Princeton CAT? Your thoughts

Question

There aren't any people on this forum incorporating princeton CAT exams into their practice. In nearly all the "share your gmat experience" posts, all the users use 2 gmatprep and 6 mgmat cat exams. Any reason i should avoid taking the princeton cats ?

heygirl · Answer

I had used the Princeton CAT for my last attempt of GMAT. I found it a little hard actually. This time too I'm planning to take 1 Princeton CAT. I got a 20-30 point higher score on my real test

ibbys · Answer

From what I have read on this forum, Princeton Review's verbal is quite good but its math is too easy compared to the real GMAT.

DaoEmo · Answer

I have done 2 Princeton CATs, the math was indeed very easy, as for the verbal part, I don't remember

I did math part in about 55 minutes and verbal part in 45 minutes maybe :D But the scoring algo is really awkward I have to say. CAT 1: 580 (Q45 V25) I answered 27 out of 41 questions correctly and got V25. In quant I did 31 out of 37 correctly. Maybe it's representative, I don't know CAT 2: 640 (Q47 V31) - 33 out of 37 in quant and Q47?? I was like "wtf". In the verbal part the very same 27 out of 41 and a score jump of 6 points... All that seemed really strange to me. Can't compare Princeton with MGMAT because haven't done any of their (hi SC!) tests yet, but GMATprep is definetely better.

spizzl · Answer

I worked on a princeton cat - as already mentioned: math was too easy, verbal was ok! in addition the scoring/question selection algorythm is (imho) a bit strange -> seems kinda non-adaptive :]

AmrithS · Answer

I haven't taken the Princeton CATs but I have written 4 of the 6 CATs offered by Manhattan. I must say, the Manhattan CAT is pretty good! Also, it has a feature through which you can generate reports that will help you find out your exact strengths and weaknesses... 
Final Thought: Take the general public's word for it and go for the tried and tested!

M23A · Answer

I have not done Priceton CAT, but the problems in the PR guides seem to be easier than the problems in the OG guides.

For those who have done Princeton CAT, after the test, does it generate a report similar to the report from MGMAT CAT?

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heygirl · Answer

SAmwong, I logged in to my Princeton Review student center and just checked the report. I see that Princeton Review does provide a similar report. There are the foll columns: Question numbers, Correct answert, your answer, time taken for the quest, Question type, Hope that helped.

Schawjibb · Answer

I just have taken a Princeton CAT. This was the free test. I scored 510 whereas a week ago I scored 600 in Kaplan's purchased CAT. The low-score in the PR CAT, perhaps, is due to the mental distress I am going through in last few days because of some personal reasons. However, in my opinion, the scoring algorithm of PR CAT was quite unusual. In addition to that the question selection was strange, at least to me. If I couldn't answer a very hard question correctly, the next question I got was from 'easy' category not from 'medium'. But, 1 good thing to mention here: PR has a pretty decent collection and mix of verbal questions in its CATs.

ebonn101 · Answer

I am having the exact opposite experience regarding quant with Princeton Review vs. MGMAT.

Princeton Review CAT 1 - 530 (33Q, 30V) no prep
Princeton Review CAT 1 (Retake after initial prep) - 650 (39Q, 41V)
Princeton Review CAT 2 - 660 (39Q, 43V)
MGMAT CAT 1 - 730(!) (46Q, 44V)

I got a significant number of incorrect questions on the MGMAT quant portion - mostly because they were, in fact, harder than the Princeton Review math. They did indeed seem very reflective of the stuff you learn in the MGMAT guides. However, I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that I answered 16 out of 37 incorrectly and still managed a 46Q.

Obviously there is a difference in the algorithim. In my Princeton Review course, my instructor seems obsessed with the idea that the first 10 questions really determine your overall score. Maybe this is reflected in the Princeton Review CAT? Because in MGMAT, I answered questions 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8 incorrectly. And I still ended up with a 46Q. Princeton Review I got 9 out of the first 10 correct and ended with a 39. And I did not get 16 incorrect answers, I know that much.

prateekbhatt · Answer

Pretty strange...looks like its common if you compare PR CATs with kaplan / MGMAT and gmat prep you will find that they score 100 points below you actual score also There scoring is strict than real gmat..

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