Does the GMAT discriminate non-english speakers?

I agree 100%. The GMAT is not supposed to help you or teach you how to deal with subject matter, it is supposed to test you to see if you can deal with complex matter. And I agree with the GMAT's system of doing so. The content of the passages such as biology and chemistry are irrelevant because the passage is only testing your ability to comprehend complex subject matter.

I can see why someone who does not speak English as their first language would think the GMAT is bias. When I go through SC material I think to myself how the hell could someone who speaks English as a second language get any of this? I have been speaking English my whole life, and I barely get it. But can you imagine getting an email from your boss with misplaced modifiers and improper pronouns? It would look horrible. So once again the GMAT test is justified in its reasoning, but I can see why you would think it is bias.

You are the man! I got this idea after ~15 days of the preparation. I was feeling sick to start with. While reading RC/CRs, I used to be like WTF?... I just don't know what this means. What if I misinterpret it? Will I get all the questions wrong? Will all the time spent reading this passage be in-vain as I will get all questions wrong anyways? Even worse when in the 1st line of the RC you hit some unknown (for you but common among the native speakers) word(s) that you have no freaking clue what-so-ever. That's a very depressing scenario. And EVERY non-native speaker goes through that. Just keep chugging! It only gets easier and you start making right assumptions of these GMAT's tricky words, whose meanings are sometimes not that difficult to guess.

Anyhow, point I am trying to make is - GMAT IS A NECESSITY FOR MBA (period!). In the past couple of months, I can't even imagine how much I have improved. I feel good about myself. I have written few recommendation for promotions of my colleagues in last 15 days, and I can see a drastic difference in my presentation of ideas and my choice of words. I did an interview of a candidate 10 days ago and wrote a full review of the candidate (that's a normal protocol at our work) - In my 5 years, I have never written such a review; My CTO sent me email the next day appraising it whole-heartedly, thanking me and saying one of the best reviews he has read. What I used to consider flamboyant while reading/writing, is now soothing to me! I am enjoying the whole experience more than ever. No matter what happens, I know GMAT is teaching me many things and even if few consider GMAT biased, I praise it WHOLE-HEARTEDLY. In modern era, ENGLISH IS THE MUST!

My one and only advice - ENJOY the experience! Feel as-if GMAT is doing you a favor by making you learn the MOST IMP aspect of your being a professional (period!).

I do not think GMAT discriminates with non-English speakers. Gmat basically tests our analytical and communication skills and having proper verbal ability is one of the things which can certainly make a person better business person. TOP MBA programs require a test which gives verbal and analytical ability of a person. Both verbal and quant section of GMAT tests your logical ability and your ability to infer something from a limited amount of data. GMAT being a test of america naturally comes in english language, when international test takers are taking Gmat, they essentially want to take admission in the universities in which learning medium is english, so it is imperative that they know standard english.

GMAT is a test designed for native speakers. That the fact and nothing can be done about it. So it'd be better for you not to think about it and rather study to master the language.

I think that an admission committee tolerates below average verbal scores of international students. But they tend to look closer at your quant score. But I don't have this information confirmed.

I also concur agree with one of the posters who said that the level of English tested by the GMAT is essential for your success in the b school and for your success as a top manager in an American company. B schools just set ceratin standards for their graduates and by keeping those standards they preserve the prestige and great quality of their graduates. It's like buying a Rolls Royce - by buying this car you are guaranteed that it will be of the best quality. There are less cheaper car manufacturers that do not guarantee the same quality but in their case you will be buying a totaly different car. Top business scools produce the best professioanls in the world so it's no suprising that their candids should meet the most demanding criteria.

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there is nothing to add to Walker`s speach

do not give up

дорогу осилит идущий

Here interesting-insights-into-gmat-questions-from-gmac-93926.html#p722629 apprx the same topis is discussed. I want just to cross reference these two topics in order to add ideas.

That's something I could never understand. Language wise the GMAT is a much more difficult test than the TOEFL. Yet, international students have to take the TOEFL as well and pay additional money for one more test.

Frank1,

Thank you for excellent post! some things were really funny +1!

As far as I know (I've read this somewhere), GMAC will make significant changes in GMAT since 2013. Among the changes I remembered that the biology, astronomy, medicine and other sceince RC will be changed to economics, social, management and other relevant to business degree passages.

Another reason, why GMAT is going to be changed is GMAT may lose its positions to GRE test, in terms of $ GRE<GMAT, and nowdays more and more schools accept GRE as well as GMAT.

By the way, Frank1, my accuracy rate in business, economics and management RC passages is much much higher than in science/ history passages. I agree, that science RC "kill" non-natives.

By the way-2, here is another question: why verbal score outweights the quantative score in overall GMAT score?
I mean GMAT scaled score of Q40 V45 is higher than CMAT scaled score of Q45 V40. Why?!

Exactly, if you feel it's not fair, don't apply to b schools.

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Not to discriminate non-English speakers, but I think it is case-sensitive. I am also accurate in Business Management and Science. This must provide a general statement which tells that Science kill non-natives.

Hopefully Adcoms prefer a V39 from a non-native candidate than a V39 from a native one. Or maybe I'm lying to myself...

I would see fair if this is true. They should take into account the fact of not being native, because the Verbal section will be always much harder. Even in Quant section some times it's more complicated for us (word problems for example) because in most of the cases we should translate the text to our own language and it is easier to misinterpret some key info or lose time.

I'm non-native candidate and with a 102 in TOEFL, struggling to reach +700 on the GMAT (planned next week). In addition, I will retake TOEFL as this mark is not enough for my dream schools... Some time ago I realized that the most important factor on my application is my English level, needed for GMAT, TOEFL, essays, interview, etc. Having a very good profile, international experience, etc is not enough, we internationals need to dominate English language to be admitted.

I'm not saying that this is unfair, because is our choice to apply for an MBA in English. However, I'm only saying that they should appreciate in the applications the fact that the candidate is non-native.

rid

Rid82, the same for me, my TOEFL score is about 100, and I need to increase it at least by 5-10%. I angry about the fact that I did not visit US each summer (Work&Travel) when I was a student. Lots of my friends have better english then me, but most of them don't want toefl, gmat, mba, etc.

I hope everything will be alright! I am sure that the AdComs appreciate non-natives.

I have to say 2 things:

- For me, the GMAT has very little to do with aptitudes. It is all about english language.
- Being a not-native speaker, the GMAT is really challenging, so it´s more fun.

I got a 680 (Q50, V31), and a 99 in the TOEFL.

I will retake both of them in a couple of months. Im looking for a 110 TOEFL, and a 750 in the big monster.

It does for sure.
May be not for quantitative but for verbal CR and RC :
RC : it took me (i'm french), 50% more time to read texts.
CR : more difficult for a non-native speaker to understand nuances.
SC : was fine for me. i focused a lot on this topic. Always the same strategy and rules...

My results : 82% (660)
78% (47) Q
68% (don't remember) V
4% (2.5) AWA

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Ps : i'm confident that business school are aware of that and distinguish english native speaker from others...

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I have just imagined a funny example : "Hmm... he is non-native speaker?!, lets increase his gmat overall score by \(k%\) and then lets make comparison", No adcoms would rather look at gmat score of 670 and 720 and think "hm... his gmat is lower, lets look at raw scores .Q score is the same.... ohh, this is the reason, he scored lower because his verbal is not so good, these international students always score lower in verbal, they must study english better and then they will have higher GMAT scores".

I think for Adcoms, the fact that you are an international student is not an excuse of "not so good" english, this is just a fact, neither more nor less.

I don't think they somehow adjust and then compare the overall gmat score, they just look at it as it is.

Alex4444 your verbal raw score was 33 , see my thread "all gmat scores/conversion" (find an XS file).

Hi pkit :
nearly => i checked it and V was 34. If it can help to refine your .xls
(gmat was taken in april 2010)

it could be interesting to draw a graph : Q vs. V instead of your .xls (i saw one of this kind in a website, tried to find it again & never found it).

Alex

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