Lets be honest about these prep resources

Question

Here is an overview of the criticism I've seen about preparation resources thus far.

- On one hand, 3rd party resources are a serious problem because they do not, and possibly cannot, successfully mimic questions from the original exam. Some are even reportedly biased to support their own (often crazy) strategies;

- On the other hand, the makers of OG have little incentive to teach you efficient strategies to explore loopholes in the actual test, which means OG will only take you so far. I haven't seen debriefs of successful test takers that prepared only through OG;

- Furthermore, most people who score high on GMAT are already proficient at the test subjects. They only use these materials to adapt and hone their skills as needed. They are usually fresh students from certain graduation courses or very experienced professionals from top level management of large companies and like. Exceptions as to how you may acquire such proficiency are rare. Therefore, these debriefs may not be a reliable indicator of resource effectiveness;

- Indian IT guys in the mid 20s are the prevalent profile of the GMAT test taker. They are proficient at quant skills but have a hard time with verbal. Because of the greater demand for verbal training, most discussions on forums, course offers and discounts, study plans, and the experience tutors acquire over time, tend to be tailored more towards covering the verbal section, so people with a math skill deficit will have an even harder time seeking help.

I've found it important to make these observations available to everyone so people can contribute or question them. Might even be some will find it useful.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi SamirAbrahao,

I think that your opinions on these subjects have been significantly influenced by your own experiences in studying for the GMAT. While that doesn't make them correct or incorrect, they are 'biased' in terms of your point of view. Since I assume that you're ultimately interested in scoring at a much higher level on the GMAT, I'll be happy to offer you advice, but I'd like to know a bit more about how you've studied so far:

1) How long have you studied?
2) What materials have you used?
3) When did you take the Official GMAT? And how long did you study before taking it?

4) What is your goal score?
5) When are you planning to re-take the GMAT?
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

bb · Answer

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.

Sent from my iPhone using  GMAT Club Forum App

SamirAbrahao · Answer

I'd love to hear your input on these points.

1) How long have you studied? A month and a half, with many breaks
2) What materials have you used? GMATPrep questions only
3) When did you take the Official GMAT? And how long did you study before taking it? I took it on May 16th, Spent a month and a half preparing for it.

4) What is your goal score? 760
5) When are you planning to re-take the GMAT? Any time up to December
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School? Early 2017

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi SamirAbrahao,

Since you're not planning to apply to Business School until early 2017, then you have plenty of time to continue studying and improve, which is good. Many Test Takers spend 3 months (or more) of consistent study time before they hit their 'peak scores', so since you studied for 1.5 months (and were inconsistent in your studies), then you likely have not put in enough time and effort yet to have scored higher. If you've studied with just the GMATPrep questions, then you've essentially had to self-teach all of the concepts, which is also rather limited. The various GMAC material is not designed to teach you Tactics, patterns or any of the little 'secrets' to the GMAT - for all of that, you'll have to invest in other GMAT materials. The fact that you scored 610 under these conditions is impressive (the average score on the Official GMAT hovers around 540-550 most years) - to score 760 though, you'll have to invest a great deal more time, money and effort into the process.

1) How many hours do you think that you can study during a typical week?
2) Do you have the available time to commit to a consistent 3-month study routine?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

SamirAbrahao · Answer

BB,

I'm definitely not out of hope. All I'm doing right now is taking notes to shape my early study strategy, and I have to face reality here, no embelishments. I'd greatly appreciate if I could count with your input and other's on this subject.

About these differences you mention between the official questions and the ones from 3rd party, they are significant for me, because I aim to score close to 800. If not to make up for my low GPA and my low GMAT score in the first try, then at least for personal fulfillment. I'm not worried... I have time now, and am already scoring 710 on mocks under realistic conditions with what little prepare I've had so far. The first attempt was just crazy, test day was totally messed up, my preparation was utterly without guidance, I had no idea what I was getting into.

To sum it all up, I think anyone can do it. The question is not IF, but HOW.

SamirAbrahao · Answer

1) How many hours do you think that you can study during a typical week? Between 15-25 hours
2) Do you have the available time to commit to a consistent 3-month study routine? Yes

Rich, I dont think 610 reflects my actual skill... I scored 710 three times on mocks the week before my exam. Test day was *REALLY* messed up, trust me. I'm talking about an infernal heat, 3 hours stuck in a traffic jam, and suffering a strong sewage smell for an equivalent period of time. I did not take the exam at the same time of day I was practicing.

Nevertheless, I'm willing to prepare through more "conventional" methods now that I have more time. I'm considering a combination of Manhattan books + OG, so each resource would cover the other's deficit. Whats your take on this?

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Celine,

Taking 3 CATs in the week before your Official GMAT was NOT a good idea. The act of taking a CAT (and reviewing it) requires a great deal of effort and energy - and it takes time to properly 'recover' before taking another one. It's possible that you 'burned out' a bit in those last days before your Exam. The other factors that you described also likely would have had a significant impact on your performance. If they're going to be a consistent aspect to what you'll face on Test Day, then you'll have to make some adjustments to how you take your CATs so that you can properly prepare for those 'hurdles.'

I'd like to know a bit more about those CATs that you mentioned taking:

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? 
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE taking the CAT?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

SamirAbrahao · Answer

Rich, my name is Samir, not Celine lol

I actually took 6 CATs in the 7 days prior to the actual exam. I didn't review them, and I didn't feel like they were energy-consuming. I took the exam in a Monday, after an entire weekend without thinking about GMAT. Could be that, on top of all the environmental factors, I wasan't warmed up that day. It could also be that I had been practicing on those CATs on a different time of day than that of the actual test (and that was *VERY* stupid on my part).

I also answered these numbered questions during that week I was preparing, but you didn't answer me anymore after that. I am happy to answer them again though.

1) No.
2) No.
3) No.
4) No.
5) No.

bb · Answer

The bottom line is that you need time - good amount of time that you can consistently spend on it. Some people need more and others less (depending on your background and how much of the additional stuff you need to learn, figure out, etc). Ideal scenario would be having 3 months of 2 hours a day of free time in the morning and additional 1 hour in the evening after work for you to study in the morning, review at night, and do some additional reading, word learning (if you are not a native speaker), and any other just general reading to train your ear and mind to be operating in an English-speaking environment (again only for those who are not native speakers). Then one weekend day or two to take tests on one and do analysis on the other - of maybe you have the stamina to do them on the same day... I can't remember if I did - I think I had to with the GMAT Prep as it would not let me go back into it after the fact.

As mentioned earlier, I have used 3 Kaplan books for my prep and did not even own the OG (was too poor.. though that was a mistake but 750 did OK for me). I tried helping a lot of people over the years, and sometimes it is more than just being able to remember formulas and learn grammar - people freak out under timed conditions - I feel that is a bigger contributing factor than your skills or prior knowledge. Some people just have a really hard time focusing and concentrating when they know there is a clock ticking and that is their biggest issue rather than material. It takes a lot of effort and energy to get over that limitation but I can tell that when you do, that is going to be a very liberating and eye-opening experience. I have learned a lot from my GMAT test-taking and still draw some conclusions and perspectives from it - don't be shy to invest yourself fully into it. It is not just a test - it is a learning opportunity that can/will reward you over the years - use it instead of trying to brush it off and rush past it.

Good Luck!

SamirAbrahao · Answer

Well said, BB! I am also a strong adept of this point of view. GMAT is most certainly an opportunity to develop new skills, and I am an eternal knowledge-seeker. This is why I am so motivated towards a high score goal. I also wanna push myself to the limit for a change, see how far I can go without time constraints. It's been a thrilling experience so far, to say the least. It's a curious thing that my tone has led you to think otherwise. I am just in a process of understanding some key facts and barriers involved in this challenge, and I am not committed to being a pessimist or an optimist, I'm just trying to grasp the reality of things here. As to everything you said, let's look at things this way: I consider myself to be quite proficient at the verbal section, even though I am not a native speaker. In fact, I think I've gone against everything you (and others) described as being the ideal, and yet I learn many new things about GMAT, specially quant skills, every day! I wanna make clear that I am NOT questioning your advice, or anyone else's, in any way. I'm just saying that experts often offer generic advices and information by nature, with good reason of course, but people have a very hard time coping with this when they do not fit the average profile. For instance, you almost exclusively touched the verbal section on your last response. Why would you do this if not out of pure habit? Why did you enforce not once, but twice, that what you were saying only applied to non-native english speakers? Was it because you saw that I'm from Brazil, or because most test takers are from India ? I think this only strengthens my conclusion in the 4th point of the main post. I'm just stating what I believe to be a fact concealed among such a wealth of information this forum has to offer... Just leaving some quick notes in the wall for the next unwary South American that comes through

IgboRobinHood · Answer

Hallo Samir,

Once spoke with a GMAC official who showed me a chart. In that chart there was a direct relationship between the number of GMAT questions practiced and your final GMAT score.

In his words; if you practice 2,000 questions you will definitely score above 700 - the only catch being that for every question you fail, you must find out why you failed it.

Good luck with your preparations!

SamirAbrahao · Answer

Hello,

Interesting! I've seen reports of people who exausted some question banks, namely those offered by Manhattan, Veritas, Magoosh and GMAT club, and they did pretty well on the test.

I'm not convinced of this direct relationship between number of questions and score though. I think the number of questions can also be an indicator of a longer period of time spent practicing, which may, in turn, better relate to the score. It would be useful, for instance, to determine how one would perform by practicing 2k questions over the course of a single month, in order to better evaluate this argument.

Right now what I'm doing is to gather all my strength to read these Manhattan books. I'm finding them utterly boring, but an important source of theoretical knowledge and strategy :D

Silviax · Answer

Hi Samir, I agree with your initial assessment. This was/is exactly my experience as well. I believe that the great majority of GMAT takers are non-native speakers, but you and I don't fall into the "typical" non-native speaker category. I, for example have always been great at sentence correction regardless of me being a non-native speaker. SC is by far my strongest section on the GMAT, but I don't have a quantitative background like many here do thus I am always low on the quant score.. Sometimes, it upsets me a little bit when I hear that what is tested on the GMAT are just some very basic math and grammar skills. That's not entirely true. RC and CR can get quite complicated and the "basic math skills" are tested in a way that makes it really hard to apply my knowledge. I recently took a practice GRE just to see what the questions look like and I didn't even finish the whole thing, but what I saw was that YES the math part is easier and for the verbal part you need more vocabulary which shouldn't be that hard to learn because it is something that can be memorized and it would actually be fun to learn a few new fancy words that you can throw at people at work or dinner parties. :lol:

But people kept telling me that the GMAT is easier for non-native speakers, I just wasn't aware that they had a different profile of "non-native" speaker in mind when they said that. I don't fit that profile and I think you don't either. But hey let's not give up yet. I agree with BB that some people just need a lot longer to finally have a break through. I really want to believe that HARD WORK PAYS OFF IN THE END. This has always worked for me in life and I want to believe the GMAT is no exception to this.

Silviax · Answer

At least you have crossed the 600 before.... I have never been able to do that... not even on a practice exam. I think that's a very important mark from a psychological stand point just like the 700!

bb · Answer

Yes, the caveat provided (knowing why you failed the question) is the most important aspect.

However, another side item is that just doing questions is not going to be most optimal approach. I think of it as trying to cover a house in band-aids. Would be much better to get a big piece of plastic but instead you are using a limited scope of one question, the size of a bandaid, and yes, probably 2-5K questions will do the trick, but you do have to go back and research why you missed each one of them and not just be able to memorize the answer for this question in the future but rather know the concept behind it. The opposite approach is going to be using books/guides but you need to make sure that that material is sticking and not just moving from chapter to chapter for the sake of moving. It takes some practice and question probing to figure out the quality of your review/learning. Once you get to 90% correct under timed conditions, then move on.

P.S. Practice is good as long as you time yourself and keep conditions realistic.

SamirAbrahao · Answer

Indeed! And whats more, I was actually aiming for a 600+ on my first try haha preparing-for-gmat-in-a-week-217480.html At about a week prior to test day, I started to score 700+ on CATs, and I started to think I could actually do the same in the real test. At the very least, this belief allowed for a broader failure spectrum. Turned out I got exactly the score I was initally aiming for (and had prepared to), but then, AFTER the test, I learned that the program I was applying to had a much higher GMAT score requirement than I originally anticipated, and I almost imediately received a refusal after reporting my unoficial scores. The irony is rich. Now I literally got a score to settle.

Silviax · Answer

The school sent you a rejection letter solely based on the GMAT score that was reported? I mean did you have the rest of your application submitted as well before they rejected you? 
I always thought that schools get a lot of scores reported each day and won't even look at them unless there is an application to go with them?
Sorry, if I misunderstood your reply.

SamirAbrahao · Answer

What happened was that I applied by the last round deadline, which was April 15, and without submitting my GMAT scores. I had sent all the required documents at that time, except GMAT and TOEFL scores. I was in touch with a member of adcom by email in order for him to help me with my application process, and for me to send them the remaining scores, and he told me my GMAT scores "could wait until May or June or for as long as there is still space in the program".

I had assumed a 600+ score would do because I'm an experienced data analyst and I was applying to a Master of Business Analytics program, the GMAT range for the admitted class last year was 600-730, and because everything I had read and heard had led me to believe this year's intake was a little light on competition.

I took the test on May 16, scanned my unoficial score and sent to them by email. I got this reply the day after: " Unfortunately, your profile is not competitive for this Fall intake. Your GPA for the final 2 years is B- while the program requires a minimum of B+. Also your GMAT score is below 85% on the quant section. ".

I haven't received any official letters yet, and my application status is still "submitted" in their website, but I have a GOOD guess as to what their answer will be :D

Silviax · Answer

That stinks! Sorry to hear that.

Do you plan on re-taking the GMAT any time soon? It sounds like you are still undecided.

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