GMAT Inquiry/ Debate?

[Impact]

Hello Everyone,

Although I've read through this forum occasionally while preparing for the GMAT, this is actually my first post.

A little background on me:

My GMAT breakdown: 520, Q 35, V 26, AWA 6

I'm 21 year old Canadian university graduate. I just completed my Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) degree with a specialization in marketing. My GPA over the final two years of my degree was 3.8. Obviously I have no professional full time work experience considering my age combined with the fact that I just completed my degree.

My specific question, which also doubles as a concern relating to the validity and accuracy of the GMAT, involves the discrepancy of my AWA score when compared to my verbal score.

I've always understood that in terms of my quantitative skills, I've been quite average (I expected around a 35 in the quant section). What really suprised me was a 26 verbal score which I believe was a severely inaccurate representation of my ability to communicate and comprehend oral and written english.

If you were to put yourself into the shoes of any MBA admissions council while looking at my GMAT results, would you not be somewhat perplexed by GMAC's ability to assess my verbal skills? Are cases such as these common? You would think that someone who scores a 26 on the verbal section would not be able to construct what GMAC considers a "perfectly" communicated argument.

I believe that GMAC has a leg to stand on when it comes to measuring quantitative skills, but a real weakness with the test in my opinion is its ability to assess verbal communication and comprehension. These verbal sections seem to cross into a grey area of attempting to measure some very subjective qualitative skills that should be virtually impossible to accurately assess. When I observe cases such as these I begin to ask myself how many exceptional applicants haven't been given the light of day as a result of the GMAT.

Does anyone want to weigh in on this? I would be more than happy to answer any follow-up questions that any of you may have.

Thanks for your time.

[jakI]

I do think that standarized tests in general provide fairly weak measurements of verbal skills--which in some ways, can not be quantified. it seems though that in b school apps and testing it is futile to concern ourselves with how accurate that measurement is--this is a task for admissions committees and gmac. for us, its best to learn how they are making their measurements, the kinds of answers they consider "best" and go from there.