5 things about the new GMAT Prep Exam Pack 1

5 things about the new GMAT Prep Exam Pack 1

As we recently found out, mba,com recently launched Exam Pack 1 as a part of their GMAT Study materials. The mba.com store boasts two new products worth checking out.

You get what you pay for.

With a $40 price tag for two tests, you are not making an amazing deal here! You get 6 MGMAT CATs for $10 (MGMAT CATs are available with the purchase of any kindle or iOS version of their books) and those are pretty good ones. However point to note here is that the tests are official and contain retired real GMAT questions. The tests will be one of the only few sources out there to get official questions (OG, OG supplements, GMAT Prep CATs, GMAT Prep Question Pack 1 being the other ones). I absolutely recommend ONLY official questions for verbal and while the tests comes for a price, I would buy them if I were taking the exam!

The algorithm is just as great as GMAT Prep

As mentioned before, I got 10 point more than my official GMAT score. I attribute those points to slipping the AWA and IR sections and being able to take the test on my couch However it is interesting to note that I got a Q50 with making 3 mistakes on Quant (7th, 13th and 31st). Normally that would probably give me a Q51. Quant is becoming way too demanding it seems! The percentiles are also upgraded according to latest GMAT standards. Q50 now only manages to fetch me a 90 %ile instead of the usual 92! That's slightly disappointing to see :/

The Questions are awesome!

Being an oldie on the forum and having squeezed out all the juice of GMAT Prep (results are in the SC, CR and RC official question banks in my sig!), I normally figure out if I stumble upon an official question that has been featured in OG/GMAT Prep or Q Pack 1. However none of the Quant Questions that I faced in the exam were seen before. That is great because the two tests definitely add a substantial number of brand new official questions. However I saw a couple of SC questions which seemed familiar. After a little research I stumbled upon this one. This was the 12th question in my CAT today

One of the repeats that I saw

Now this was really disappointing. While the RCs seemed really fresh, having a couple SC repeats made me feel like that GMAC should probably have added only new questions when they are charging $40 for two tests. That cannot be helped I guess.

The IR section is fairly representative

I am almost convinced that IR in GMAT Prep CATs are much harder than those that appear on the real test. (Note that OG IR is much easier). My IR experience on test day was much smoother than any other. (GMAT Prep CATs and MGMAT CATs made me IR -phobic). However IR in Exam Pack 1 did not seem to be that intimidating. I did not attempt the questions diligently, but I did browse through most of them. I had only 1 MSR and 5 two part questions (surprising?).

The tests have a lot of juice (assumption)

The Exam Pack 1 comes with the same warning GMAT Prep CATs do.

This makes me assume that the question pool for GMAT Prep and Exam Pack 1 are similar in terms of number of questions. That is definitely something to cheer about. I squeezed in about 300 questions from the last 2 GMAT Preps. Thats a LOT of official questions. You definitely can't go wrong with them!

Final Thoughts!

Official Questions are always a worthy investment. I even recommend the GMAT Focus (ridiculously high priced). Official questions graded with the official algorithm always calms you down or tells you there is a bumpy road ahead. Whatever the information about your preparation the test provides, you know that its the most reliable. I am fairly satisfied with the product and would recommend all GMAT aspirants to buy one.

If you have taken any CAT out of the Exam Pack 1, let me know!
And, all the best for the preparation for GMAT!