How to use GMATPrep ?

I ended up taking a lot of MGMAT and GMATPrep CATs in the 2 weeks leading up to the exam. This included some GMATPrep repeats. Doing a lot of these led to an efficient timing strategy, and definitely helped raised my final score.

My observation is that MGMAT tests are a notch harder than the real thing (it is reasonable to expect a score of atleast 20 points higher on the real test). Their Math can be rather long, and verbal is very specific on choices. In my experience, GMATPreps (do them end-to-end with the AWA atleast a couple times, for best results) offer a more realistic score. But just doing them is not sufficient. For all questions that you get wrong, search them up on MGMAT's site or on this forum, and clearly understand incorrect answers.

incognito1 , thanks for your reply. I am planning to take at least 3 Gpreps and at least 4 MGMAT CATs. All end to end.

1) Has the GMAT become tougher than the GMATPrep ?
2) Is there a document or a list of all GMATPrep questions ? For practice of course.
3) I am particularly weak in SC (as many other non-natives), what should I do to up my verbal score esp. on SC front.
4) Quant, I am on lower 40s and I think doing GMATCLUB challenges is not advisable for low scorers; does it help ?
5) Am I asking too many questions ?

I am gonna take real exam pretty soon too.

What really really concerns me is the test-taking strategy related to time. Many folks here r saying that first 5-10 questions are what really determines ur grade but i have found other authors claiming that GMAC altered this code because testtakers were taking an advantage of it by focusing on these questions

However, there is no way u will have enough time to work out every question on the test which translates to some guessing.

I am not sure whom to believe
1. focusing on first 10 questions
or
2. distributing the time equally among the all questions

Exactly. This is one of the long-running GMAT related debates. Not sure who is right.

My intuition says, it is safer to complete all the questions. Try to guess intelligently (something I am not very good at) if you have to.

Its undoubtedly safer to FINISH the test, than to leave some unanswered questions. OG & GMAC uses this as their slogan.

IMO - first 10 questions are important (read : not THE most important). However, the GMAT uses the first 10 as a base, its not the end of the road. You have to complete the test, else face a severe penalty i.e loss of score.

You have to pay a little more attention to the first 10 questions, and balance your timing.

Amit - how is your CR & RC?

SC is important, but not as important as the others in Verbal. I'm bad at SC too (you'll notice that from my posts), however, neither a king in CR/RC. I'm focusing on CR/RC, getting them correct with definately fetch you more points vis-a-vis SC....fingers crossed !

Perhaps the good move would be having a cap per question eg 3.5 minutes maximum and if u dont get a solution by that time guess and move on

but we all know how hard is to give up a question when u r so close

also, those questions w lotsa calculations

is it worth getting it right and paying 7 minutes for it?

i dont know the answers...

based on the course material - i tended to score higher whenever i was moving faster throughout the test

didnt score well on first gmatprep tho
felt like i am doing real test and started panicking lol

With regards to the first 10 questions, I did spend a little more time on them. I remember getting distracted towards the middle when I realized I was a little behind in verbal, and that probably affected my score a little. All in all, spend a little more time on them, but don't get stuck! It's important to know when to move on. Use your practise CATs to figure this out.

@ pawan203, I feel I am better in CR and RC(OG11 Diagnostic rates both of them "above average") than I am in SC(OG11 Diagnostic rates my SC "Average"). I read in someone's debrief that scoring high on SC is very important key to high verbal score. Not sure how far this is true.
My problem in CR and RC is that I mess up in the questions from higher level bins. I have gone through the Powerscore CR Bible and it has helped me a *lot*. How do I improve my CR/RC from here, given that I have very limited time left ?

@ incognito1, Thank you buddy. You have answered and cleared almost all my doubts patiently I really appreciate your help. Though I do not have access to the MGMAT SC question bank, I will practice from brutal SCs.

The real questions are easier than GMATPrep ??!! Wow ! I never heard anyone say that. I truly hope you are right

I don't exactly have an error log, but I have the list of all my SC mistakes from OG 11 and I have taken extensive notes from OG11. Not sure if that helps.

I will focus on GC challenges. Couple of days back, I did m01 and got 26/37 right. The weird part is I completed with 18mins left. I know that is a VERY bad sign.

Thanks so far guys. I will continue to bug you people

Not to make it sound very unrealistic but I did find the real thing to be easier. Considering I spent lesser time on each question, and pulled off a higher score than in my practise tests, can't see why I'm off on my assessment

More specifically, math and SCs were easier, while CRs and RCs were about the same difficulty as GMATPrep. In verbal, I got a boldface CR as my 6th question (got a boldface CR as 2nd on one GMATPrep, so nothing out of the blue) and a hard 1-paragraph RC at #7.

Thanks incognito1 I do hope to score a lot higher on the real one than I am currently scoring during practice

Do you know if GMATPrep has experimental questions? I feel they do, would like to know your thoughts?

Good thread guys. Thanks!