Correlation between Actual GMAT and GMATPrep

Question

For those of you who have completed the actual GMAT...how close is the actual correlation between the GMATPrep software and the actual GMAT? People say that Kaplan's software is the harder than the actual test but I find Kaplan to be less difficult than the GMATPrep software. 

Any thoughts would be great. Thanks!

pelihu · Answer

As discussed in numerous places here at GMATclub, correlation between GMATprep and the real GMAT is very high. In fact I would say that they are almost identical and the only difference will come with how you manage time and stress on test day.

Kaplan CAT has ZERO correlation with the real GMAT. The questions do not use the same type of logic and reasoning, and they completely miss what the GMAT tests for. The Kaplan software is less than worthless. Because it tests for things that are entirely not found on the real thing, using the Kaplan software will actually hurt you. That's what I think.

EZO · Answer

I totally agree with what pelihu said. GMATprep software tests are more accurate than KAPLAN. 
I took the real the test 2 months ago and I got 410. which is exactly the same score I got on the GMAT prep test 
My scores in KAPLAN cats were much higher. I got:
CAT 1: 460
CAT2: 520 
CAT3: 580
CAT4: 630

KAPLAN only helped me in how to mange my time in the test. 
Next time I will just use the GMATprep tests.

cmns18 · Answer

While i've read that there is a very high correlation, it's still not a guarenteed. 
My scores were
GMAT Prep 1a 690
GMAT Prep 1b 700
GMAT Prep 2a 710 
(I can't remember the exact breakdown but Q was 46-48 and V was 39-42)

Real GMAT 650 Q 44 V 34

Of course, the stress of the test, etc might have gotten to me but hear is the  wierd thing . On the real GMAT, I got an exact question from my GMAT Prep 2a. It was a sentence correction question and it was one of the final questions on my GMATPrep exam. Also, I remember it because I got it wrong on GMATPrep (on my way to getting a V 42). 

In the real GMAT i got it about half way through the test and remembered the question. At this point, I was quite excited because I thought "I'm in the V 42 range...I'm gonna get a 700 on this test"

I don't know what happened because when my score came up, it was not what I expected or even in my previous range.

I will be retaking the exam in a month and hope that my first score was sort of the bottom of my range and I can get back to my normal scoring range.

Nevertheless, one should know that it's possible to have some wierd stuff happen on the real GMAT.


P.S. What do people think of getting the same question from GMATPrep on my real test? Is this normal? Does this indicate I probably bombed the last 20 verbal questions to get a 34? What do you think?

josh478 · Answer

Just to add another perspective:

GmatPrep is very accurate. BUT, as a "rule of thumb" plan to score 20 points below your GMATprep on the real thing. This gives you a nice buffer zone. I scored 20/30 points below my GMATprep. At the lowest end of all my test scores (50 points below my best test score). Get your GMATprep 20-30 points above your target to allow for test day anomolies. PowerPrep is ok also, but if you do the OG11, you WILL get repeat questions. I score about the same on PowerPrep and GMATprep--steadily improving though

I am glad to say...

Hope that helps.

I am glad to say... Hope that helps.

necromonger · Answer

GMATPrep is the best indicator of how you will do in the real test.

mlohani · Answer

GMATPrep scores have high correlation to the actual GMAT scores. 

However, a few factors may change the relationship: 

1) If you have extensively prepared using OG10/11 and the 1000 series along with old ETS paper tests, it is possible that you may find repeat questions on the GMATPrep. In certain score ranges, getting even a few repeat questions may increase your overall score by 20-30 points.

2) If you skip the AWA section in GMATPrep and all the practice CATs, then you may not know how your concentration holds up towards the end of the test. Your test scores in that case will in general have lesser correlation to the actual GMAT score.

Besides, I have personally observed in GMATPrep (and may be in GMAT too) that sometimes past questions are modified just a little bit to tempt the candidate to use his/her past memory of the answer instead of solving the question again. In most cases, one or more answer choices would be slightly different, just enough to change the answer.

Lorenzino · Answer

Hi guys,
I did the GMAT last year for the first time and I was a bit disappointed when I saw 650 on the screen. On the Powerprep I got much higher scores so I just think it was not a reliable indicator of the score you get on the real thing.

Now I'm going to reseat next Friday and on the new GMATprep I got 740 but I still have the same feeling as with the PPrep, that it's actually easier than the real thing and that I'll never get 740! In the Q section I got 13 questions wrong yet I got a 49, I don't think this is possible....
Here I read you think that the GMATprep score should be close to the real one but I'm not really convinced....
What do ye think??

mlohani · Answer

See my previous post on what factors can influence the correlation between GMATPrep score and the GMAT score. If you get a few repeats then may be your "real" GMATPrep score is around 700-710 and you can expect a GMAT score say within 20 points of this score. But if you did not get any repeats AND you took AWA, your GMAT score should be very close to 740 (Again within some range say 20 points)

I got a Q50 in all the practice tests i ever took and eventually got the same score in GMAT. In many practice tests, i got up to 9-10 questions wrong. Number of incorrect questions in a CAT DOES NOT mean anything as the test is adaptive and gives you harder questions once you are doing really well. This has been posted many times on this forum.

Many people have reported on the correlation between GMATPrep and GMAT scores. On the other hand you have only one piece of personal anecdotal evidence. Eventually it is up to you to get convinced or not.

Lorenzino · Answer

thanks for your post
my impression might be biased because of the bad experience with powerprep...
I know the number of questions you get wrong is not critical, but i just thought 13 was too much and the questions didnt seem that difficult either

anyway tomorrow i'll take the second test... finger crossed!

Fig · Answer

Crossed fingers that touch some wood as well !!! :D

.... Good luck for tomorrow !

Lorenzino · Answer

uh thanks!

i actually meant that tomorrow i'll take the second gmatprep test! the real gmat is on friday!

Fig · Answer

All right... I went a bit fast or not completly

... We keep the crossed fingers all the week long

an Hard thing but it's for a good reason ! :D

johnnyx9 · Answer

I would say the GMAT Prep is a fairly accurate indicator of what you'll score on the GMAT.

I think the one factor that might result in a large discrepancy between performance on GMAT Prep vs. the real thing is how an individual responds to the pressure of taking the actual test. If you get nervous during the test you may not score as well. And conversely, if you take the GMAT Prep lightly (i.e., if you're taking it slightly hung over on a Sunday morning and going a little too fast because you don't want to miss opening kick-off for the 1 o'clock game) then maybe you'll score better on the actual test.

josh478 · Answer

Well, I hope PowerPrep is accurate cus I scored a 700 over the weekend. 

But, with PP there are about 25% experimental questions. These do not count (according to the PP explanation) my assumption is that that is the same for GMATprep. Meaning, out of the 37 questions in Q, you might have missed mostly experimental questions. (also, if you missed 13 on the way to a 50Q, most might have been experimental.) For example, I missed only 5 questions in PP Q out of 30. The test didn't even include the other 7 in the review porton.

Is it true that GMATprep has experimentals,just like Powerprep and the real test?

mlohani · Answer

First off, GMATPrep allowed me to review all the 37 questions. So for me, i cant say whether the incorrect questions were experimental or not. Are there more than 1 versions of GMATPrep? If so, what version of GMATPrep are you using? 

It is possible that GMATPrep and PP have experimental questions and it is also possible that i may have missed experimental questions so that even after getting 11 questions wrong, i was able to get a Q50 on GMATPrep.

However, i consider myself very strong in quant and rarely make silly mistakes on easy questions. So i would presume that most of 11 questions that i got wrong were hard. Hence either all ~7 experimental questions were hard (unlikely, if the test is trying to calibrate all kind of questions, easy and hard) or the number of wrong answers is not as important as the difficulty level of the questions.

I read somewhere that CAT tries to find a level where the test taker reliably answers roughly half the questions correctly. This is considered to be the skill level of the test taker. If that is true, and a given test taker is fairly consistent, then CAT would be able to zero in on the skill level relatively faster than say in case of an incosistent test taker and then at that level half the answers would be wrong => probably more total number of wrong answers at high score level for a consistent high scoring test taker - Just a hypothesis.

The bottom line is that the CAT algorithm can be quite complex and hence instead of trying to second guess it, overanalyze it or worry too much about it, try to get as many questions correct as possible.

Lorenzino · Answer

To be honest I don't know whether GMATprep and PP include experimental questions...
I personally found PP MUCH easier and assigning unrealistic scores. GMATprep seems more reliable. Yesterday I did a full test (including the AWA) and I got 700 which is what I'm hoping to get. Two days before I got 740 (but skipping the AWA). I presume the AWA is the reason for the difference between the two scores.

fankor · Answer

I think there is a strong correlation.
I just finished GMATPrep, and got 10 wrongs.
Still, I got 770.
Frankly, I don't know which one is experimental.
Or another theory may be that all the questions I did were hard.
But this may not be the case because of "dynamics" of GMAT.

lepium · Answer

My two cents: Kaplan Verbal is supposed to be lower than actual V on GMAT. From my experience I would not qualify it as worthless. What Kaplan does (I'll admit, it's less than its intended purpose) is help you work on timing. Kaplan RCs and CRs are much longer than actual GMAT (or at least my actual GMAT, V42), so by the time you are confortably finishing Kaplan you'll finish GMAT with time to spare (I had about 10 minutes left for the last couple of Verbal questions on test date).

josh478 · Answer

On the experimental question in general:

In POWERprep, (Not GMATprep) the program says outright that there ARE about 25% experimentals that DO NOT count toward your score. That is from the software itself. 

As for the official GMATprep, I assume it is similar. But, I do not know.

The Powerprep is the old ETS software from a few years ago, but is still good practice IMO. GMATprep is pearson vue, and much different. This means it might count all the questions, or still include experimentals just as Powerprep, but it doesn't say so explicitly like PP does.

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