Quote:
*Isha2701 writes:*
> Hi all,
> I wanted to hear from people who have recently taken the GMAT and have also used the official practice exams 1–6.
> How did the actual exam compare with the official mocks? Was the overall difficulty broadly similar, or did any particular section deviate significantly? In your experience, how much variation in score (+/−) can one realistically expect on the actual test compared with the official mocks, assuming we set aside test anxiety as a factor?
> I’d also love to hear specificall
Any insights from the experts?
I took the exam in Aprol and used all six official practice exams, so I'll answer from my own experience. Everything below is subjective, YOU DO YOU.
> How did the actual exam compare with the official mocks?
Pretty close. The official mocks are built from retired real exam questions, so the calibration is about as honest as you'll get from any prep material.
> Was the overall difficulty broadly similar, or did any particular section deviate significantly?
Broadly similar, no section stood out as harder than what the mocks prepared me for. What does change is the pressure, and that shows up in your pacing rather than in the questions themselves.
> How much variation in score (+/-) can one realistically expect?
You've asked to set anxiety aside, so I'll set aside the other big variable too, which is how honestly you take your mocks. If you're sitting them at home, taking a 15 minute break instead of 10, pausing for a phone call, then your mock average isn't a real baseline and no variation number will mean anything. Take them the way I did (go somewhere that isn't home, one 10 minute break, nothing else) and your mock average becomes usable. On that basis I'd say plus or minus 20 points from your average on a good day.
> Were the DI questions similar in difficulty and style, or were TPA/MSR significantly harder?
Similar in style and difficulty, but you won't see a single repeat from the OG or the mocks, every question is new to you. That newness is what makes DI feel harder than it is. The other thing is that DI draws from a wide pool, so whether it feels brutal depends heavily on which of your weak areas it happens to hit. In my case the reading-heavy MSR sets were my weak spot, not the calculation, and that's exactly where I dropped marks. If TPA and MSR are already the sets you struggle with, that's worth drilling now, not because the exam version is harder, but because you have no margin on your weak topic when every question is unfamiliar.
Good luck with the exam.
Also not an expert, just a fellow aspirant happens to be a mod now 🙂