Manhattan GMAT test vs GMAT prep - Thougths?

Question

I have scheduled a test for this Thursday and I am worried because of several things.

My target is 700-710 and I have scored 700 (48Q and 38V) and 720 (49Q and 39V) this week in GMAT prep software but I have not been able to pass the 670 barrier on the Manhattan GMAT tests. Especially the 44Q

Manhattan GMAT tests in order: 
590 (38Q, 33V), 
610 (41Q, 35V) 
610 (41Q, 33Q), 
670 (Q44, V37) (last week)
650 (Q43, V36) (last week)

I know it is difficult to estimate but is the GMAT prep considerably easier than the real exam and MGMAT more representative  OR  is MGMAT harder than the actual thing and GMAT prep more representative of the real exam? ?

Any thoughts ?

How likely am I to pass the 700 barrier on Thursday ?

Added: I bought the 400 question pack from GMAC and I have around 87% accuracy in the mid and high level quant questions ! Why am I not scoring higher in Manhatttan exams?

jumsumtak · Answer

I view this as a 700+ story if you don't screw up on your test.

MGMAT quant is tougher than the real thing, but prepares you well. GMAT prep tests are the closest to the GMAT because GMAC produces them.
87% is a very good rate - maintain calm and you should definitely be able to achieve your target.

good luck.

GMATNinja · Answer

Jumsumtak is completely correct, as usual.

The GMATPrep runs exactly the same algorithm as the actual GMAT, so it's generally a much better indicator of your progress than anything produced by test-prep companies. Just a hunch: did you have far worse timing problems on your MGMAT tests? Are there a bunch of quant questions that took you 3 minutes or more? If so, that's pretty normal--you're probably getting stubborn on the toughest MGMAT questions, and that goofs up your timing on the entire section. Anyway, 87% on the GMATPrep Question Pack sounds great, and the GMATPrep scores sound great, too. Keep working with official questions if you're doing any more studying before your exam, and you'll be fine. Good luck on Thursday!

arnijon90 · Answer

Thanks for the response, hopefully i will reach my target tomorrow morning. But yes I had timing problems in the MGMAT quant section. I found their problems to be very long and needed far more computing of all kind of factors. The complete opposite on the GMAT prep software, if I knew the concept I would be able to solve the problem in 90 seconds but on MGMAT even if I completely knew the concept I was around 2-3 minutes solving it, and even more of course on the problems I found very difficult.

Also  one thing! I found the critical reasoning part in the MGMAT test very frustrating, since I was very often left with two very similar answer choices, I had around 65-70% accuracy on the MGMAT but 85-90% on the GMAT prep! Anyone else who feels this way about the CR part in MGMAT?

Cheers guys!

dentobizz · Answer

Hi,
Agree with gmatninja and jumsumtak above, 700+ looks comfortable. The MGMT CR questions are a bit trickier than those on the gmatprep and you need more time to solve them ,esp. the abstract and parallel reasoning questions.
 I would recommend ,in quant, that you bail on the questions you think you will need 3+ minutes to solve this will give you more time to do more questions you actually can do in 2 mins with 100% accuracy and give you a score increase on 2-3 points at least. All the best for tomorrow. Do tell how it went.

arnijon90 · Answer

The exam went terrible!! Don´t know what went wrong.. I scored 600... (42Q, 29V) ... Feel like jumping off a cliff

The first quant example was a simple rate problem and I spent 4 minutes over it.. Could not solve it.. I solved it in 30 sec when I got home.. (I remembered the example).

What happened in my brain...

dentobizz · Answer

Hey buddy really sorry to hear about your score drop. What I can gauge from your post so far that probably your timing went awry and you were pretty tensed going in to take the test (simple rate problem --4 mins) 
V29 means you did poorly at least on 2 sections , may be fell in the traps?, timing was a serious issue? felt too stressed and fatigued?

well, you content knowledge was (rather is) a 700 but probably timing and stress management wan't up to the mark.
 your disappointment and disbelief are valid BUT I would suggest that you don't give up

Please take few days off to refresh and give the test another try

arnijon90 · Answer

Yes, stress was definitely a factor, however, I felt I was doing good on the verbal part, got 2 boldface CR questions... And found the SC question easy... But one thing that I thought was most frusturating was the notepad I was given and the pen to write with... First of all, if I didn´t write with the pen for 20 seconds it dried up, took 2-5 seconds making it work again. When I was at my 30 quant question I had used up all the notepad and the administrator was very long to notice my hand signal and finally came with a new one.. 4 minutes later or something..

So several factors ..Just feel very depressed now

dentobizz · Answer

It only logical that you feel depressed after all the effort you made. If it makes you feel any better my score dropped frm 730 (mgmt and gmat prep mocks) to 600 actual exam , needless to say I was heartbroken, angry and disappointed.Later on I reflected with a fresh mind what could have gone wrong.But I remember Ron saying on the forums that if the test feels easy you most probably are falling into the traps and BF questions can appear at 650/700/750 levels so you can't gauge your performance by that alone. Some 750 scorers didn't get BF questions at all. Timing, Stress and, Stamina are the most underated and underprepared areas for most test takers and they can be deal breakers on the G-Day. And to make matters worse the delay with the pen and notepad do happen quite a lot if not always. A tip about the pen if you don't use it for sometime the tip tends to dry up, so one has to keep it caped most of the time. 
Do try to get some mental rest and analyse what went wrong in a day or two. There is a good post about analysing your score drop will find and post it . Best

Posted from my mobile device

Kenny0929 · Answer

arnijon90,

When you took your MGMAT and GMAT Prep tests, did you complete all the sections (Essay, IR etc) with the breaks in between as well? If not, you should do that.
Also, since your GMAT PREP scores are slightly better, had you seen any of those questions before (in forums, Thursdays with Ron etc)? If so, your scores on GMAT PREP may be inflated a little bit.

Also, MGMAT Quant is harder than the actual GMAT's Quant. So, you could easily add another 2 points to your MGMAT Quant score. That's not true with MGMAT's Verbal though. It's the closest to GMAT Prep (but no way the same as that). 
If I were you, I would take it easy and not be too hard on myself. Have a nice break for a week or so and give the GMAT again. Also, give another GMAT prep after a few weeks (properly timed). If possible, purchase the GMAT PREP question bank (350 additional questions or so). That is very helpful as well, given that they are totally new.

Good Luck.

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