Hello, I searched but couldn't find the exact answer I was looking for.

I know that AWA and Integrated Reasoning don't count toward my total score. So why are these important? Or are they important?

Secondly, do Verbal and Quantitative sections have the same weight? 400 for Verbal and 400 for Quantitative?

And finally, do individual questions in Verbal and Quantitative sections have the same weight?

Thanks for any reply.

Hi a03b,

The AWA is less important than your 200-800 score. However, the magic number is a 4 out of 6. An essay graded 3 or below is "unsatisfactory." If you aren't capable, or can't be bothered to, right a satisfactory essay, application committees may wonder if you're the right fit for their schools. Anything above a 4 is great as a tie-breaker, but anything below a 4 means you should step up your studying.

As for Integrated Reasoning, right now, we don't expect most B-schools to weigh it heavily. However, that may change in a year or two once B-schools have collected more statistical information about how the IR section correlates to academic success. If you're not applying this year, you'd taking a big gamble if you let that section slide.

Verbal and Quant "having the same weight" is a very complicated question, and one that I can't fully answer. Both the component parts of a 200-800 GMAT score are graded on scales that theoretically go from 0-60, and that practically go from about 6 to about 51. However, the breakdown of the scores on www.mba.com makes it clear that these scores are not directly comparable, and the percentiles bear this out--a 46 is a 99th %ile verbal score, but only a 75%ile on the quant!

As for your last question, that is definitely a "no." Part of the way an adaptive test works is based on scaling difficulties. As you do better at the beginning of the test, you will "earn" the chance to do harder, higher-scoring problems later in the exam. However, while this is theoretically interesting, it matters very little! There is no way to tell the point value of a question, or even if it's scored at all (you will see experimental questions mixed in with real ones), so you have to treat every question the same.

I hope this was able to answer your questions--let me know what else I can do for you, and good luck preparing!

Regards,
_________________

Eli Meyer
Kaplan Teacher
http://www.kaptest.com/GMAT

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