How to Get a Perfect 800 Score on the GMAT… Sort Of
by Charles Bibilos, founder of GMAT Ninja
Back in 2011, I earned a perfect 800 on the GMAT. I don’t really think of it as much of an achievement, to be honest – and I definitely don't think that it’s an important qualification for the best GMAT tutors. (In case you’re wondering: back in the day, 800 was a perfect score on the GMAT. The GMAT was recently rescaled so that all scores end in a 5 , so 805 is a perfect score on the new version of the test.)
Even though I don’t think that a perfect score does anything to make me a better GMAT tutor, I’ve been asked about it literally hundreds of times over the years – by GMAT students, prospective GMAT students, random people in the GMAT forums, strangers who’ve encountered our GMAT articles, and plenty of others. So here are a few answers to the perfect score-related questions that keep coming my way.
Did you get every GMAT question right when you got a perfect 800 score?
No, I’m 99% sure that I didn’t. The GMAT didn’t provide detailed analytic data for test-takers back in 2011, so I can’t actually see if I missed any questions, but as soon as I finished the exam, I worked through every quant question I could remember – and I’m pretty certain that I missed at least one. Maybe more.
The bottom line, for whatever it’s worth: you can miss a bunch of questions and still get a “perfect” GMAT quant score of 51. (In case you’re wondering: yes, 51 used to be a perfect quant score. The test was rescaled in early 2024, and 90 is a perfect score on the current GMAT.)
But did you answer every GMAT verbal question correct when you scored an 800?
I think so. But it was partly due to dumb luck.
In all of my previous GMAT exams – including the official mba.com practice tests the first time I took each of them before 2011 – I always fell short of a perfect verbal score. I inevitably missed a few questions, partly because I tend to lose focus at the end of the GMAT, but mostly because I screw stuff up sometimes, just like every other human.
If you’ve ever taken the GMAT or the GRE or the LSAT®, I’m sure that this part will sound familiar: I inevitably face a few “coin tosses” on verbal – questions where I’m down to two answer choices, but I’m not terribly confident in the final selection. (Incidentally, if you’re down to two choices on a GMAT verbal question and you select the wrong one, that’s not necessarily a sign that you were “close” – it’s usually a sign that you misread something in the passage.)
But when I finally got a perfect GMAT score, that didn’t happen at all – I was pretty much 100% confident on every verbal question. That has never happened to me on any GMAT, LSAT®, or GRE exam before or since – including the times when I got a perfect 340 score on the GRE. Those GRE exams felt freaking brutal at times, and I was shocked that my GRE score wasn't lower in the end.
Most importantly, all four of my GMAT Reading Comprehension passages were bizarrely interesting when I got that 800. I still remember one of them – it was about a type of plant called dodder that apparently has a sense of smell. Amazing! Again, that’s never happened before or since: when have you ever had four legitimately interesting GMAT Reading Comprehension passages on the same exam?
So there you go: yes, I’m pretty good at this GMAT thing, but the difference between, say, a 780 and an 800 is basically luck – or measurement error, if you prefer the technical term.
After getting a perfect 800, were you banned from taking the GMAT ever again?
Yup. I received a nice letter from the GMAT Office of Test Security, informing me that I would need a damned good reason if I ever wanted to take it again. And I don’t have a damned good reason. “I’m a GMAT tutor and I want to help my GMAT students beat your stinking exam” isn’t going to fly with the GMAT test security folks.
My MBA.com account was suspended too, though the GMAT will still happily accept my money whenever I want to buy GMAT practice tests or other prep materials from them.
Did you study for the GMAT before you got A perfect 800 score?
Well, I earned the perfect score in 2011. I started working as a GRE and GMAT test-prep tutor in 2001, starting with a gig at a large test-prep company before I became an independent tutor a few years later. So in some sense, I “studied” for 10 years before I got a perfect GMAT score – and I’m still “studying,” since I work with GMAT students almost every day.
You probably don’t want to do that. Unless you want to become a GMAT tutor yourself, “studying” for more than a decade is an epic waste of your time.
Are there certain GMAT test-prep materials that would help somebody get a perfect 800 score on the GMAT?
It’s funny, I read a GMAT blog post from another test-prep company that recommended its own materials for anybody who wants a perfect GMAT score. Frankly, that’s ridiculous, partly because knockoff GMAT materials can never be as good as official GMAT materials – and partly because that particular GMAT test-prep firm writes especially lousy materials, in my opinion.
So, no: other than the official GMAT materials, there aren’t magical GMAT test-prep resources that will get you to a perfect 800 on the GMAT.
And more importantly: there’s absolutely no practical reason for you to want a perfect GMAT score, anyway. An 800 (or an 805 on the latest version of the GMAT0 will not help you get into a great business school, and I wouldn’t even argue that it’s a necessary quality for the best GMAT tutors.
So if you’re wondering how to get an 800 or 805 on the GMAT, don’t waste your time thinking about that. Go write an interesting MBA essay instead, or better still: go eat a tasty snack.