What is a "percentile" ?



How GRE Section level adaption works to obtain your percentile




What percentile ranks?

The GRE score report also gives you the percentile rank for each test score. The scaled score raises the question if the scores you’ve got would be considered a good score or not. How do you compare your test performance with others who have taken the test?The percentile ranks are a good way to know where you stand.



(Percent of test-takers scoring lower than selected scaled scores. Based on the performance of all individuals who tested Between July 1, 2017, and June 30, 2020)


These ranks are based on the GRE scores of those who tested earlier within a three-year period. For those testing in 2016-17, the percentile ranks are calculated on the performance of those who were tested between July 1, 2012 and July 30, 2015.




Source: ETS




Standardized tests are used to forecast which students will be the most successful and obtain the greatest benefit from graduate education in disciplines ranging from medicine to the humanities and from physics to law. However, controversy remains about whether such tests effectively predict performance in graduate school. Studies of standardized test scores and subsequent success in graduate school have often suffered from limited sample size and present mixed conclusions of variable reliability.
Several meta-analyses have been conducted to extract more reliable conclusions about standardized tests from a variety of disciplines.

Four consistent findings emerged:

(i) Standardized tests are effective predictors of performance in graduate school.
(ii) Both tests and undergraduate grades predict important academic outcomes beyond grades earned in graduate school.
(iii) Standardized admissions tests predict most measures of student success better than prior college academic records do.
(iv) The combination of tests and grades yields the most accurate predictions of success.



Tests as predictors. Standardized test scores correlate with student success in graduate school.


This is also confirmed largely by the existing literature




On the other hand, several meta-analyses have been conducted to extract more reliable conclusions about standardized tests from a variety of disciplines. One of the most important was released in 2021 after peer-reviewed and the author did not find a strong correlation between standardized tests - particularly the GRE General Exam - and Graduate Students’ Success.



The answer probably is in the middle

Standardized admission tests provide useful information for predicting subsequent student performance across many disciplines. However, student motivation and interest, which are critical for sustained effort though graduate education, must be inferred from various unstandardized measures including letters of recommendation, personal statements, and interviews.



Source: Effectively using predictors of success for student funding - Texas A&M University
Standardized Tests Predict Graduate Students’ Success - Nathan R. Kuncel* and Sarah A. Hezlett (2007)
A Meta-Analysis on the Predictive Validity of Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test - Mohammad Hasan Razmi, Masoud Khabir, Shouket Ahmad Tilwani (2021)
The Validity of Scores from the GRE® revised General Test for Forecasting Performance in Business Schools: Phase One - John W. Young, David Klieger, Jennifer Bochenek, Chen Li, Fred Cline (2014)






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AWA section of GRE and GMAT. I have not found any chart which compares GRE's and GMAT's AWA section. Are these sections comparable? By looking at the percentile distribution GRE's essays are graded much tougher than GMAT's essay. Can somebody give me more information about the differences and similarities between these two AWAs.

I appreciate it!

https://www.mba.com/us/the-gmat-exam/gmat-exam-scores/your-score-report/what-percentile-rankings-mean.aspx#tab5



For reference...top is GMAT; bottom is GRE.

-Brian
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Completely I share your opinion. In it something is also I think, what is it good idea.

I need 15th percentile in verbal and 75th percentile in Quant, how many questions do I need to do in order to achieve that? Thanks for your information chart

Do you mean how many questions do you need to get right in each section in order to achieve those percentiles?

No one can give you an exact answer to that question. The way that the exam is scored is the first section of each type (Quant and Verbal) is used to determine the difficulty level of the second scored section of each type.

So if you do well on the first Quant section and you get the hardest second section of Quant you may only need to get 50% of the questions right in that second section to get the 75th %ile. So that might mean that you get something like 28 out of 40 correct.

However if you miss more questions on the first section you will need to get just about everything right on the easier second section in order to get that same 75th %ile. So maybe you miss six or seven questions on the first section and then you need to get 19 of 20 right on the second section. So then you are getting 32 out of 40 for the same score.

And if you miss enough questions on the first section then the difficulty level of the second section will be low enough that you may not be able to attain the 75th %ile even if you get a perfect 20 out of 20 on the second section.

As to the 15th percentile on Verbal. Well this will not require you to get even half of the questions right. In fact, you could really figure out which type of question that you are best at - either Reading Comprehension or the "Vocab" questions and focus your attention there.

And do remember that there will be one additional unscored section. This means that you will get either an extra Quant section or an extra Verbal section so that you will get 3 of the 20 questions sections of that type and one of those three sections does not count. So when we speak of the number of questions you need to get right keep in mind that none of the questions you get in that unscored sections count.

For example your exam might go AWA essay #1, AWA essay #2, Quant 1, Verbal 1, Quant 2, Verbal 2, Quant 3. In this scenario both Verbal sections would count towards your score, but one of the quant sections does not count while the other two do. It is impossible to tell which section is the unscored one so you have to try you best on all five sections.

Hope that provides the beginning of an answer let me know if you have follow-up questions!
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Are those percentiles still the same now or do we know if that's shifted at all?

The above post was quite helpful for scoring.

Yes, GRE percentiles have been updated for 2018-19:

https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide_table1a.pdf


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All above told the truth. Let's discuss this question.

I apologise, but, in my opinion, you are not right. I suggest it to discuss. Write to me in PM, we will talk.

Thanks! Great stuff!

Thank you guys for the insight

Thanks for this.

I also wanted to understand what is the overall percentile for the combined scores? Say Q161 and V157 , a total of 318 would be what percentile?

Also , what would be the equivalent per centile in GMAT for that score
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See this post

https://greprepclub.com/forum/the-gre-a ... tml#p42367

Regards

Updated