How Many Questions Wrong on the GMAT to Get 700? (2024)

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Last Updated on December 15, 2023

Many people planning to apply to MBA programs consider scoring 700 or higher on the GMAT integral to building a strong application. Accordingly, one question many business school aspirants have is, “How many questions can I get wrong on the GMAT and get 700?” So, in this article, I’m going to discuss the answer to that question. I’ll also provide some other key information on GMAT scoring that will help you to achieve a 700+ GMAT score.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• How the GMAT Is Scored
  • The Numbers of Questions in the Quant and Verbal Sections of the GMAT
  • The GMAT Is a Computer-Adaptive Test
  • The Same Quant and Verbal Section Scores Can Be Associated With Different GMAT Total Scores
• How We Can Determine How Many Questions You Can Miss and Score 700
• How Many Questions Can You Miss on the GMAT and Get 700?
  • GMAT 700 Scenario 1: Balanced
  • GMAT 700 Scenario 2: Strong Quant
  • GMAT 700 Scenario 3: Strong Verbal
• What About the Experimental Questions?
• The Difficulty Levels of the Questions You Can Miss and Score 700
• Summary: How Many Questions Wrong on the GMAT to Get 700
• What’s Next?

Let’s begin by discussing how the GMAT is scored.

How the GMAT Is Scored

To understand how many questions you can get wrong and score 700 on the GMAT, it helps to understand how the GMAT is scored.

The GMAT has four sections: the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA), Integrated Reasoning section (IR), Quantitative Reasoning section (Quant), and Verbal Reasoning section (Verbal). The AWA and IR sections each have their own scores. The AWA score ranges from 1 to 6, and the IR score ranges from 1 to 8. The Quant and Verbal sections also have their own scores, each of which ranges from 6 to 51.

Then, the GMAT total score, which ranges from 200 to 800 in 10-point increments, is based on the test-taker’s performance on the Quant and Verbal sections. The GMAT total score is the one we’re concerned with here, since it’s this score that test-takers want to be 700 or higher. So, in this article, we’re going to focus on the Quant and Verbal sections, since your performance on the AWA and IR doesn’t affect your GMAT total score.

Let’s now discuss the numbers of questions in the Quant and Verbal sections of the GMAT.

The Numbers of Questions in the Quant and Verbal Sections of the GMAT

The Quant section has 31 questions, and the Verbal section has 36 questions. However, there’s more to the story because only some of those questions count. In fact, of the 31 Quant questions, only 28 count, and of the 36 Verbal questions, only 30 count. The other Quant and Verbal questions are “experimental questions” that the makers of the GMAT include for the purpose of testing the questions. So, your Quant and Verbal scores and GMAT total score are based on your performance on only the 28 and 30 counted questions.

Accordingly, for the most part, when we discuss how many questions you can get wrong on the GMAT and get 700, we’ll focus on the counted questions. However, we’ll also discuss a way to think about the uncounted, experimental questions.

Another key characteristic of the GMAT that we need to understand to get the complete picture with regard to how many questions you can miss and score 700 is that the GMAT is a computer-adaptive test. Let’s discuss that now.

The GMAT Is a Computer-Adaptive Test

As we just discussed, your GMAT total score is based on your performance on the Quant and Verbal sections. However, the GMAT doesn’t calculate your score by simply counting your correct answers. Rather, the scoring process is more complex, since the GMAT is a computer-adaptive standardized test.

A computer-adaptive test adapts in accordance with the performance of the test-taker. In the context of the GMAT, computer-adaptive means that the GMAT chooses the difficulty of the questions you see on the basis of your performance on previous questions. If you get questions correct, you see harder questions. If you get questions incorrect, you see easier questions.

So, why does this information matter? It matters because, on the GMAT test, harder questions are worth more than easier questions. Accordingly, a test-taker who gets more hard questions correct than another test-taker will get a higher score, even if both test-takers get the same total number of questions correct. Thus, the same number of correct answers on different GMATs can produce different scores.

As a result, our discussion of how many questions you can miss and get 700 on the GMAT is going to have to be a little loose. After all, if the same number of correct answers can produce different GMAT scores, then there is not a specific number of correct answers that always produces a score of 700. Still, we can get a pretty clear idea of how many questions you can miss and get 700.

Now, there is one more aspect of GMAT scoring we have to understand. That aspect is that the same Quant and Verbal scores can be associated with different GMAT total scores. So, let’s discuss that now.

The Same Quant and Verbal Section Scores Can Be Associated With Different GMAT Total Scores

You might think that, since your GMAT total score is based on your performance on the Quant and Verbal sections, particular section scores are always associated with the same total scores. However, that is not the case. In fact, the same Quant-Verbal breakdown can be associated with a few different total scores. For example, a Quant score of 47 and a Verbal score of 36 can be associated with a GMAT total score of 670 or 680.

One way to think about this situation is to see that a range of levels of performance can result in the same Quant or Verbal score. For example, from what I have seen, you can score 37 in Verbal (V37) with 18 to 24 correctly answered questions. An 18-correct-answers V37 is not as strong as a 24-correct-answers V37.

So, when we’re considering how many questions you can miss to score 700 on the GMAT, we’ll take this aspect of GMAT scoring into account as well.

Let’s now discuss how we can determine how many questions you can miss and still score 700 on the GMAT.

How We Can Determine How Many Questions You Can Miss and Score 700

The data we’ll use to determine many questions you can miss and still score 700 on the GMAT comes from people’s GMAT Enhanced Score Reports (ESRs). These reports both show the section scores of people who scored 700 and indicate how many questions they missed.

For example, the following two graphs are from the ESR of someone who scored 700 on the GMAT.

We can see that this test-taker scored 700 while scoring 48 on Quant and 38 on Verbal. We can also use the percentages of questions answered correctly and incorrectly to determine how many questions this person missed in the Quant and Verbal sections. In this case, the percentages indicate that the test-taker missed 7 Quant questions and 9 Verbal questions.

Now that you understand where the information we’ll use comes from, let’s go ahead and determine how many questions you can get wrong on the GMAT and score 700.

How Many Questions Can You Miss on the GMAT and Get 700?

There are multiple ways to score 700 on the GMAT. For instance, you can score 700 by performing at a high level on Quant and less strongly on Verbal. Alternatively, you could perform very strongly on Verbal and not as strongly on Quant. Or you could perform about the same on both and get a test score of 700.

So, to see how many questions you can miss to score 700 on the GMAT we’re going to consider three different scenarios:

• a balanced scenario in which you get relatively strong scores in both Quant and Verbal
• a strong Quant scenario in which you perform much more strongly on Quant than on Verbal
• a strong Verbal scenario in which you perform more strongly on Verbal than on Quant.

Let’s see what we discover.

GMAT 700 Scenario 1: Balanced

In our balanced scenario, you score 700 on the GMAT with solid skills in both Quant and Verbal by scoring 48 in Quant and 38 in Verbal.

ESR data indicate that you can score 48 in Quant (Q48) by missing 5 to 11 questions. At the same time, to ensure that this scenario delivers 700, we’ll go with 8 Quant questions missed to produce a solid Q48.

You can score 38 in Verbal (V38) with as many as 11 missed questions. However, we need a V38 that will reliably produce a 700 score when combined with a Q48. So, to be safe, let’s go with V38 with 8 missed questions.

So, for our balanced scenario, you can miss 8 Quant questions and 8 Verbal questions to score 700 on the GMAT, with a total of 16 questions wrong.

In percentage terms, you’d get 20/28, or 71%, of the counted Quant questions correct and 22/30, or 74%, of the counted Verbal questions correct. Overall, you’d get 42/58, or about 72%, of the total Quant and Verbal questions correct.

GMAT 700 Scenario 2: Strong Quant

In our strong Quant scenario, you score 700 on the GMAT by scoring a near-top-of-the-range 50 in Quant along with a solid 34 in Verbal.

I’ve heard of people scoring Q50 by missing anywhere from 1 to 6 counted questions. At the same time, we want to use this Q50 to get us to 700 with a V34. So, let’s make it a midrange Q50 with 4 questions missed.

Then, from what I have seen, you can miss anywhere from 7 to 13 Verbal questions and score V34. So, let’s play it safe with a 10-missed-questions V34 to get to 700 with Q50.

So, for our strong Quant scenario, you can miss 4 Quant questions and 10 Verbal questions and score 700 on the GMAT, with a total of 14 questions wrong.

In percentage terms, you’d get 24/28, or 86%, of the counted Quant questions correct and 20/30, or 67%, of the counted Verbal questions correct. Overall, you’d get 44/58, or 76%, of the total counted Quant and Verbal questions correct.

GMAT 700 Scenario 3: Strong Verbal

Our strong Verbal scenario involves powering your GMAT score to 700 with a 90th percentile GMAT Verbal score of 40. Typically, test-takers who score 700 with V40 score Q46, a 53rd percentile score. So, our strong Verbal combination is Q46/V40. Notice that we’re calling this scenario “strong Verbal” because, while numerically V40 is lower than Q46, in percentile terms, V40 is a much stronger score.

One challenge of this scenario is that how many questions you can get wrong to score V40 on the GMAT ranges from 3 to 10. So, we have to choose a number of missed Verbal questions from this wide range.

To make sure that V40 and Q46 will get you 700, the V40 should be a pretty strong one. So, we can go with the idea that you score V40 with 6 missed Verbal questions.

You can score Q46 with up to 13 missed questions. So, we can pair a relatively strong Q46 with 10 missed questions with our strong V40 to get a 700 GMAT total score. Thus, in our strong Verbal scenario, you can miss 10 Quant and 6 Verbal questions to score 700 on the GMAT, with a total of 16 questions wrong.

In percentage terms, you’d get 18/28, or 64%, of the counted Quant questions correct and 24/30, or 80%, of the counted Verbal questions correct. Overall, you’d get 42/58, or about 72%, of the counted Quant and Verbal questions correct.

Now, you may be wondering about the experimental questions, since you won’t be aware of which questions count when you take the GMAT. So, let’s discuss an approach you can use to deal with that fact.

What About the Experimental Questions?

In all our scenarios, we considered only the missed counted questions. However, notice that we also considered the percentage of questions you’d have to get correct. So, to take the experimental questions into account, you can use these percentages.

For instance, in our balanced scenario, you’d get 20/28, or 71%, of the counted Quant questions correct and 22/30, or 74%, of the counted Verbal questions correct. To determine how many questions you’d have to answer correctly out of the total of the counted and experimental questions, you could multiply the total number of questions by these percentages.

So, for Quant, you can multiply 31 by 71% to get 22/31 correctly answered questions. For Verbal, you can multiply 36 by 74% to get about 27/36 correctly answered questions. In other words, you could miss 9/31 Quant questions in total and 9/31 Verbal questions in total to score 700.

Of course, since you won’t know which questions are experimental, you can’t plan to miss a certain number of counted questions and a certain number of experimental questions. All the same, these numbers give us some idea of the type of performance you need to score 700.

To wrap up, let’s discuss the difficulty levels of the questions you can miss and still get 700 on the GMAT.

The Difficulty Levels of the Questions You Can Miss and Score 700

Whereas missed hard-level questions won’t hurt your score much, missed easy questions will drag your score down significantly. So, in all our scenarios, even in the strong Quant scenario in which the Verbal score we used, V34, is not particularly high, the missed questions we’re talking about are mostly hard questions and some medium questions.

In other words, if you miss easy-level questions, you likely won’t score 700 on the GMAT with the numbers of missed questions we discussed. In all the scenarios, you need to get the easy questions, and even most medium questions, correct to score 700.

Let’s now summarize what we have learned.

Summary: How Many Questions Wrong on the GMAT to Get 700?

The following table summarizes what we have found.

Interestingly, regardless of the scenario, the total number of questions you can miss remains about the same, ranging from 14 to 16.

Of course, there are other Quant-Verbal breakdowns to get a 700 GMAT score, such as Q49/V35 and Q47/V39. You can see many of them by using this GMAT score chart. Nevertheless, it’s likely that the total number of questions you can miss to get 700 in most of these cases will also be around 14 to 16.

What’s Next?

Now that you understand the type of performance required for scoring 700 on the GMAT, you can find out more about how to master the GMAT by reading this post on how to increase your GMAT Quant score and this one on how to score high on GMAT Verbal.