Practice Tests vs. Real GMAT

[Bloomsbury]

I tried my first Kaplan CAT test on the cd rom, and I got a miserable 540........ When I do the OG questions I got maybe 1 mistake for 30 questions. Is Kaplan CAT thougher than the actual test ?

[scorpion.ks]

Originally Posted by Bloomsbury

I tried my first Kaplan CAT test on the cd rom, and I got a miserable 540........ When I do the OG questions I got maybe 1 mistake for 30 questions. Is Kaplan CAT thougher than the actual test ?

Yes they are. 100 points less than Gmatprep or RealGmat.

Actual - 690 - 50(Q) and 33(V) - 29/5/2008

BTW my verbal was really bad from day 1. Although I did all the questions in OG and Verbal workout book from ETS, I just saw little improvement aound 2-4 points in verbal over the 2 months period of my practice. I dont think anyone should work out the everything in ETS textbooks, as I got only 10% of the questions in the workbook wrong and I used to complete them on time too, within 1min 45 sec. I suggest you should work on the last 15-20 as I have found them to be either tricky or time consuming. Other questions are so straight forward, it just boosts false hopes.

I did very little work in quant as that was always my strength, and it paid off
Here is my list of practice tests. Please note only verbal score gives you better estimate, incase you are weak in Verbal like I am.

10/5-18/5 Quant bundle in mba.com-1,2,3 47-51 decent tricky questions

21/5 Kaplan-1 600 29 (v) Very tough , 50 (q)
21/5 800-1 630 30 Very tough, 47
22/5 800-2 29 Very tough, n/a, did not do it
24/5 800-3 31 Very tough, n/a
24/5 800-4 38 easy, n/a
25/5 800-5 49 easy, n/a
26/5 Kaplan-2 640 32 Very tough 50
26/5 Kaplan-3 630 30 Very tough 50
27/5 Manhattan GMAT free sample 710 36 Easy 50 Lengthy calculations but none tricky

28/7(freaked me out)
Latest GMAT prep from mba .com-1
650 32(v) Very tough 47(q) answered first 2 out of 5 wrong
28/7Latest GMAT prep from mba .com-2
660 28 Very tough 49


After the last two I definitely thought I will have to rewrite, as the college I am applying has a median score of 680. Hence I was much calmer when I went to the exam. Maybe that helped me in improving my quant score by 1 extra point.
Few observations, incase you are still looking for answers on these points:

• If you notice my verbal score in GMATprep is 32 and 28, but I had 17 wrong in the first one and 13 wrong in the second. In the first one I took my own time solving (even over 2 mins) hence could not complete the last 7 questions and just clicked on a random answers, before the clock stopped. But I thought I should try and gear up for the second one which resulted in getting the first 3 answers wrong, although I completed the test with a minute remaining. So you notice first few are very important
• I suggest you should buy the Quant bundle of 3 available in mba.com. Those are not complete tests but only 24 timed questions each. But they had some good questions. By good questions I mean either lengthy questions in DS and PS or trick questions in DS.
• In Quant exams whenever I got 50 I have noticed that I had exactly 10 questions wrong in the latter half of the examinations. Not sure if its just a coincidence.
• 1 extra scaled score in quant gets you 10 points in total, but 2 extra scaled score in verbal gets you the same 10 points. So if you are hitting for the 700s, your priority should be quant. Atleast come within 47-49.
• I found the reading material in 800score(I think its free) very useful for verbal.
• Again in final exam I ran out of time in verbal and randomely answered last 3 before the time ran out.

I am saticfied with this score, as this is sufficient to get me into the course and college I desire.
All the best to you all

[mannu08]

@Sai: thanks for briefing you experience.

I exam in on 3rd june, just 4 days aways, planning to take GMAT prep test2 tomorrow.
Thuough I never get good marks in mock test.
Hoping to get good marks in real GMAT test.
Lets see what happens.

Good luck for your application.

[larbgai]

I have been doing pretty well on most practice tests, Manhattan GMAT, etc.

However, I just started working with the 800 score tests, to beef up on my math, and I am having a very hard time getting through them in time.

I can only get to about Problem # 27 in the math section.

I have heard some say these are too easy. While most of the problems aren't that tough, I find that they take a lot longer than most normal GMAT problems, and that attacking them by cancelling variables is much tougher.

Any thoughts on this? Should I be able to get through these tests in time?

To Larbgai,
I havent done all 800scores quant but the one I did had lengthy problems.
But, to answer atleast 34 questions 75 mins is sufficient.
The problem 2 months back I used to have was that I used to get distracted by looking at the time. eg. When I was stuck in a problem for over 2 mins, I used to get scared and loose my train of thought, and take longer.
The Tip for not getting distracted, hide the time for first 10 questions, then go back and check if you have atleast 50 mins left in the clock. Most likely you will have as you would not be spending time calculating the number of questions you can do with the remaining time, which is why I used to get scared. Hide again and check back after 10 more questions.

Before all the computer practices the other thing I did was was to practice around 30 problems in OG, keeping minimum(not Maximum) time limit of 1 min 30 secs per question. Take your time even if it straight forward, solve it like a school kid with all the strps jotted down. This way you will be sure to get the answer right and at the same time ease into your basic math skills of addition, multiplication etc. Remember you are writing GMAT not CAT for IIMS.
So as the character in H2G2 says 'Don't Panic'.

[Kaykunet]

Mine was

Kaplan 700/700/700
GMAT Prep 660/710
PR 610/660

Actual 650 (Q50,V28) on 6th march.

I was pretty upset when I finished , I aimed for 700.
It seemed that, for me, PR perhaps gave a closer score to real GMAT.

[Bloomsbury]

Tests give pretty strange results:

GMAT Prep: 640
Kaplan 1: 540
Kaplan 2: 570
Kaplan 3: 550
GMAT Prep: 650
Kaplan 4: 560

Actual score: 680 (Q47,V37)

I did well at the verbal, but made a guess for the 5 last questions on quant. I was targeting a 700 and more or less expecting a 680, it was in the lower end of my target, so I dunno if I should retake or not.
I have chances to do better on the quant part, but also to do less on verbal. Maybe I should wait for AWA scores.

[bolt_n_blue]

Actual score - 740 (QA:50, VA:40)

GMAT Prep-1 - 650 ( a kind of diagnostic test - 1 month to my gmat)

Princeton Online -650 ( 2 weeks to GMAT)

Kaplan
640
660
640
650 ( A week and the half before my GMAT)

GMAT prep 2 - 760 ( a week b4 GMAT.. and it was because of this superb score that i was expecting a bit higher )

Manhattan Online free test - 720 ( 3 days before my GMAT )

[mercury986]

I just took the GMAT this morning, so it's fresh in my mind. Although my score isn't official yet, I know if I don't reply now, I'll probably never get around to it.

I used Princeton, Kaplan, 11th OG, OG supplements, and the Manhattan sentence correction guide.

I started with Princeton because their book is the most readable and amusing - a great way to get your study ball rolling. The review questions in their "bucket 4" are quite challenging and seem similar to what you'll see on the actual test. Their practice tests are easier than what you should expect. This guide also contains a template for writing your essays, which I found quite helpful. I didn't spend much time prepping for the essays because I have yet to hear of any grad school that considers them much. Using these templates should give you a fantastically inconsequential satisfactory essay score.

Kaplan has excellent quantitative problems. They are somewhat harder than the official questions, but you need to know all the concepts presented here. I had major issues with their verbal problems because the answers were vague, relying on loose associations with the given text. I would not recommend Kaplan verbal problems at all. The reading comprehension passages were so difficult to read that I gave up on them.

The Official Guide should be your bible. Do every problem in all the books and do them carefully! The questions in these, although not identical, exactly mirror the format and complexity of those in the actual exam. Unfortunately, the questions in the practice tests are pulled straight from these books, so after a while, doing more GMATPrep practice exams has diminishing value.

Manhattan GMAT's sentence correction guide is excellent. Armed with its rules, you should be able to figure out all of the SC problems. It's about eight hours worth of reading, but it's well worth it.

On to my test results:
Princeton CAT1 online 640 (46Q, 33V) 2/18/08
Princeton CAT2 online 740 (50Q, 43V) 2/24/08
MGMAT1 online 610 (44, 31) 2/29/08
Kaplan CAT1 560 (36, 31) 3/8/08
Kaplan CAT2 580 (38, 32) 3/15/08
Kaplan CAT3 600 (50,29) 5/19/08
GMAT Prep 710 (48, 39) 5/26/08
Kaplan CAT4 660 (50, 36) 5/31/08
GMAT Prep 700 (49, 36) 6/3/08
Power Prep V3 730 (49, 41) 6/6/08
REAL GMAT 770 (49, 46) 6/7/08

Needless to say, I was BLOWN AWAY by my verbal score. I was sitting there in awe in front of my computer for so long that the proctor had to come over to put my jaw back on my head. At this point, I'm basically expecting the GMAC to send me a letter saying that there was a computer error.

Hopefully this gives all you future test takers some hope.

Thank you, TestMagic forums. You've made my five month prep for the GMAT very worthwhile.