On a certain road 10% of the motorists exceed the posted speed limit

I would like to give my opinion on this statement:

Let's think about how the GMAT software decides the level of a question (simplifying the process by saying that it allots a level number to each question instead of a difficulty graph). The difficulty level is assigned by the people who take the test and not by the question setters.

You have experimental questions, right? They are there to estimate the difficulty level (among other things) of the new question. Say, most test takers spend 3-4 mins on a particular question and still get it wrong. The software is likely to assign it a high difficulty level. It doesn't matter how many steps it needed or the topic it tested. Some of the most tricky questions are from number properties which I think is extremely simple theoretically.

So what defines the difficulty level? The perception of the people. Why are combinatorics questions usually considered hard? Because people assume they are hard - they could be extremely straight forward but the moment people see 'how many ways' or 'what is the probability', they tend to take a step back. Similarly, function questions are usually considered difficult because of the notation but if you get over that notation you will see that those questions are usually very simple with a step wise process. Also, the answer to a question may be apparent to you with no steps needed if you understand the basics very well. To many others, it might seem very tricky and they might work on it for 5 mins before arriving at the solution. Therefore, when you think about the level of a question, think of how people will perceive it (hard to do without any data and/or experience in this field) rather than what you feel about the question. You may be very good at a topic and hence may feel that a certain question is simple but many others may not share your opinion. At the end of the day, opinion of the masses is what decides the question level (which implies a huge opportunity to do well by being comfortable in questions people consider hard).