Why You Should Use Only Real GMAT Questions

This actually raises a question I've been wondering about. Who created the GMATPrep algorithm? If the GMAC did, do they have different teams writing the 2 algorithms?

GMAC did, but the common wisdom is that they created a simpler algorithm for GMATPrep so that enterprising computer users couldn't find a way to reverse-engineer the actual GMAT algorithm.

I thought so too, and then I ran into a question in the OG that has two defensible answers: in-colorado-subalpine-meadows-205282.html

So I've come to the conclusion that either the OG has some verbal questions that are not so well written or even well-written verbal questions have 2 defensible answers sometimes.

But as a rule of thumb, official GMAT questions, regardless of how difficult they are, have only one defensible answer each, and the defensible answer is usually very obvious.

I don't think that I've ever encountered a GMAT verbal question with two defensible answers. The example above, I think, has only one possible answer.

In continuation to my post above, I would like to tell here that I agree with 90% of the things mentioned here. I am in complete agreement with the statements below –

a) Official questions are of the best quality, closest to the actual questions and most dependable practice material
b) You should practice official questions more than any other unofficial questions
c) Some of the questions of the big test prep companies are too difficult or too easy or ambiguous or not related to GMAT concepts

I even agree with the below statement but with a caveat.

d) You can score a 700+ or even a 780 by practicing / studying only official guides, questions and tests without touching any other unofficial source at all and without help from any test prep company’s material / course.

The caveat for statement d is that you need to learn the concepts of GMAT from a very good GMAT tutor who can guide you how to use the official materials and questions. This caveat is never mentioned in any of the posts here as that will look like a direct advertising and people may not take it as a neutral advice.

You can score a 700+ without knowing anything about probability. I was weak in probability and I am not sure whether I gave correct answer to the only probability question in my actual GMAT or not. I scored 760. But along with probability if you are unsure about number properties, word problems, inequality, geometry and co-ordinates and have a speed problem in RC and not confident in answering difficult RC and SC questions then you cannot score 700+ even if you practice 4000+ official questions over 3-4 months.

Unless you are already strong with most of the GMAT concept (which is only true for probably less than 5% of the candidates), you need to build the concepts tested in GMAT to score 700+. It’s ok if you are weak in 3-4 specific topics like probability, co-ordinates, bold face CR, idioms etc, but then you need to be confident in other areas.

You can build the concepts in three ways – Option 1) Taking help from a test prep company, Option 2) Taking help from a good GMAT tutor and Option 3) For self prep, use unofficial guides like MGMAT SC and quants guide or PowerScore CR Bible and associated topic wise unofficial questions. Use some official questions in between for practice.

After you build the concepts in the first 20% or 30% part of your preparation, you can devote the last 70-80% part to official questions. If you are targeting a 700+ score by self prep only not taking any help from a big test prep company or a GMAT tutor and you are only using official materials / questions / tests avoiding all unofficial materials then you are putting yourself into a big risk of not achieving your target score.

Again, I am not a GMAT tutor or expert, but I have seen people practicing only a lot of official questions without building the concepts well with help from any GMAT tutor or unofficial materials and failing to achieve their target score. They are inspired by the advices like a, b, c above but did not understand the caveat in statement d as it is not explicitly mentioned.

Sorry for the long post again, but in summary, my advice is if you are only practicing official questions, go for option 2 above, otherwise go for option 1 or 3.

I am going to stop editing my post and post a new one: Thinking more about it, it seems hard to believe MGMAT would try to save money on their $1,500 course by excluding the $25 Official Guide or somehow steering me away from it. They include it and they reference the questions at the end of their chapters. I am sure their tutors also use some of the OG questions in one-on-one just like you do. I don't think there is that much difference from what I have observed in MGMAT tutoring.

You definitely get the Official Guide with an MGMAT course and yes, there are OG questions referenced in each MGMAT chapter. But the reality is (and I don't mean to single MGMAT out) that the meat of the MGMAT program is MGMAT questions. It's not "let's get you up and running with some instruction and drills and then get you on a healthy diet of Official GMAT questions ASAP". That would be great. Also, the Official Guide is one resource of many. Most people aren't going to hit a home run on the GMAT just using the Official Guide. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this but I don't think the plentitude of other Official GMAT resources (Question Pack 1, GMAT Focus, Quant Review, Verbal Review, GPT) are an integral part of the syllabus. Again, not meaning to pick on one specific company. I'm just making the point that providing one GMAT book and having some target questions from that book at the end of a chapter isn't what I would consider a full implementation of the best resources available.

2. With that in mind, if you are going to take a course, use the course to learn the basics but then focus most of your preparation on Official GMAT materials. You can learn a lot by googling questions (lots of excellent explanations here on GMAT club). Remember: don't only review with your eyeballs! Actually put pen to paper and re-do questions.

Checked it out before I replied here:) I think Mike McGarry did a great job breaking it down demonstrating that there was only one answer.

You see, to be a weakener, we can't say something that we have a hard time distinguishing from the original argument, or that requires really fine grade distinctions.

The control plots yielded significantly more larkspur seeds than the dandelion-free plots, leading the researchers to conclude that the presence of dandelions facilitates pollination (and hence seed production) in the native species by attracting more pollinators to the mixed plots.

There isn't a single GMAT company I know of that offers something like this...but there should be. It's what most independent, private GMAT tutors like us do, because using real GMAT questions as a basis for your teachings is a no-brainer, at least when you aren't handcuffed by a non-compete contract with a GMAT prep company who claims otherwise.

The problem in many cases is profit-related: when you run a large GMAT prep company, unless you want to get sued or potentially pay a king's ransom for licensing fees, you can't sell books full of another company's questions. So if you want to make money selling test-prep books and materials, then the best you can do is "reference" real GMAT questions and/or write your own imitation questions, which are inevitably of lesser quality than the real thing, even when they are well done.

Of course there is some teaching value in synthetic questions, but there is even more teaching value in real questions: not only do you learn the concepts behind the test, but you also get a better feel for the precise wording, content and difficulty level of the GMAT itself, which many outside test writers have tried and failed to fully replicate.

There are thousands of cola drinks in the world, but there is only one Coca-Cola, and yes, most of us who care can tell the difference.

I have already pointed out why there are two correct answers. For your convenience, I've just repeated my reasoning in that thread.

On top of that, Mike McGarry said this:



To me, this implies that the other answer is arguably a weakener, though not as "strong" of a weakener as the official answer.
I don't think what the alternative answer implies is hard to distinguish from the original argument.

The problem is that the conclusion is not clear. This is the original sentence:



So which of the following is the conclusion:

1. That the presence of dandelions facilitates pollination,

or

2. That the presence of dandelions achieves this by attracting more pollinators to the mixed plots?

A GMAT official CR question typically has a very clear conclusion.

I agree with you that answers to verbal questions aren't necessarily harder to judge. I think what makes a verbal question tougher to write is that there's generally much more text than in a math question. And all of that text has to conform to a GMAT standard. Long Quant word problems also have that issue and in my experience are usually the most "off" of third party quant questions.

A.

To answer this question I'd have to take off two months from teaching and write a book.

A.

We have settled the issue over in the appropriate thread. I think I misinterpreted one crucial word in the passage. Thanks, HerrGrau, for helping me figure out this question.

I hereby declare that any real GMAT question has only one defensible answer choice, until proven to the contrary.