GMAT Myth?

[raghav2]

I would like to clarify something with you regarding the location of the GMAT test. Someone told me that the difficulty level of the question depends on the country / location you give the test.

Explanation: Since so many people in India get a score of 700+ all the questions in the GMAT pool in India will be a lot harder as compared to the test if given overseas. Could you please advice if that is true.

My impression is that GMAT has a global pool of questions and all the questions must be pulled from a central server regardless of the location i.e. your location should not have any effect?

Looking forward for your advice.

Thanks a lot.

[gokul_nair1984]

This is completely wrong. There is nothing like this whatsoever.

My impression is that GMAT has a global pool of questions and all the questions must be pulled from a central server regardless of the location i.e. your location should not have any effect?

You are absolutely right

[StaceyKoprince]

Yes, it is a myth that the questions are different depending upon the country. People taking the test in India do not only go to school in India with other Indians, right? People can apply to any school from all over the world, and the schools need to be able to evaluate all applicants against each other. The test is the same (well, not exactly the same - obviously we're all getting a different mix of questions!) - the test is valid across ALL testers worldwide.

[mohitkant]

Hi Stacey,

One query, understandably the pool of questions is different at different places during the same time frame. So, if you have a number of potentially high scorers (people who have been doing consistently well in verbal in their practice tests) not doing well on verbal on the real GMAT. Therefore, it would be wise to assume that verbal pool for that particular period is relatively tougher.

1 Month wait before retaking the test suggests that question pool would change the next time a particular person takes test... Are any of my assumption even marginally correct?

[StaceyKoprince]

understandably the pool of questions is different at different places during the same time frame.

No, actually. It's my understanding that they use the same database of questions in all locations worldwide at the same time. Yes, they change this database monthly (which is why they have the 31-day requirement), but it's the same everywhere on any given day.

Next, the test adapts itself using the same algorithm for every single tester and that algorithm doesn't change depending upon how other people did on that day or at that location recently. If every teacher from MGMAT went into the same test center one day and took the test, we would all still score in the 99th percentile (hopefully!). It isn't the case that they would rank us only against each other and that some scores would drop as a result.

The rankings are made against standards that hold for the entire pool of test-takers in a given 5-year period.