GMAT Prep CAT Verbal More Difficult than MGMAT CAT Verbal?!

Hi orid

All the best for the exam tomorrow. Hope it all goes well.
As far as you do not make major strategy changes on the test day, everything should go fine. As per the changes to strategy you've suggested, reducing the points to just brief bullets on RCs might save some time.

Hope to hear a debrief from you soon regarding your whole GMAT experience

All the best!

Cheers!
Sudish

Hi orid,

How did you do in ur real gmat exam.

Hi Roopmathi,

On the actual test I scored a 49Q and 37V, which came out to a 700. I was pretty disappointed with my Verbal score. I credit my verbal score to three factors:

1) Anxiety: I was so nervous I was literally shaking during the test. But who isn't nervous when taking the GMAT right? While being nervous is no excuse for your score (as everyone is susceptible to it), there is absolutely no question that anxiety does very much affect your performance. I think that confidence and ease of mind is extremely important, especially with Verbal. I've heard from a few of my friends out here in New York (and it seems that everybody out here is taking the GMAT) that they score better the second time, especially on Verbal, because they had already gone through the whole process once and they weren't as, well, scared basically!

2) My Prep: While I prepped for a solid 8 months, 5 out 7 of my practice exams where Manhattan GMAT CAT exams. On these 5 exams I scored between 95-99th %ile on verbal believe it or not. This led me to believe that I was better than I really was! I took the two GMAT Prep exams and scored V40 on both. While they were lower than the MGMAT tests, I still scored a 750 cumulatively on those two exams and felt safe with my performance. Looks like I was wrong!

3) Seating: I sat right next to the door and regret it. I will never make that mistake again. It didn't really bother me with Quant as it is more difficult to "lose your spot" on a Math problem, however it proved significantly distracting when trying to read CR or RC passages. I would recommend to be wary of where you are seated for the test.

All in all, I have room to improve and I will be taking the test again. I discussed some of this in another recent thread I started:

scored-lower-on-the-gmat-than-all-7-practice-tests-125401.html

So what am I doing now? I bought the PowerScore Critical Reasoning Bible and PowerScore LSAT Reading Comprehension guide. I will be taking the test again in mid-February and will report back!

All the best,

Orid

and that I sat right next to the door! Every time someone came in and out it was extremely distracting - not so much for Quant (because it's more difficult to lose your spot as math problems r

I took a MGMAT CAT recently (CAT4 took about a week ago) and found the Verbal to quite representative. Most people that have recently taken the GMAT comment seeing an increasing number of long lenghty (underlined) passages in SC especially those that test meaning, and whose Answer choices cannot be split. I got 4-5 SC sentences similar to those described, so the 700-800 level SC passages on MGMAT are quite tough, and representative of what the NEW-GMAT is emphasizing (according to various debriefs and reports). CR tends to have a few choices that are not as clear as GMAT PREP but overall i did not see much difference. RC on MGMAT involves relatively easy passages but with tougher questions (similar to their RC strategy guide - passages at the back). Compared to other prep companies i find MGMAT to be the best when it comes to simulating GMAT PREP. Veritas prep, has CR that is quite dissimilar to GMAT PREP or OG (my opinon) and Kaplan is much tougher (both content and scoring). MGMAT has scored me a bit lower then GMAT PREP (39-40 vs 40-44) and Veritas PREP has scored me a bit lower then MGMAT (37-40). I think the main point should be , whether MGMAT CAT (verbal) adequately tests the question types that show up, and the answer is YES, it does include those long underlined sentences in SC, Boldface CR, and Main Point/Tone of passage in RC.

Some excellent discussion on this thread.

The Manhattan CATs are about as representative as you can get without including questions from Official Guides (prohibited by copyright laws). We recently updated the grading scale to more accurately represent the score you might expect on the GMAT. The CATs are great to practice and benchmark your score, but remember that the most important aspect of the practice exams is to identify your areas of weakness so you can focus your precious study time.

A few cautions: don't become more comfortable with "practice" test questions than with actual "GMAT" test questions, understand that the GMAT is always evolving, and realize that no practice can fully represent the actual test.

People can get in trouble by becoming too comfortable with test questions from test-prep companies. These "practice" questions are invaluable for providing extra practice questions and teaching key GMAT concepts. However, if you don't spend adequate time working on GMAT questions (Official Guides, GMATPrep exams, GMAT Focus, etc.), you will find that these real GMAT questions seem a bit awkward or even harder than what you are used to. That can be a very uncomfortable feeling especially if it happens when are sitting down for the GMAT itself. Throughout your preparation, be sure to include plenty of Official Guide practice (in timed sets of multiple problems). Save the GMATPrep exams for closer to test day but consider purchasing the Question Packs to get some additional practice early in your preparation.

Recognize that the GMAT is always evolving elements of its content. The tested concepts are generally static, but new questions are constantly being created and certain areas of emphasis change over time. The most significant change we've seen recently has been the increased emphasis on Meaning in Sentence Correction. Meaning problems must be practiced, but because this empahsis is relatively new there aren't many good sources of pracitce problems. Many Official Guide problems are still full of idiom issues (which are being de-emphasized) and they lack any real meaning issues. Studying modifier questions and practicing "new" GMAT content (GMATPrep and Question Pack) are good ways to prepare yourself.

Lastly, the GMAT experience will be different than any of your prior practice exams. When you take the real GMAT you will be in a controlled test environment, you will be exposed to experimental questions, and you will be taking the REAL test! This means that your performance on the real test will not always track with your practice exams. You can't mimic the experimental question aspect of the GMAT, but you can make your practice environment as "test-like" as possible. Take your exams according to the timeline of the GMAT. Take all the timed breaks and don't take any extra. Take the exam in a single sitting with all the test parts. Take the exam at the same time of day as your real test (whenever possible). Report your scores to others to give yourself similar test "pressure". Perhaps most importantly, plan to take the exam multiple times, remembering the mandatory 31 day wait period between exams.

KW

Hi Guys,
I need your help in understanding how good a proxy are the MGMAT's scores for the actual GMAT.

In the last three MGMATs I have scored as below

1) Q45 V32
2) Q46 V36
3) Q46 V35

How bad/good are these scores? I am guessing, though not sure, that Quant is not a concern area however Verbal remains a huge block.

Please help.

Thanks

I would be interested to hear from other test takers to see how their scores compare. In my experience working with students, the MGMAT exams are fairly closely aligned with your predicted score on the real GMAT - the MGMAT exams are definitely within the stated margin of error of +/- 50 points. You have some good consistency with the quant, so my confidence in your ability is higher there. The Verbal score still has some variability, which means your expected score would have more variability.

You should take a GMATPrep practice exam as it's the closest approximation you have to your real GMAT score.

Remember that the huge value in the MGMAT exams is to generate assessment reports across multiple exams to see your areas of weakness. You will experience greater score improvement by focusing your studies on your areas of weakness.

KW