How accurate are Manhattan CATs?

Question

Folks,

I saw an earlier thread regarding the accuracy of GMAT prep CATs. 
I'm starting a new thread here for Manhattan fans. 

Can everyone pop out with their inputs regarding Manhattan CATs ( those 6 CATs that you get with purchase of any of their books )

Thanks.

vivekbalaji · Answer

Thanks for starting this up.. I wanted to find some information on the manhattan gmats as well.. the first two CATs seemed ok but subsequent ones have been a lot harder.. Quant is insanely difficult - it kills confidence.. I think the math challenges from the club are good enough.. i usually do well on them around 90%.. 
I did well in my first gmatprep (750 V41 Q50), princeton, and after getting around 700 in my first two manhattan I have struggled to hit 600 in 3 & 4.. I know I have gotten better in quant and verbal over this time, but manhattan does not seem to reflect that...
Overall, I think their SC is very good, and CR and RC are decent at best.. quant is confidence killer and many questions take a good 3-4 minutes..

I would recommend them as good practice set of very tough problems but don't read too much in the scores..

What does everyone else think?

kryzak · Answer

Agree here. Quant was near impossible to do in 2 minutes. Many of them (700-800 level ones) took up to 4 minutes. And for some reason, it gave me nearly ALL 700-800 level questions, even if I missed 3-4 questions in a row.

My score was 720 (Q44, V41), not bad, but definitely worse than the GMATPrep score of 770 (Q50, V44).

shmegs · Answer

I agree, after taking the PR CATs the MGMAT math section was rough. The Qs where difficult from the start, no easy build up as in PR. But I thought the verbal was fine, a bit verbose but easier to manage than the math.

shmegs · Answer

My main question is how accurate is the breakdown on MGMAT CATs. I had 8 wrong answers on quant but still scored a 44.

kryzak · Answer

From what I read on here, the *score* for Manhatttan CAT is very similar to the real score, even though the Quant is much harder. Someone said add 20-40 pts to your score (the ones after April 2007) and you should have the GMAT score.

shmegs · Answer

Wow, that's good news, I was a bit scared after the first MGMAT test. I actually like that the quant questions are harder...it helps to look at hard bin questions. Also, the breakdown is great, it tells the range for each question, which really helped me to focus on my weak quant areas.

kidderek · Answer

I don't think they are very accurate. Their regular test are tough and their cat is too forgiving with wrong answers.

Again, GMATPrep is the most accurate and therefore GOLD. I also thought PR was pretty accurate in terms of scoring, not necessarily content.

nervousgmat · Answer

I think MGMAT tests are very accurate. It's true that the math section is on a tougher side but the scoring compensates for that. After the change in the scoring algorithm in April, MGMAT tests have a standard error that is very close to the actual GMAT (29 points I believe). This can't get any closer to the real thing!
People who think that getting 8 questions wrong and scoring 44 in math is too high are wrong. I took a GMATPrep test yesterday, and scored a 48 in quant with 11 mistakes. The point is what level are the questions that you are getting wrong.
I took 5 MGMAT CATs and I have to say that they all were very close to my GMATPrep scores. In my opinion, MGMAT is the best predictor of your GMAT score after GMATPrep.

vivekbalaji · Answer

Check the discussion board on their website. Usually someone from Manhattan responds to your question. They are pretty honest about their software.. They key difference between Gmatprep and Manhattan is in the later you don't have any "test" questions and all 37 or 41 of a section count towards to your score. You cannot afford to get guess the last few without impacting your score while in Gmatprep you can. Also in the real one the questions are easier in quant and you dont run into the same trouble..

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How accurate are Manhattan CATs?

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