Experts' Topic of the Week, 7/7/17: Get 4 new, “fake” GMATPrep tests!

Verbal Experts’ Topic of the Week, July 2-8, 2017:
How to get 4 additional (“fake”) GMATPrep tests for $29.99

(Updated March 2019 to reflect 2018 GMATPrep software updates. And if you'd prefer to learn about these tests in video form, go here.)


Back in 2017, the GMAC launched the Select Section Order feature. That was great news for anyone who struggled to stay focused on the GMAT verbal section. You can now complete the verbal section early in your exam, when you’re still fresh as a daisy!

More good news came in 2018, when the GMATPrep Software was also updated to include section order selection. The bad news was that this updated software did not include any new questions or updates to the existing question banks . We are still stuck with only six full, adaptive GMATPrep tests – so what the heck are you supposed to do if you need more exams, but (wisely) prefer to avoid non-official verbal questions?

You’d be excited if we told you that you could get four pretty good official GMAT tests – in any section order you prefer - for $29.99, right? Welcome to our favorite hack for the GMATPrep software: the GMATPrep “fake tests.”


WTF is a “fake test”?

If you purchase the GMAT Official Practice Questions product (formerly known as Question Pack 1), you’ll have a total of 494 practice questions available in the GMATPrep software. And if you handle everything correctly, you can use these questions to approximate the experience of a real GMAT exam – and stretch your supply of practice tests that consist solely of official GMAT questions.

We call them GMATPrep “fake tests” because they aren’t adaptive, and the composition of questions won’t be EXACTLY like an actual GMAT exam. But if you play your cards right, the “fake tests” will feel pretty close to the real thing.


What you'll need

If you don't already have it, purchase the GMAT Official Practice Questions. Note that those same questions are also available as part of the GMAT Official Practice Questions + Exams 3 to 6 product, formerly known as the GMATPrep Software Study Collection, so you might consider purchasing the whole bundle if you haven’t already bought Exams 3 through 6.

If you are one of the significant contributors on the forum, you could also upgrade to a GMAT Club premium membership and take advantage of a 30% discount on the entire study bundle from GMAC.

We would also recommend getting your hands on a GMAT-style test booklet and marker, so that you can practice using that ridiculous little booklet whenever you do a full practice test. You’ll also need an external timer or stopwatch.


Building your "fake" test

First, decide on the section order for your exam. Your options are discussed in detail here, and you can customize the “fake tests” for any order that you’d like. For our example, we’ll use Quant → Verbal → IR/AWA, since that’s a nice option if you worry about losing steam on the verbal section, but would like to “warm up” with the quant section before tackling the verbal.

Once you’ve decided on the section order that’s best for you, navigate to the GMATPrep software, and log-in to your mba.com account.

If you've successfully activated the GMAT Official Practice Questions product, the Quick Start section of the home page should show "494 available" questions. Click the "More Options" button at the bottom of the Quick Start section.



The next screen will have four “Steps” of options. For Step #1 (Select the question set), select the "Not Answered" radio button. For Step #2 (Practice mode), select “Exam”. For Step #4 (Question order), select "Random".



*IMPORTANT NOTE for Quant, Verbal, and IR: On the actual GMAT, the timer shows only the total time remaining in the section, and you’ll NEVER be able to see how much time you’ve spent on each individual question. So don’t cheat! Once you begin any of these three “fake test” sections, click the “Hide This Menu” button in the top right corner, and set an external timer that counts down from 62 minutes for quant, 65 minutes for verbal, or 30 minutes for IR.



Section-Specific Setup:

Again, you’re welcome to do these sections in any order that you’d like, but our example will follow a non-conventional order: quant, then verbal, then IR/AWA.

• Quant (62 minutes):
  
  1) If your average quant score is in the 30s or below, select ALL unanswered easy, medium, and hard quant questions, for both DS and PS. In other words, select the highest number possible in all six quant “dropdowns.”
  
  For example, in the following screenshot, notice that all 230 available quant questions have been selected, even though you will end the section after 31 questions. Also note that the numbers in the dropdowns will depend on how many questions you've already attempted. If you have already attempted some of these practice questions, you’ll obviously see fewer than 494 unanswered practice questions:
  
  
  Attachment:
  
  Screenshot #5 (option 3 - all quant).png [ 51.81 KiB | Viewed 24104 times ]
  
  
  
  If you’re shooting for a higher score, select ALL of the medium and hard questions only, without any easy questions. Make sure to enter the highest number possible in each of the four dropdowns, as pictured below:
  
  
  Attachment:
  
  Screenshot #6 (option 3 - quant medium and hard).png [ 52.03 KiB | Viewed 24060 times ]
  
  
  
  2) Set an external stopwatch for 62 minutes (see the important note above regarding timers – if you can see the time for each individual question, you’re cheating!).
  3) Start your timer, complete 31 questions, and then click the "Finish" button.
  4) Take an 8-minute break (see below for more on how to optimize your breaks).
  
  
• Verbal (65 minutes):
  
  1) If your average verbal score is below 30, select ALL unanswered easy, medium, and hard verbal questions, for all three question types (CR, RC, and SC). This step is especially important for the verbal section, so make sure to select the highest number possible in each of the nine dropdowns. If you do not do this, you’ll DEFINITELY get the wrong number of RC questions.
  
  
  Attachment:
  
  Screenshot #7 (option 3 - all verbal).png [ 52.2 KiB | Viewed 23988 times ]
  
  
  
  If you’re shooting for a higher score, select ALL of the medium and hard questions (no easy questions). Again, this step is especially important for the verbal section, so make sure to select the highest number possible in each of the six dropdowns. Again: if you do not do this, weird stuff will happen on RC.
  
  
  Attachment:
  
  Screenshot #8 (option 3- verbal medium and hard).png [ 53.15 KiB | Viewed 23938 times ]
  
  
  
  2) Set an external stopwatch for 65 minutes (see the important note above regarding timers – if you can see the time for each individual question, you’re cheating!).
  3) Start your timer, complete 36 questions, and then click the "Finish" button.
  4) Take an 8-minute break (see below for more on how to optimize your breaks).
  
  
• IR (30 minutes):
  
  1) Select ALL available easy, medium, and hard IR questions (select the highest number possible in all three IR dropdowns). The IR section of the GMAT is NOT adaptive, so you'll always see a mix of easy, medium, and hard questions, regardless of your score range.
  
  
  Attachment:
  
  Screenshot #9 (option 3 - all IR).png [ 51.36 KiB | Viewed 23847 times ]
  
  
  
  2) Set an external stopwatch for 30 minutes. (see the important note above regarding timers – if you can see the time for each individual question, you’re cheating!).
  3) Start your timer, complete 12 questions and then click the "Finish" button.
  
  
  
• AWA (30 minutes):
  
  There are no AWA prompts available in the practice section of the GMATPrep software, but it’s easy enough to select a random prompt from the list of AWA topics used on the GMAT. Set your timer for 30 minutes. Type an essay in the software of your choice.
  
  And then you're done!

A friendly warning about GMAT breaks

You can take two 8-minute breaks during the GMAT, and if you’ve taken the actual exam before, you probably know that the 8-minute breaks will feel more like 4-5 minutes because of the time it takes to check out of and back into your workstation. You can’t enter or exit the exam room without being escorted by a proctor – who may or may not be distracted.

So whenever you do any GMAT practice test – including these “fake tests” – treat it like an opportunity to practice your break-time routine, since those 8 minutes fly by really, really quickly.

As soon as you finish a section that precedes a break, reset your timer for 8 minutes and then SIT for 2 minutes to simulate the (EXCRUCIATING) amount of time it may take for the proctor to escort you out of the testing room. Then take your break, and try to get back with 1 or 2 minutes to spare to simulate the time it will take for the proctor to escort you back to your computer and sign you in again. Trust me, those 8 minutes will feel more like 4 or 5 minutes -- and if you’re late, you’ll lose valuable testing time.

And before you take a “fake test” or any other practice test, plan EXACTLY what you’ll eat and drink during each break. Then practice doing that during your fake test.


Don’t accidentally “cheat” with the timer!

We already said this above, but we’ll repeat it again here: whenever you’re doing a quant, verbal, or IR “fake test”, click the “Hide This Menu” button in the top right corner, since you will NEVER see an individual question-level timer during your actual exam.



Again, you’ll have to set an external “countdown clock” for each section – 62 minutes for quant, 65 minutes for verbal, and 30 minutes for IR. Without taking these steps, your “fake test” will be completely unrealistic.


How many "fake" tests can I take?

Unfortunately, the number of "fake" tests is limited, and depends on whether you use all available questions or just the medium and hard questions. Here’s what you’ve got:

Quant:

• 230 total questions (easy, medium, hard) – enough for 7 “fake tests”
• 161 medium & hard questions – enough for 5 “fake tests”

Verbal:

• 225 total questions (easy, medium, hard) – enough for 6 “fake tests”
• 159 medium & hard questions – enough for 4 “fake tests”

Integrated Reasoning:

• 39 total questions (easy, medium, hard) – enough for 3 “fake tests”

So for just $29.99, you’ll have enough for at least 4 quant and verbal sections – and that’s a bargain if you need some extra practice tests.


Limitations of the “fake tests”

Of course, the “fake tests” will never be as good as actual, adaptive GMATPrep exams. Let’s admit a few flaws and limitations:

• ”Fake tests” are not adaptive, and they won’t give you a score. I know:
• The balance of question types will generally be reasonable on quant, but on verbal, you might get a slightly different mix of CR, RC, and SC than on an actual exam. On a typical GMAT exam, you’ll see around 13 RC questions (four passages), 12-13 SC questions, and 9-10 CR questions, give or take a few. On the “fake tests”, there’s no good way to get EXACTLY this mix – and trust us, we’ve tried to find a good way to do it. So you’ll have to live with the imperfections.
• The difficulty levels might not be exactly right for you. For example, you’re a super-high scorer, medium questions might be too easy. But you won’t have that problem on an adaptive exam.

Keep in mind that the actual GMAT exam generally feels somewhat random, so these randomized “fake tests” might be more realistic than you would expect. Part of the magic of the GMAT is that easy questions often feel hard, and hard questions sometimes feel easy. And somewhere around 15% of your test questions will be experimental, and will have nothing to do with your actual performance.

So despite the limitations of the “fake tests”, our students sometimes tell us that "fake tests" feel remarkably similar to the actual GMAT exam.


Interpreting your “fake test” results

Obviously, it’s annoying to take a GMAT test that doesn’t actually give you a score afterwards. But here’s some rough advice on what to look for:

• Did you miss any questions that you know how to do? If so, that’s a huge problem: on an adaptive test, careless errors are an absolute killer – so pay attention to anything that seemed easy to you, and try to figure out how to avoid those types of errors in the future.
• Did you spend more than 3 minutes on any single question? (Other than the first question on an RC passage, of course.) If so, maybe you need to work on letting the tougher questions go, so that you can invest your time more wisely elsewhere.
• If your goal is a 40+ on verbal, you should get at least 75% of the medium and hard questions right, give or take a few.
• If your goal is a 47+ on quant, you should get at least 65% of the medium and hard questions right, give or take a few.

And if you have specific questions about how to interpret your GMATPrep “fake test” results, feel free to ask on this thread, and we’ll do our best to help.


Want more?

You have questions? GMAT Club has answers!

• Live Wednesday verbal chats! Ask your questions here, about “fake tests” or anything else related to GMAT verbal.
• Everything you could possibly want to know about GMAT’s new section order selection
  
• An excellent review of GMATPrep Question Pack 1
• carcass‘s incredible master directory to official verbal questions
• What to do about timing on GMAT verbal
• All verbal experts’ Topic of the Week threads, compiled by carcass
• Timing strategies in shorter format