Disappointed but no retake. biased GMAT

I scored 110 on Toefl iBT so I have a good level of English.

The way GMAT composes the Verbal section questions makes it virtually impossible for a non-native to learn the "correct" (read "GMAT") English in a rational time frame. The European schools seem to not really care about GMAT and those who do mainly focus on the Quant section and only ask for a 50% on Verbal. And there must be a good reason for that. I think this only proves that Verbal is unfair towards non-natives and doesn't really test what it's supposed to test, logic.

On top of that you can also add that when you start Verbal, you've been there for 2+ hours so you can't even think straight anymore and this is when the most non-intuitive section for a non-native comes in. Just one more rock to your neck to drag you score further down!..

I am not interested in an MBA in US btw.

"Good" English doesn't mean proficient English. The Verbal portion of the GMAT is called "Verbal" for a reason.

I don't think the GMAT Verbal is that impossible for a non-native speaker to conquer. Plenty of non-native speakers on this forum have scored at least the 95th percentile in the Verbal portion. In fact, a large percentage of 99th percentile GMAT scorers are non-native speakers. I remember reading somewhere that the US and India are the two countries that contribute the most 99th percentile GMAT scores.

Being non-native may be disadvantageous, but it certainly doesn't preclude GMAT test takers from doing very well on the Verbal portion with the right study methods.

Ok, but am I applying to a PhD in Literature or Creative Writing?

What do I need a proficient level of English for? An advanced level is more than enough to succeed in the business environment. Nobody will refuse a deal with your company because your employees don't use comparisons correctly nor will your company buy the wrong company because the CEO didn't understand what "it" modifier was referring to in the proposal letter. Do you know what I mean?..

As I said I'm not affected by Verbal section, it's irrelevant for my application, so I'm not unloading my frustration here or something.

But I am 100% against selection criteria that automatically put millions of people in a disadvantage they can't overcome and benefits millions of others! How long does it take to become "proficient"? With a job, family, kids and Quant section?.. Years? A whole lifetime?

How schools use the GMAT depends on the school, not the exam maker. If an MBA admission committee agrees that a prospective candidate should be able to understand scientific articles, so be it. You don't need a PhD to understand these articles. Being a good reader is sufficient, and being able to read is quite an important skill for a business person.

If you really think the GMAT is unfair for you, give the GRE a try.

As I said there are tons of exams that specifically test your ability to understand stuff in English such as toefl, ielts and many others, so GMAT is no meant to test your understanding of something written in English, it's meant to be a logic test or am I wrong on this? CR tests your logic and I think it's a good section in Verbal.

But RC and specially SC clearly benefit those with an advanced native-level English and it's very hard to get to that level of English in just a few weeks\months, so you are being tested on something you can't learn unless you are born "in the right place" this is what I want to convey here.

The TOEFL and the IELTS are meant to test your minimum level of English skills. MBA English is on a totally different level. There is a lot of reading and writing in an MBA program, as you will see. The level of reading and writing skills tested by these ESL tests is no match for that needed for an MBA program. And if I remember correctly, these two tests do have reading comprehension passages on science as well.

Non-native speakers can, and do perform very well on the GMAT. Why don't you look around the forum and see what advice the non-native high scorers have?

Do you think you would do better on the GRE? If so, give it a try.

Those who score 750 are the ones who write testimonials, the rest are the 99% who can't pass 650 because of verbal and they will not write their stories here, so those "success" tales are exceptions. I've been in this forum for many months so I know what I talking about.

I am not interested in GRE, all my study is focused on GMAT and I am interested in the quantitative section of it. Quant is respected among European Universities and I want to take it.

And can you please stop using "if it doesn't work for you" formulation? It's not only not working for me it's not working for thousands of test-takers including natives btw. Maybe you didn't notice that I didn't start this thread. The first post is not mine.

Read the article on poets and quants on it. https://poetsandquants.com/2013/08/16/wh ... l-lagging/

I disagree with the opinions shared in this post.
To begin with, I am a non-native English speaker as well, but I am much stronger on the verbal part than on the quant section. It is not impossible for a non-native speaker to score well in the verbal section of the GMAT. SC is my absolute favorite part of the GMAT and I don't think the SC questions on the GMAT are all that difficult. RC - yes I agree. Some passages are just ridiculously boring because of the subject. I don't care for topics about natural sciences either.

To be honest, I don't find it fair either that my quant score gets compared to the quant score of an Indian engineer who is perfect in Math. I don't have an engineering background and therefore I don't think my quant part should be compared to those people who do.

Yes, everyone who plans on getting an advanced degree at a university in an English-speaking country should be very proficient in the language regardless of whether you get a PhD in English literature or "just" an MBA.

Sadly, business schools don't value the verbal score enough and focus too much on the quant score. This is just my humble opinion.

Being able to do geometry stuff says absolutely nothing about someone's success in business schools. Most of the math stuff tested on the GMAT is completely useless for an MBA. I am almost done with my MBA and the only thing I ever needed was stats stuff which unfortunately is only a very small part on the GMAT.

It does take a very long time to become proficient in a foreign language. Ideally you would live in an environment where English is spoken on a daily basis (by native language speakers)
....
but to be honest. I have also met MANY native language speakers who don't know English grammar rules very well.
Being born in an English speaking country is not a guarantee for scoring high on the verbal part of the GMAT.

The GMAT, believe it or not, does a ton of analysis and research into whether their questions are biased or not. The verbal is ridiculous for native speakers as well, and can work as a double edged sword. GMAT verbal will definitely be easier for a native English speaker, but foreigners who learn english from the ground up may actually do better in some instances, a common occurence in the world of standardized tests. I mean Chinese students and Indian students inflate SAT scores across the board, and often score higher on verbal than their native English-tounged peers; I would be hard-pressed to find U.S GMAT averages (even for verbal) to be higher than every other country. Because native speakers use English constantly and hardly stick to grammar or GMAT conventions, the GMAT is quite tough on English speakers as well. Most high level SC specifically exploits this reality, making trap choices that seem to follow everyday use and sounds lovely to the ear. Non-native speakers could have a slight advantage because they are not as "brainwashed" by everyday English usage. Especially with email and texting these days, most people have terrible grammar and to an extent where your familiarity with English is a hurdle. In any case, the GMAT uses data to determine whether certain questions favor English speakers over non-native by looking at correct response rates between countries. That's why the GMAT even has experimental questions to see if potential future questions might be biased. By the way the SAT was criticized back in the day for similar reasons. Many claimed the SATs were written in a way that favored rich, upper class students over poor, lower class students. Specifically, the SAT used a lot of vocabulary you wouldn't know unless you grew up quite affluent- for example they would use words like 'Regatta' which you likely wouldnt learn from studying SAT materials but would know if your parents owned a yacht. The point is standardized tests are constantly under extreme scrutiny, and the GMAT goes to great lengths to deliver a fair test. I mean these guys rake in $250 per exam and most people take the exam a few times, not to mention the other exams they administer. What else are they going to spend all that money on other than making new questions and R&D? Best bet is to just buckle down and put the time in. The GMAT is by far the hardest exam I ever took, and I probably put in over 1000+ legit hours of studying to get the score I wanted. You will get there! Don't start defeating yourself with the idea that the GMAT is biased, because you may start thinking there's no way I can do well. I scored a 720 first time, wanted a higher score, but actually scored a 690 the second time because I started to think the GMAT was too hard, and since I havent been in school for so long, there's no way I could break 750. Just gotta do it though. As Henry Ford said (even though he sucks), "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't- you're right."

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The point is, can you self-teach English in a reasonable time, say 250 hours, to get to V40 (because V40 can get you the 700+ score if you get at least Q47) not being a native speaker? It is true that GMAT has traps that "sound well" but the 600-level questions are a piece of cake of a native because they don't use those traps, so that's why I say that if you are native you have a V35 guaranteed with minimum effort. Just use your ear and you are done. If you are non-native you have to work you behind off just to get to V35. And V35 will never get you to a 700 even with Q51.

Quant is the section that can be learned up to a Q47 level by virtually anyone without private tuition and it means that this section is fair! So this should be the section that weights most heavily on your score. Can anyone learn English to get say a V45? Haha yes, dream on!.. If you are a native you stand a chance, if you are not you will struggle to V35, not to even mention V45+. However Verbal is the section that weights the most on your final score.

So is it fair to give so much weight to a section that clearly favor natives? Why not give more weight to Quant section that is way more accessible for learning regardless of you background?

Math is a universal language and it is used on a very rudimentary level to test logic on GMAT as long as you are able to read the basic math, you understand the question, and after it's a matter of logic. Verbal is used on a "quantum physics" level, you must be very good at English to be able to understand the question! So how can GMAC expect someone to bring their English level up by enough in order to compete with natives?

It's the same as Quant section would have differential calculus and some crazy subatomic particle stuff that would clearly benefit people from physics, engineering, etc. It would become a math test and not a logic test. Right now Verbal is an English test and not a logic test. And any English test benefits the natives. And of course there are exceptions, some Indian kid gets a 780 and a Russian gets 760, but what about the other 1000 test takers?

Good discussion here. I have a TON of respect for non-natives who hack away at the verbal. In my experience, it is not true that a Q47 can be achieved by virtually anyone even WITH private tuition. Also, maybe you have a reason for comparing a 47q with a 45v but those are extremely different scores. The 47q is 68th percentile while the 45v is 99th percentile. So yeah, I agree that it's generally much tougher to get the 45 on verbal than the 47 on quant. That's not just for non-native speakers. That's for everyone.

My guess is that MBA admissions people do take into account that someone is a non-native speaker. I had a student this year from Brazil. Really smart guy but at least on test day he couldn't get the verbal past the mid 30's. His Quant score was very solid. All in all he ended up with a 710. With that score he was accepted absolutely everywhere he applied: HBS, Stanford, Wharton, and Sloan. I wouldn't say that is typical for someone with a 710. Was his success due to his being a non-native? No clue. But I would guess that top MBA programs are looking for some diversity.

Just to wrap up. I agree that it can be tough for non-native speakers to achieve the best of the best verbal scores. But, I'll add that plenty of native speakers are also struggling and that you don't necessarily need a 99th percentile (or even 80th) to be granted admission to the best MBA programs on the planet. Also, although it's clear that you disagree with this (and that's fine) I think the verbal reasoning is at least as important as the quant reasoning in terms of measuring ability. Is it unfair that the test is administered in english? That's a tough question. I'd say it's not but I'd be open to having my mind changed. Does this put non-natives at a disadvantage? I think you'd have a decent argument for that. But I'd argue that admissions people understand this dis-advantage to a certain extent. Will that understanding gloss over a verbal score in the 20's? For top programs, probably not. And, just throwing this out there: How else could the test be administered? I think anything "non-standard" would be very tough to implement.

Would it be better if schools could meet and interview every single candidate? Absolutely. Standardized tests are imperfect and there are plenty of people who don't have amazing GMAT scores who would be amazing MBA students at any of the top MBA programs. Some food for thought: Apparently 51% of the HBS executive MBA program is international students: https://www.hbs.edu/about/facts-and-figu ... stics.aspx. The number is 40% for Stanford's regular MBA program: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/stanford-g ... l-students. So non-native speakers are certainly not being shut out (assuming these international students are ESL).

Happy Studies,

A.

PS: I think there's a big group being left out of this whole discussion. What about native-speakers from disadvantaged backgrounds? These people could be extremely smart and capable but because of their backgrounds have a much lower level of english (and math) than more privileged non-native speakers. Should the test be adjusted for them? Should they get an easier verbal (and math) section or have their scoring adjusted? At some point you get to: standardized tests suck. There are people whose skills are just not properly reflected in the test results.

A few of the observations I completely agree and a few I don't

I fall into category of Non-native speakers, who are strong in quant and weak in verbal

1) There are too many posts in the forum, in which the non native students claim to get higher 700s with support from one or other test prep companies. It is not uncommon to find test prep companies awarding coupons (may be $20 gift certificate) to write such a feedback. Also I do agree gmatclub has checks and balances to verify genuine ones from counterfeits. But you cann't deny the incentives given by test prep companies to write feedback in first place.

2) I completely agree that CR is one section which does test 'reasoning' to its complete spirit and I do not see natives have advantage over non natives or vice versa. Its all neutral.

3) However RC is a different ball game. Here natives have only a marginal advantage. Let me Explain. Lately if you notice a good number of passages in GMAT OG are social science, economics, political science, history of certain development, the areas you will see more often in business school curriculum. You are expected to critically understand these passages and answer to the questions in B-school. GMAT is just a test trying to give that experience before you encounter b school. However I still do not understand why a person needs to understand topics i.e. Native American issues, Feminism, Chemistry, Geology and to that matter any other science topic. Experts ...any thoughts.

4) Coming to SC, I do not think grammar rules are that important, as long as you recognize the rules of standard written english. This section has both advantage and dis-advantage to a native speaker. You will be surprised the quantum of mistakes native speakers make when they put 'what sounds right' in SC problems. The non-natives work hard to get the sentences right. But here is one challenge to non-natives. A category of sentences known as "Rhetorical construction", which in other words known as common accepted usage of english. I m not talking about Idioms here, but the sentences

i.e. Can u spot the differences among these four statements ? They have completely different meanings.

a) Right now I am actually thinking about writing GMAT. (I am just planning to write)
b) Right now I am actually thinking about how to write GMAT. (as I do not have leave from work for next few months)
c) Right now I am actually thinking about GMAT writing. (in case you remember AWA section)
d) Right now I am actually thinking about writing for GMAT. (I am actually going to write a GMAT essay)

That may be a lousy example but you got the point. The test tries to trick you with subtle changes in meaning. As Non natives, we may or may not be in position to tell the difference. It needs a lot of practice to spot these kind of errors.

In summary, natives have a slight advantage in Verbal. But which standardized test is perfect ????

-SouthCity

I completely agree with you and firmly persuaded that this test it is just a test and is not an indicator of your intelligence or business acumen.
Actually an IBM manager who got a Phd in physics got a very low score on it. Is he stupid? I think not at all...

Read my post to get a better overview: did-i-lost-two-years-studying-gmat-or-i-didn-t-220854.html

I agree with Pepo.
If I didn't have such a super strong academic performance on graduate and undergraduate level I would definitely question my intelligence at this point because I can't get my GMAT score over 600.
But as many examples have shown the GMAT has nothing to do with intelligence or even performance in business schools.
I know many professors at my university who have done incredibly well with a low GMAT score.

My mentor who is nationally recognized in her field got into a PhD program with a 560. That was 25 years ago of course.

The GMAT may test perseverance, but most importantly it is a tool used for comparison that somehow is supposed to make it possible to compare people who come from different parts of the world, from different universities with different standards and different grading systems.

Agree with this, especially points 1 and 4. Why does GMAT RC cover diverse topics? Well, I think that MBA literature likes to throw around the term "well rounded". So it follows that the GMAT RC would cover a variety of things. Also, for the most part, the topic shouldn't matter. You don't need to know what some bacteria is in order to do well on an RC passage about that bacteria. Still, if your reading is on the weaker side then you'll likely suffer when the topic is foreign. If that's the case, you might stop "studying" and start working on your reading. Once you get that strong, the GMAT will be much easier.


Good point. You can also look at the GMAT as an opportunity. If you didn't do so well in undergrad or went to a less prestigious school. If you have a grading system in your country that makes comparison difficult. The GMAT gives you a chance to make a big impact on your application. This isn't to say that it's a perfect equalizer but it is one of the few things that you can actually change in a relatively short amount of time.

Oh - and there's so much of this "I scored a 740 after 30 days of studying" nonsense that distorts how people feel about themselves and their achievements. In my experience, really smart people are working extremely hard to achieve 700+ scores. Not 730, 740, 750... but 700. And that's with a tutor helping. Are there a handful of people getting terrific GMAT scores with very little work? Sure. But they are far and away the exception. I know that it's tough to do, but try not to use the GMAT marketing hype as a point of comparison.

Happy Studies,

A.