Kaplan CD-CATs vs. Kaplan Online-CATs

Question

Hey guys,

can you please comment on the following:

Is there a difference in difficulty between Kaplan CD-CATs and Kaplan Online-CATs ..

I did the Online-CATs in the beginning of PREP (scored avg. ~ 620) .. then accomplished the 2 GMATPrep CATs (660 + 700) .. then switched to KAPLAN CD-CATs and thought .. WTF!

Kaplan CD-Cat 1 590
Kaplan CD-Cat 2 600

Though i was definitely better prepared for the CD-CATs than for the Online CATs...

can you please help me with this issue?  am i right with my assumption CD >> Online!?

kind regards
S

Hussain15 · Answer

Hi spizzl, welcome to the club!

I havn't gone through the Kaplan CATs but yes the one more guy went through the same experience as mentioned in this thread
kaplan-course-online-cat-vs-kaplan-cd-cat-from-book-49786.html

I think a Kaplan student or expert can answer correctly.

spizzl · Answer

Thanks! Found this post too.. but was a bit old + not 100% sufficient

Are there any Kaplan experts out there?

MBAUncle · Answer

I have the same doubt.

Additionally, can I access the Kaplan online CATs if I buy the Kaplan 800 book ?

Thanks,

spizzl · Answer

@mbauncle: think there's no help for us!

KapTeacherEli · Answer

Hi Folks,

Sorry this slipped through my radar--I've been in Mexico on my honeymoon, and I'm still playing catchup!

To answer your questions, the tests that come with the Kaplan Premier workbook are exactly the same online and on the CD. We provided both option to ensure that students can study anywhere. To the best of my knowledge, however, we're phasing out the CDs and putting all of the tests online--internet connections are ubiquitous at this point, and the existence of the same test in two locations has caused some confusion for our students.

In the future, please feel free to pm me if any more threads like this crop up! I do my best to search for 'Kaplan' related threads on a regular basis, but I miss some--if you haven't gotten a response in a day or two, I probably need some help finding it. Thanks for your patience!

Hope this helps.

spizzl · Answer

@eli: thanks for your kind response!

though i still feel the CD-CATs to be more difficult!

TheBirla · Answer

I personally find the Kaplan CAT and the scoring algorithm quite random.

Just completed the first CD CAT and scored a miserable 590, (Q50, V28) my lowest ever by a huge margin. Have been scoring consistent 690 - 710 range on MGMAT and GMAT prep.

Coming back to the scoring algo, in Q i had 3 questions wrong and got a raw score of 50, fair enough. But then my partner did a test on-line and got 1 question wrong but got a 48. Absurd !

With regards to the CD Verbal, maybe I did not do as well as i wanted to but then again I did not feel that the questions were getting easier. Given i was doing badly i should have expected the level of questions to go down but that did not happen. Now on-line verbal was even more of an absurdity, she got first 1/3 questions as SC, then the next 1/3 as CR and the last bit RC ! How can you call that a Computer adaptive test !

To add to that a raw score of Q50 and V28 should translate to ~640, but I got a measly 590.

I may be biased based on the 1 test that I have done. So will probably give another test before deciding if its worth taking these scores into account or just abandon the CAT scoring and use the questions as a practice.

KapTeacherEli · Answer

Hi TheBirla,

The first test on the CD is a diagnostic that isn't adaptive--the other five, however, will adapt to your performance and mix up the verbal Q-types as you go. Sorry for the confusion!

rohu27 · Answer

@KapteacherEli,

I have kaplan premier edition 2010 and access to the online CATS, but when i took CAT3 today(first of the adaptable CATs, CAT 1 and CAT 2 are linear) the screen above says GMAT 2007.
i wanted to know whether this CAT belongs to the reformed Kaplan CATS (guess introduced somewhere around 2010) or the ones before that which many test takers felt gave less scores.
I have total 6 CATS, out of which 2 are linear rest adaptive.

Funny thing though, the adaptive CAT itself gives me chunk of SC,CR,RC together as happened in the linear CAT. how is this possible?

Thanks,

KapTeacherEli · Answer

Hi rohu, Sorry for the confusion! Unfortunately, I don't know exactly when the Kaplan Premier tests were updated--email booksupport@kaplan.com with your question and our customer service team should be able to answer you. If they can't find an answer, PM me again and I'll do some digging!

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Kaplan CD-CATs vs. Kaplan Online-CATs

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