Bhavin Parikh

GRE Score Calculator: How to Predict Your GRE Score

Magoosh GRE score calculator

To find out if you’re ready for test day, you need to have an idea of what your GRE score might be. But where can you find accurate GRE score calculators or predictors? We’ll go over how you can turn your GRE raw score into a predicted score, with the help of ETS’s scoring system and our online GRE score calculator.

What are GRE raw scores? How does GRE raw score conversion work?

First, you should know that the scoring system for Verbal and Quant is different from AWA. Here’s how it works for each section.

Scoring for Verbal and Quant

The GRE Verbal and Quantitative sections are scored based on raw scores for the test. Your raw score is the number of questions you answer correctly. GRE Verbal has 40 questions, as does GRE Quant. So the highest raw score you could get in either section would be 40.

These 40 raw score points correspond to the 40-point range for official scores on the Verbal and Quantitative sections. Both of these sections are rated on a scale of 130-170 points in the final score report. However, your raw score won’t be exactly the same as your final official score. This is because ETS will adjust the points you earn for certain questions based on the relative difficulty of the questions.

If an above-average number of students incorrectly answer a question that’s on your exam, ETS will rate that question as harder-than average. Correct answers on these harder questions will be worth extra points in your final, official score.

Improve your GRE score with Magoosh.

In other words, your official score will be adjusted from your raw score based on difficulty. But the adjustments will be relatively small; differences in Quant and Verbal questions are pretty minor.

Scoring for AWA

The two essay questions on the GRE’s Analytical Writing Assessment aren’t simply “right” or “wrong.” So you won’t get a raw score that corresponds to a 40-point score range. Instead, GRE AWA essays are rated based on a rubric. The rubric’s score range is 0 to 6, and scores are calculated in half-point increments.

Instead of being adjusted for relative difficulty, AWA essay questions are adjusted for differences between multiple scorers. Each AWA essay is given to a human scorer. At the same time, the essay is also submitted to a computer scorer, ETS’s e-rater scoring engine. If the human score and the computer score for an AWA essay are similar, the final score for the essay will be an average of the human and computer scores.

However, if the e-rater score is is a lot different from the human score, a second human scorer will step in and give the essay an additional rating. In that case, the essay score will be the average of the two human scores. Your score for the AWA section as a whole will be the average of your scores on both the Issue essay and the Argument essay.

How to use ETS’s scoring systems to predict your GRE score

As you’ll recall, the adjustments that ETS makes to Quant and Verbal raw scores are small adjustments. This means that raw score conversion is a good indicator of the adjusted score you’d get on the real exam. To give an example, suppose you get 30 questions right out of 40 in a practice GRE Quant section. Based on this GRE raw score, you can predict a real GRE score of 160 for Quant… give or take a few points.

For AWA, predicting your score is a little more complex, but it can be done. You can self-assess your essays by consulting ETS’s AWA Issue Task, and Argument Task scoring guides. But sometimes self-assessment isn’t enough. It can be hard to look at your own writing in a clear, objective way. To predict your GRE score for AWA, get some assistance. A teacher, a study buddy, or a GRE forum can help you gauge your practice AWA performance.

Be careful, though. Any prediction of your GRE score should be based on repeated, consistent testing. Don’t just base your prediction on your raw scores for just one practice test. To accurately predict your score, take multiple GRE practice exams.

And be sure to take exams that are accurate to the real GRE. The most reliable practice comes from ETS itself. You can get two official practice GREs for free from ETS’s Powerprep II website. I also recommend the GRE Official Guide, which has an additional four practice exams.

How to use Magoosh’s GRE score calculator to predict your GRE score

As part of Magoosh’s GRE product, we offer an online GRE score calculator to help you predict your test day score. Using customer data, we’ve been able to build a system that predicts your score even more accurately than GRE raw score conversion or AWA rubrics.

We send a short survey to our customers after they take the GRE to get feedback and ask our users what their final GRE score was. We consistently receive a lot of responses to our survey. We go through all the responses and compare our customers’ actual GRE scores against their performance on Magoosh. Here’s a graph of partial results for both math and verbal.

GRE score predictor for Math
Magoosh GRE score calculator results for Math

GRE score predictor for Verbal
Magoosh GRE score calculator results for Verbal

Not surprisingly, there’s a very high correlation between students’ performances on Magoosh and their actual scores. This correlation is the primary basis for the GRE score predictions we give to our users. We also do additional analysis on the number and difficulty of the questions answered, for even greater accuracy.

How do I view my estimated GRE score in Magoosh?

Premium users of Magoosh can see the GRE score predictor on their Dashboards (see the image below).

Magoosh GRE score predictor calculator and assessment

We provide a 5-point range per section. You need to answer at least 50 questions per section to get a score estimate; the more questions you answer, the more accurate the predictor will be. And to truly get a a test-like experience, you can set up a practice test.

Click here to start using the Magoosh GRE score calculator!

How to Predict Your GRE Score: Next Steps

  1. Use multiple data points to predict your GRE score, including taking one or more of the official ETS practice tests.
  2. Take Magoosh’s mock practice test, and try the GRE score predictor to get an idea of your score.
  3. Get a better understanding of how GRE scoring works. Once you have a predicted score, you can find your corresponding GRE score percentiles, see if your predicted score matches your score goals for your intended university or program, and adjust your study plan accordingly.

We’d love to hear what you think of our online GRE score calculator. Leave a comment below!

Author

  • Bhavin Parikh

    Bhavin sets the vision and strategy for Magoosh, along with whatever else needs to be done. With a BS/BA in Economics and Computer Science from Duke University and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, he’s on a mission to change the way people learn and how they think about learning. Years ago, Bhavin played on several Nationals-level ultimate frisbee teams. Today, he’s our resident gelato connoisseur.

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