Advice regarding OG 12th Edition/GMATFocus: Quantitative R

Hello everyone,

I wanted to add some key points regarding the Quantitative questions in the Official Guide 12th edition. Out of the 404 questions, there are 150 new questions. Of the 150 new ones, only 88 are written by Pearson Vue, the current GMAT test writers, the rest 62 are from the old GMAT paper tests that were written by ETS, the previous test writers of GMAT. This last set of 62 questions is on the easier side, however these questions are still every bit relevant.

The main downside of using the OG 12th edition is that there is a significant overlap with the question pool in GMATFocus. Of the 88 new questions written by Pearson Vue, 40 are present in GMATFocus. These are questions that I have seen in the pool present in GMATFocus, it is not comprehensive by any means, but I am pretty certain that I have seen 90% of the questions in GMATFocus. So my advice is to skip practicing on these 40 questions, and that way when you take the GMATFocus, your scores would not be biased. I have listed the questions below that are present in the Official Guide 12th edition and also in GMATFocus.

Problem Solving: 2, 59, 73, 74, 81, 89, 107, 117, 148, 163.

Data Sufficiency: 19, 22, 26, 27, 28, 32, 36, 37, 44, 45, 48, 52, 53, 62, 66, 68, 70, 75, 76, 79, 81, 82, 87, 90, 94, 97, 98, 110, 121, 123.

(Note: If anyone notices additional questions in the OG that are present in GMATFocus, please let me know and I will update this list.).

Other than that here is the full analysis of the Quant questions in the Official Guide GMAT 12th edition.

Out of a total of 404 questions (230 Problem Solving and 174 Data Sufficiency), a total of 150 new questions have been added, 94 in Data Sufficiency and 56 in problem solving. Of the 150 new questions, 88 are written by Pearson Vue, the current writers of GMAT, and the rest, 62 are from old GMAT paper tests written by ETS, the previous writers of GMAT. Of the 56 new problem solving questions, 29 are written by Pearson Vue, the current writers of the GMAT test, and 27 are taken from old GMAT paper tests written by ETS, the previous test writers. Of the 94 questions in Data Sufficiency, 59 are written by Pearson Vue, and 35 are taken from old GMAT paper tests.

Problem Solving:

Total Number of Questions: 230
Total Number of New Questions Added: 56
Of these 56 questions, 29 are written by Pearson Vue, the current writers of GMAT and 27 are taken from old GMAT paper tests written by ETS, the past test writers of GMAT. The questions from the old paper tests are significantly easier than what one would normally encounter in the current version of the test. However, the questions are still relevant to the content of the test.

Source of New Questions:
Current GMAT Test writer Pearson Vue: 2, 13, 27, 28, 59, 60, 65, 66, 69, 73, 74, 81, 82, 89, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 117, 124, 142, 148, 149, 157, 159, 163, 164, 230.

Old Paper Tests written by ETS: 5, 18, 23, 24, 37, 40, 42, 43, 45, 48, 50, 54, 58, 68, 79, 83, 90, 91, 92, 99, 105, 119, 143, 146, 171, 197, 222.


Data Sufficiency:

Total Number of Questions: 174
Total Number of New Questions Added: 94
Of these 94 questions, 59 are written by Pearson Vue, the current writers of GMAT and 35 are taken from old GMAT paper tests written by ETS, the past test writers of GMAT.

Source of New Questions:
Current GMAT Test writer Pearson Vue: 19, 22, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 36, 37, 38, 44, 45, 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 62, 66, 67, 68, 70, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 87, 88, 89, 90, 94, 97, 98, 99, 101, 105, 109, 110, 111, 115, 117, 120, 121, 123, 124, 128, 129, 132, 134, 137, 147, 157, 161.

Old Paper Tests written by ETS: 4, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 17, 18, 21, 24, 25, 31, 39, 42, 46, 59, 63, 69, 80, 93, 100, 104, 106, 112, 116, 122, 133, 141, 142, 148, 151, 152, 162, 167, 168.

Cheers,
Dabral

I agree with you and GMAC has this bad approach of selling material that is overlapped. I mean, How can GMAC justify 65$ for GMAT Focus if 40 Questions appear in their Official Guide? No doubt, the scores on GMATFocus will not be representative of what test takers will get on the original test. So is/was the case with questions in the old Paper based tests by ETS as you pointed out.

Thanks - this is a great post!
Keep it up! Kudos


What is the overlap between GMAT Prep and OG 12?

There is good news on that front. Of the approximately 700 Quant questions that I am familiar with in GMATPrep, there are only two so far that I know are present in OG 12th edition. These are Problem Solving#199, and Data Sufficiency#164.

Now for my rant about the laziness of Pearson Vue and GMAC. They claim that the questions are in increasing order of difficulty. I have serious issue with this contention. For example, in OG12th edition, there is no way Problem Solving Question#142,148, and 163(all from Pearson Vue, although I am not certain because these were first tested in mid 2005, so it could be during the transition) are easier than Problem Solving 210, 215, and 218, which are all from ETS writers. The unfortunate part is that the writers have the data on each question that tells you what percent of the students correctly answer a given question, however they do not disclose this information. In contrast, GRE test always disclosed this information. So in summary, take the claim of questions being arranged in order of increasing difficulty with a grain of salt, it is only roughly true.

Dabral

For an analysis of OG12 in detail please see thefollwing link from manhattan gmat

http://www.manhattangmat.com/official-guide-12.cfm

Thank you - indeed good news. So, one can go through the OG and not worry about seeing dupe questions on the GMAT Prep.

hii
i have the OG 10 edition, can someone please tell me if it is worth buying the 12th edition?
which book is better to refer to???

Its the same problem in GMAT Paper Tests. GMAC is selling the set of 9 paper tests for $75, in which lot of verbal questions overlap with either OG or verbal review. Also, the quant questions in Paper Tests are 10 times easier than the actual GMAT questions. How can gmac charge so much for these outdated and repeated questions ?

Hello everyone!

I have both the 11th and the 12th edition and I was wondering if there is a complete list of questions that appear in the 12th edition only, regardless of whether or not they are part of GMATPrep or GMATFocus.

Thanks,
Bernhard

See here: gmat-club-guide-to-the-gmat-official-guide-12th-ed-85956.html

New questions are marked with a star.