Résumé : The international CMS GEM collaboration is studying the feasibility of upgrading the CMS forward muon system by adding layers of triple GEM based detectors. After successful tests of small size tripe-GEM chambers in the period of 2010-2011, the collaboration has designed, built and tested full-size GEM chambers for the upgrade purpose. We report on results from test beam and simulation that were conducted to study the performance of the GEM chambers.© CERN 2013 for the benefit of the CMS collaboration.