Official Guide Questions vs. Questions on GmatClub

Question

I just breezed through the official guide quant questions without many problems at all. I didn't struggle on any of the questions and when I did get a question wrong it was mostly sloppy mistakes. The questions toward the end of the section which are the harder, 700 level questions weren't that bad either. However, when i look at some of the question posted on the Math forum i get stumped.

so my question is follows:
1. how much are the later questions in the official guide a representation of the 700+ questions on the gmat?
2. should i rely on the forum as the basis for 700+ level questions ?

Thanks guys,
wayxi

so my question is follows:
1. how much are the later questions in the official guide a representation of the 700+ questions on the gmat?
2. should i rely on the forum as the basis for 700+ level questions ?

Thanks guys,
wayxi

rg1 · Answer

You can search based on tags. Tags provide whole range of options to find question based on difficult level, source and many more. viewforumtags.php

metallicafan · Answer

Hi,

I don't think that the 700-level questions in the OG are not so representative of the real exam. There are few questions of that level in the book. Also, the book doesn't cover topics that the real exam presents. For example, the OG has few questions of combinatronics, probability, sequences, etc.

IMO, the book prepares you for a 600-sub 700 score. Try to practice harder questions in the GMAT Club tests and Manhattan GMAT Tests (they are not free).

Hope it helps.

I think I deserve kudos 8-)

rg1 · Answer

@metallicafan- You're so correct.

VeritasPrepBrian · Answer

Hey guys,

Good discussion! One thing to keep in mind is that the Official Guide only contains questions that have been retired, and I remember hearing that the rule was that the questions had to have been retired for 5 years before they can be published. Even if not, by the time the questions are retired, provided with solutions, formatted, edited, and published you're looking at questions that haven't been live GMAT questions for a while, so you're looking at the historical GMAT in the OG.

The test has to evolve, and GMAC takes that responsibility quite seriously by researching each potential question thoroughly before it ever affects your score. So the current 700+ level questions are almost necessarily a little different from those in the OG - they have to find ways to trick the top 5% of test-takers, many of whom have breezed through the OG as you said.

Particularly on the math side, there's a ton of value in seeing what GMAT experts are writing as new questions, as we tend to take the concepts that we've seen on hard official questions and ask "how could they make that harder?" or at least "how could they ask that differently?". To prepare for a 700+ score, I'd certainly recommend:

1) Devour those new questions in the forums 
2) As you see new questions, do what we do and ask how you could tweak the question slightly to make it harder or elicit a different answer; that way you'll be more flexible in your problem solving and abilities with those concepts.

rg1 · Answer

@VeritasPrepBrian- Thanks for explaining so beautifully.

Wayxi · Answer

Many thanks for all the replies guys. The last thing i want is to show up for the gmat OVER-CONFIDENT but in actuality UNDER-PREPARED. Looks like i still have a lot more work to do...

drisss · Answer

I would say questions from the OG are "on average" a little bit easier ... for math you have plenty of resources that are more difficult, but the problem is that they are not necessarily representative of the GMAT test... that is the dilemma we will have to cope with

noboru · Answer

The easiest question in the real exam is much more difficult than the most complicated one of the OG. At least, that is my experience in the 3 times I have taken de exam (Q50, Q48, Q50).

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