Princeton Review New CD 2005 Version

Question

It looks like those people are trying to do things different than the 2004 Version. I think that they are trying to follow the Kaplan strategies but the questions are much easier. I did one test and I got a 640 score, another one with a 470 and still the number of mistakes is almost the same in both tests. I am not sure how accurate are the results ???

emilem · Answer

how about the repeats? I hate PR for putting the same RC passages over and over again. Moreover, explanations are very bad. Kaplan is much, much better than PR. I hope they improved their 2005 version CATs.

Antmavel · Answer

I disagree with you.
I got a bad score at verbal and since I really involved myself more in Princeton and OG concerning Verbal, it's much better.... I found the explanations of Kaplan not so precise concerning the Verbal parts.
I would definitely advise to use Kaplan for maths and Princeton for Verbal. And of course, with OG in background

riteshb · Answer

However, don't rely on PR for your Verbal score. I can easily score 40+ on Verbal without much effort on a PR test. ETS verbal is more difficult, and CR on the real GMAT was very difficult.

mbahope · Answer

PR does some funny things for sure. I took their online test last sat and wanted to review it. since i dint know that clicking on the q. no. pops open the questions and answer explanations, i tried to use the answer key to the test. When i entered the answers to the questions in the exact same sequence as i did on my test, i started getting totally different questions!
I dont know how such a thing can happen.
Anyone tried something similar?
Just curious

fjohn19 · Answer

it seems that there are not too many practice questions in the PR 2005 CD. Is this the case or am I mising something? I ran the CD and it looks like there are a few tests...

Paul · Answer

There are 4 CAT tests. The only problem with PR CD, at least for me, is that the same RC passages come back in every test. I wonder if this is because the tests are adaptive and if you do well or bad in them, the same excerpts from the same difficulty bins come back...

mbassmbass04 · Answer

Yes the question are easier, but they have experimental questions too like the real GMAT. The new 2005 CD is much improved such as:

- No more RC repetitions.
- Bold questions for CR
- More probabilities and Perm and Com questions,

The Math questions and the verbal are easy and they are designed in a way that you feel that you are doing the real GMAT. Now, i am not sure about the score accuracy... I was getting 37, 37. 38 and 44 in Math and my real GMAT quant score in August was 44. I beleive that the PR writers lower the quantitive score in order to make you beleive that you will score higher on the real test. I think the 2005 version is much improved than the 2004 one, and give you the sense of an adaptive test, but still I do not trust the scores....

emilem · Answer

It's a great news. If they fixed repititions then PR worths practicing. Do they improved answer explanations? I used 2004 version and found explanations to be unsatisfactory. For instance, assume a detail question from RC passage. The explanation just refers to the text without providing any information why specific answer is correct and others aren't.

By the way, seeing that improvements occurred I'd like to see 2005 version as well. Does anybody know where I can download cd?

EddieCruiser · Answer

You can't download the CD from the Internet...you have to buy it. PR doesn't sell it as a download and if you find it posted anywhere else it's an illegal copy.

I haven't had a single problem with my 2005 CD. Works great.

Paul · Answer

I just bought the PR CD 2005. Although I had some tech. difficulties with the CD, I think it is better than the 2004 version. One problem I had was that b/w the math and verbal section, you have like 30 seconds to move on to the verbal section. If you fail to click start within that time frame, the test automatically ends your test as though you did not do the verbal section at all :!:

I had to restart the same test again and the math walkthrough was not exactly the same... quite annoying. I usually got 700+ in the 2004 version but however got only 650 on my first 2005 PR CD. I am quite shocked although I did not find the test particularly harder than the 2004 version. Did any of you take both versions and see any marked decline in your scores? I wonder if its scoring algorithm is becoming like Kaplan although with easier questions.

mbassmbass04 · Answer

Paul,

You are absolutely right, when I did the first test, I wanted to take the break and the test ended. so I re-took the test and managed to not take the break the second time. 

The score do not reflect your real one, the Quantitive real GMAT is much harder but your score will be higher than the PR one, I will say the real GMAT score will give 5 more points. The Quantitive questions look interesting, some combinations , permutations , probabilities, standard deviations and a lot of experimental questions that reflects the real GMAT but in an easier way.

I liked the Verbal section, a lot of Bold faced questions, but one again I think those questions are easier than the real GMAT and the score do not reflect the real score. The Bottom line is that I think if someone want to estimate his real GMAT score, just add 20 to 30 points to the new PR CD's...

PracticeMore · Answer

I experienced problem with PR 2004 twice during the test. In one, it showed the answer explanation same as what I answered but it did not accept the choice as correct answer. Instead, it was showing another answer as correct. In another test it had the correct answer marked as X and it did not allow me to select that option. After trying few things I had to select another answer which was a closer number. Very frustrating.

And I too experienced the same passage in test1, test2 and test3. I used to stop because I felt that I knew the answer, but later found that I remembered my own replies from the previous test and not the correct answer to those questions. So known passages were no advantage to me.

saikumar · Answer

I took PR test yesterday and uploaded the results to its website, but when I logon to My Review section of the website i am not finding the link to access the score.Does any body had this experience ?If anybody can share how to view the score on PR website, that would really help me...Thanks.

Paul · Answer

Once logged in, click on Cracking the GMAT Online Companion Tools to go to the dashboard. From there, click on Practice, Online Practice Tests, GMAT Full Test "X", and then Review.
Otherwise, what you'll have to do is email tech support. That is what I did because I could not upload my tests either. But mine was a password and login problem for you have to properly log in before being able to do and upload the tests.

Paul · Answer

I have to agree with practicemore here. Some RCs from PR2004 CD do come back(the one on LDEF, the one on Buccharia capital punishment, the one on political vs judicial theory) but only on 1 of the 4 given tests. I just completed another test and I'm very happy with the score. By the way, the quant section IS more difficult. I had about 5+ combination/probability questions some of which are relatively difficult. Although the level of difficulty may still be slightly easier than the toughest GMAT quant DS number property problems, the overall test does put you in the right mindset and very test like conditions. 

What makes verbal harder is that on the 2 tests I have taken so far, they start off with a RC right as of the second question and what happened in the first test I took was that I knew the RC (Buccharia) and memorized my error instead of the right answers. This terribly hurt me since answering wrong questions at first will be more detrimental as the test is adaptive.  Knowing RC passages will actually hurt you more than anything else . Hence, the mere fact that they put RC in the early questions, and RC that you do remember, this will affect your score. I had no such problem with the second test and there was a marked increase. 

Just to let everybody know. So far, I'm very satisfied with their CD2005.

PracticeMore · Answer

Any Idea if I get a used book, will it still work for uploading the test ? I just looked at the Amazon website and saw that used books are available at 22.95 as compared to the original at 36.95.

Paul · Answer

i'm not sure about this since each CD have their own CD keys. Because you have to upload your result and thus have to have a valid CD-key, I doubt that you can use an old version. I would just buy it new. It's worth the purchase.

afife76 · Answer

I heard that when you buy the book, you also get an online practice test. Is it correct? Then, the book comes with (4 tests in CD + 1 test online) 5 tests ??

If this is correct, could you please let me know how one can access to the online test? 

Thanks,

petemajer · Answer

are all the questions in the princeton review 2005 cd new? i already own the 2004 version, so i don't want to buy the 2005 version and basically get the same exact questions.

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