Re: Quant Score - 60!
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10 Nov 2020, 07:53
The discussion suggests that scaled scores from 52-60 are "reserved for future use". That's the opposite of how I'd put it. Those scores are a legacy of historical use. The predecessor of the GMAT (going back about six decades) used scoring scales from 0-60, where 30 was average, and where 10 points was one standard deviation. On the first version of the GMAT, scores of 2 or 59 were possible.
I'm not sure when scaled scores were capped at 51 (it was more than fifteen years ago for sure), but I'd bet they put a ceiling on scores because the test just doesn't contain enough questions to reliably differentiate among test takers outside the 6-51 range. The GMAT is a short test, and it contains just enough questions to produce a margin of error the test designers find acceptable. If the test wanted to extend the scoring range to something like 0-60, it would need to contain more questions, and they've been trying to make the GMAT shorter, not longer, in recent years. When you also consider the logistical problems with changing the score range (making new test scores comparable with old ones, designing enough questions in the Q51-Q60 difficulty range to differentiate among test takers in that range), and the dubious value in doing so (when every MBA program accepts people with Q48 scores, how much do they care about the difference between a Q53 and a Q57?), I'd be surprised if the current 6-51 score range was changed in the future. But I have no concrete information about GMAC's plans one way or the other, so I suppose anything's possible.