Difficulty of a Question

by **netizenrajesh** Sun Dec 14, 2008 1:24 am

Manhattan GMAT CATs assign difficulties by overall GMAT Scores (500-600, 600-700). My understanding is that overall score is a derived score determined by Verbal & Quantitative Score (Verbal 27, Quant 47 --> GMAT Score = 610). If that's the correct understanding, should not the difficulties be assigned by Verbal or Quant Scores - something like 20-25,25-30 etc to arrive at the individual Verbal/Quant score?

Please advise.

by **StaceyKoprince** Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:27 pm

There are two different scoring scales, two digit and three digit, but the two scales map to each other - the info is the same. We show you the scaled scores because people are more familiar with those numbers. For example, you probably have a general idea of how "good" it is to get a 600 vs. a 700 without having to look anything up. Do you know how good a 35 is on verbal, without looking anything up? What about a 35 on quant? (And, to make things more complicated, the raw score scales for verbal and quant are not the same - a 35 on verbal is not the same percentile as a 35 on quant.)

So it's just a matter of showing our students data that they can interpret without too much difficulty. :)