GMATPrep Exam Pack 1: Release and Initial Comments

The GMAT test writers have released the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1, which consists of two additional full length computer adaptive tests and are an extension to the free Official GMATPrep software. The cost of these two additional exams is $39.99. Together with the two free official tests that come with the GMATPrep software, students now have access to a full set of four computer adaptive tests. The screen below shows the additional two tests that appear in the software after you have paid and activated the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1. The software allows you to either choose the practice tests from the default GMATPrep Default Question Pack(free) or from the paid GMATPrep Exam Pack 1.

The Exam Pack 1 says that if one were to take the tests more than once, it is likely that a student will see the same questions repeated. My guess is that the design of these two tests is similar to the Official GMATPrep tests that uses a small database of questions.he exams in GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 are numbered as Exam 3 and 4. I took the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 several times and I first attempted Exam 3 and Exam 4 and then I repeated the two exams again. I found that when I repeated Exam 3, 25 of the questions came from the questions that I encountered when I first took Exam 3, and another 5 were from Exam 4. This means that there is very little to gain from repeatedly taking the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 because of the large amount of repetition. In my opinion, the best way to use the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 is to take the two tests once.

As far as the question pool that is used in the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1, all of the questions are from recent administrations of the GMAT over the last six years. There is no overlap with the questions in the Official Guide, GMATPrep, or GMATPrep Question Pack 1.

I installed the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 on both a PC and a Mac, and encountered errors and was not able to analyze the tests. I have reported this error to GMAC, and I will need to wait until GMAC fixes this error. At this stage, it is unlikely that the error is confined on my end, but that is a possibility as well.

So for now, the release of the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 is good news for students preparing for the GMAT, because it gives them additional authentic tests to practice and gauge where they stand in their GMAT preparation. I highly recommend students to exclusively use these practice tests for assessing their preparation.