Lets be honest about these prep resources

Thank you for your post. It sounds a bit lacking hope... Is your suggestion to give up? That is kind of the conclusion I am reaching after reading it.

The test does not test anything miraculous but your ability to perform under pressure while solving fairly straightforward high school math and English grammar questions. Yes there definitely is a difference that one can spot between the official CR questions and flavors provided by third-party providers but those differences a very minor and will only come into play when you're looking for a 700+ score. That is why it's always recommended to work through the verbal OG at the end of your verbal prep. I myself have never held the official guide before taking the GMAT. I got 750. My first diagnostic test was 540.... after studying with Princeton books for 3 months (those are the ones that use questions to fit their strategies).

I think a better argument and the better post would be to touch on people's math and English skills in general. Such that if someone have not been able to master math or English grammar during high school or college, what is the chance that they will be able to do it in a two-month nine-session course Half of which is dedicated to verbal and the other half to math. I think chances are pretty low and whatever debts you had a going to come due before the GMAT. Yes the courses do assume that you have some decent knowledge of basic high school math and while many do provide extra material and in-depth coverage, there is a balance between subjecting everyone to learn basic division and providing too little. Most courses I Soum some basic skills and knowledge and that is why Manhattan came up with their foundations books that do go back to division and multiplication tables. And yes everyone is different and everyone will perform differently with the same material or course. I did very well with Kaplan and their books and probably because there were not that many rules or strategist to learn so I could focus on the biggest ones. Others going through more detailed material such as Veritas or Manhattan books could benefit from that. I think it's pretty straightforward and even GMAC knowledges that there is a 40 point standard error on the test. If you take two tests in a row you will see a difference in score though be as high as 40 points so even the official measuring tools are imperfect but thousands of people before you have been able to do it and you should have faith in yourself. Your path may be much harder one, you may have to go through the entire math curriculum, or have to learn a foreign language, English that is, but it is possible. Yes for some it will be easy and yes for some it will be hard, that is why your score is not everything in the application and the admissions committee considers the entire picture when making their decision.

P.S. OG is a collection of questions - you can't prepare with it. That would be like treating a fever with a thermometer. To make things even worse many of the official questions do not have explanations and some have been known to have mistakes in them.


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