How hard is real GMAT Quant?

Bunuel, VeritasPrepKarishma, need your advice

Not surprisingly, I love our Quant material! The difficulty level is exactly what you would expect on the actual GMAT.

Your evaluation of OG and Quant Review is spot on - far too many easy questions though they do have some beauties there. And yes, GMATClub tests are hard though they challenge you conceptually so they add a lot of value too. I am not in a position to talk about Kaplan material and MGMAT material because I have very limited experience with them.

The actual GMAT questions are no cakewalk - that is for sure! Most of them will make you think and will have tricks so it will be best if you try to see as many varied questions as possible. I suggest you try out our one free practice test right away. The score you achieve on it should be a fair representation of what you might get on the actual GMAT.

https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/free-g ... tice-test/

Thank you very much, VeritasPrepKarishma. Love your blog

Do you mean that real GMAT is easier than the GMATClub?

The actual GMAT questions are tricky but the calculations are minimal and not time consuming. I think the same would be true for GMATClub questions too.

I got it. I will focus more on the verbal part of the exam. Thanks a lot!

Hi VeritasPrepKarishma,
Sorry to take the post in a different direction but what I have experienced is, no test other than GMATprep is close to actual GMAT. For instance, mentioned are my scores from Veritas practice sets but my actual GMAT score is quite below the avg of Veritas Prep test. Similar for Kaplan. Can you pls suggest the reason for such a huge difference. This has happened twice with me and I want to give it a last try. Pls help me out.



Actual GMAT Nov 23 620 Q47 V29

Regards
Manish

Hey Manish,

Sorry to know that you did not hit your target score. Here are a few observations:

1. You took 5 practice tests in the last 15 days - starting from Nov 4th to Nov 20th. Tests taken so frequently don't add much conceptual value to your preparation. They might help in fine tuning time management issues, testing strategies etc. I wouldn't expect your score to change much in this time frame.

2. We react differently to pressure at different times. Sometimes, pressure makes us perform better than ever before; at others, we are unable to deal with even what we know very well. So to ensure a high probability of success, we need to reach a stage where it is instinctive for us to perform well. For example, a consistent 750 in practice tests would imply a very high probability of scoring 720 - 780 in the actual test. There are plenty of cases we have seen in which people actually score more than their highest practice test score.

3. Unfortunately, in both Quant and Verbal, you scored the lowest you had scored in any test.

Could you tell me your official practice test scores taken around the same time? We usually see quite consistent scoring with them. Also, do you have your ESR? Perhaps I could take a look at it and guide you on how to prepare for your second attempt.

Hi VeritasPrepKarishma,
Thank you very much for your quick reply and pls accept my apologies for late response. I had exhausted all the 6 official exam packs in my 1st attempt (660-710) and scores were in the range 710-740 in re-attempt. I reset it just a few days back, so no data. I was confident in SC & RC though not so in CR, but the ESR tells a different story all together. Kindly have a look at the attached ESR and pls guide me.

Thank you

Regards
Manish

As per your ESR, you faced a lot of problems in RC. Interesting to note is that your average difficulty of incorrect questions in the third and fourth quarter is lower than your average difficulty of correct questions. So it seems you got some easy questions wrong - did you lose confidence and start second guessing yourself?. Also, you seem to have invested a big portion of your time in incorrect questions in the third quarter. Is it that you got one/two RCs on topics with which you are not comfortable? The RC may not have been of high difficulty but non familiarity would have made it difficult for you.
Your SC certainly seems to be in order since accuracy as well as time taken are acceptable. I suggest you to continue practicing to maintain it.
As for CR, your score is a bit low. Perhaps you need to review the question types and what each one requires you to do.

In Quant too, there is a big difference between your preparedness for Arithmetic and that for Algebra/Geometry. Put in a lot more time and effort in Algebra/Geometry. Use your practice tests to figure out the exact topics in which you are facing problems.
In the first quarter, you invested half your time in the incorrect questions which actually accounted for only 14% of total questions. It shows way too much time invested in 1-2 questions which you anyway eventually got wrong. Do not go beyond the 3-4 min limit per question and that too if you are ahead of the clock.

Thank you very much for your kind guidance. I will stick to your suggestions.

If I may ask, these grey areas should have been reflected in the prep tests too. A 700+ score in test preps builds up confidence and based on results I was hopeful to get at least 680, but unfortunately I dint. Now I have a feeling that either all the test prep scores were by chance and I shouldn't have been too hopeful or there was something weird on the actual test day, which I couldn't figure out. Anyway looking forward to improve this time.

Thanks!!

The quant on the real test is way harder than the level of the questions you will encounter in any of the official resources/mocks. If your only source of prep has been official resources, you may be in a for an unpleasant surprise on the test day.

I had a similar question. I've been practicing quant questions from official guide math review and advanced official guide and have a fairly decent accuracy rate. My mock scores (official guide 1-3, e-gmat mocks) have also been fairly consistent when it comes to the quant section (ranging from 49-51).
But recently I started practicing questions from the gmatclub directory of questions (700+, varied sources) and found that my accuracy has gone down quite drastically and I am taking way more time than ideal (3.5 min/upward rather than 1.5 min). I wanted to understand the difficulty level of quant section in the real gmat exam so as to understand where I should ideally focus more (since my current focus has been more on verbal than quant considering that's my weak area). Any thoughts from experts would be quite useful.

Bunuel egmat
VeritasKarishma
https://gmatclub.com/forum/memberlist.p ... epKarishma