Mean Score: 77.71
Sample Size: 866,6640
Standard Deviation: 6.42
Data Period: July 2017 – June 2022
Verbal Reasoning Score Percentiles
The Verbal Reasoning score is based on three factors: 1) the number of questions you answer, 2) whether your answers are correct or incorrect, and 3) the difficulty and other parameters of the questions you answered. Scores range from 60 to 90.
Mean Score: 78.99
Sample Size: 866,6640
Standard Deviation: 4.5
Data Period: July 2017 – June 2022
Data Insights Score Percentiles
The Data Insights score is based on three factors: 1) the number of questions you answer, 2) whether your answers are correct or incorrect, and 3) the difficulty and other parameters of the questions you answered. Some questions may have multiple parts; you must answer all parts of a question correctly to receive credit for that question. Scores range from 60 to 90.
Mean Score: 74.41
Sample Size: 866,6640
Standard Deviation: 6.14
Data Period: July 2017 – June 2022
Score Concordance
As previously stated, the GMAT™ Focus Edition’s Total Score ranges from 205 to 805, while the current GMAT™ Exam has a Total Score range of 200-800. Because the exam scores are not on a common scale, GMAT™ Focus Edition scores cannot be compared to scores from the previous version of the exam. While scores of 600 and 605 may look similar, they represent very different performance levels on different skills.
If you are trying to understand a candidate’s relative competitiveness, you can use the concordance tables below to show score distributions between the two versions of the exam by percentile. You can also access the information below in our full concordance table documentation here, which includes an additional table that compares GMAT™ Exam scores to GMAT™ Focus Edition scores.