Your total GMAT score is calculated from “scaled scores” from the Quantitative section (62 minutes, 31 questions) and Verbal section (65 minutes, 36 questions). Theoretically, these scores range from 1 to 60, but the extreme scores exist only to allow room for future expansion. Currently, possible scores range from about 11 to 51. These scores are meant to provide a timeless, absolute measure of skill. For example, a Quant score of 40 in 2006 represents the exact same level of ability as a Quant score of 40 does in 2016.
The scale might seem arbitrary to you. You may be wondering, “Why 11 to 51, of all possible scales?” One reason to have a scale such as this one is to avoid confusion with percentiles or percentages. If scaled scores ranged from 0 to 100, for example, a score of 70 might be confused with answering 70 percent of the questions correctly.
While the scaled scores haven’t changed over time, the population of test takers has. Quant performance has gone up over time, and Verbal performance has gone down. While Verbal section scores still follow a fairly even distribution, Quantitative scaled scores now skew high. In recent years, up to 12 percent of test takers received a 50 or 51 on the Quant section. Because of the shift over time and the nature of the population, percentiles don’t match exactly to scaled scores. As that fact indicates, there is a third way of slicing and dicing GMAT performance: percentiles.
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