Quick questions regarding the questions found on gmatclub

Not all questions here on GMAT club are from official sources. You can easily identify question source from the 'show tags' button. You should be able to view the entire inventory of official questions from the GMAT menu main navigation bar on top>>practice questions banks. From there select multiple OGs or GMAT prep.
But in my opinion, the best way to practice official questions is the Forum Quiz feature. From there you can filter Official only questions by difficulty & type, and create custom quiz sets.

This is why I am wondering if the questions on gmatclub are all official questions or how I can distinguish official vs non-official ones

The way you filter the Questions in the search option or the tags you select can help you check. You might want to not do questions that are designated as GMAT PREP - those can appear if your first 2 Official Mocks which you may want to keep fresh.
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As given in posts above , you can filter questions from question pool and practical accordingly section wise.. wish you the best for your preparation

Posted from my mobile device

Hello, Gyps. First, here is the link to the Practice Question Banks. Look at the source tags to create filters. I have to say that I agree with GmatTutorKnight that you may want to steer clear of any questions marked "GMAT Prep" until you have gone through the official practice exams, all six of them. The reason is that different users have posted questions from these tests in different manners through the years, and there is no way to tell apart a question from one practice test and another. You would not want to ruin the opportunity to see an entirely fresh set of questions or gain a false sense of security by answering questions correctly that you recognized from before and earning a higher score as a result. There are plenty of official questions from various editions of the Official Guide, I can assure you.


You forgot to mention that, after a trial period, the Forum Quiz feature is a paid product. Since GMAC™ keeps producing official guides to sell from year to year, it is probably a safe bet to pay for access to the newest GMAC™ product. I understand the allure of gaining access to all official questions under the sun, but when money is involved, matters get more complicated. For the record, I would argue that a single edition of the OG, if properly studied, has the potential to allow a candidate to reach well into the 700s. (The Quant theory is a little lax, but that can be supplemented elsewhere.)

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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Hi Gyps,

There are 1000s of Official, retired practice questions that you can work through, if you choose to only work on that specific practice material (and that material is 'tagged' on GMATClub). There are also 1000s of high-quality, 3rd-party practice questions that you can use during your studies (so the 'issue' of not wanting to use non-Official practice questions is really just a matter of simply avoiding a small handful of questionable sources).

Since it sounds like you're just beginning your studies, then it would be a good idea to take a FULL-LENGTH practice CAT Test; you can access 2 for free at www.mba.com (and they come with some additional practice materials). If you want to do a little studying first, so that you can familiarize yourself with the basic content and question types, then that's okay - but you shouldn't wait too long to take that initial CAT. That score will give us a good sense of your natural strengths and weaknesses and will help provide a basis for comparison as you continue to study. A FULL CAT takes about 3.5 hours to complete, so make sure that you've set aside enough time to take it in one sitting. Once you have that Score, you should report back here and we can come up with a study plan.

I'd like to know a bit more about your timeline and goals:
1) What is your goal score?
2) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Every independent GMAT expert I know thinks there is a huge difference between official Verbal questions and prep company Verbal questions. The only people I hear saying otherwise have a Verbal product for sale. As for math, most third party Quant questions are not, in my view, close to the standard of real GMAT questions, but at least for Quant there are some good unofficial questions around.

To the OP, GMATNinja's advice is, as usual, perfect -- for Verbal, you should study exclusively, or almost exclusively, from official questions. The best thing to do would be to buy a recent edition of the Official Guide and the official Verbal Review books (and the official Quant Review if you want more math questions), because then you can be sure you're only studying real test questions, and the questions will roughly progress from easy to hard in each section. One added advantage of buying the books: research shows that people learn better from actual books, even when preparing for a computer test, than they do from online resources. Good luck!
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I personally used around 2000 to 2500 practice questions when I was preparing for the GMAT, and around 80 to 90 percent of them were third-party questions.

I remember those third-party questions so fondly. They repeated the same things over and over, giving me multiple opportunities to learn to handle concepts and trap types until my performance was virtually flawless. Those third party questions were so cool and valuable. I practically get chills remembering the learning experiences.

So, while I agree with the idea that you have to use some judgment in choosing which practice questions to use, you can certainly use some third-party questions from better sources. You can learn great things from third-party questions, including things that the GMAT didn't do in the past but could very well do on your test.
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The original poster might find it helpful if you would specify which companies produced those third party Verbal questions.
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Hey guys,

first things first - thank you all very very much for your detailed feedback. You are awesome!

So just to get you all on the same page.

I have already taken my CAT on mba dot com. I scored 590 - Quant - 37 and Verbal - 34. I am not really satisfied with that. But that is a different topic, and I am already on a designated study plan.

My question regarding the usage of "just" official questions and unofficial questions as well as where to find and how to filter for official questions on gmatclub has definitely been answered so thank you for that.

Kudos to all of yall and a happy Friday <3

Best
Gyps

That response, IanStewart, will not be forthcoming, I imagine, since the answer, based on what I can find on Beat the GMAT, would almost assuredly go against the marketing strategies of Target Test Prep by promoting non-TTP companies/products. I tracked down the first debrief that Marty posted, back in 2014, when he earned a 780 (an impressive score that I think he should add to his profile, even if it shows imperfection). In that post, he mentions all of the following:

• "every problem in the Veritas question bank"
• "various practice tests I was finding online"
• unspecified questions on "BTGMAT and GMAT Club"
• "the BellCurves question bank"
• "various online sources"

In the second debrief that Marty posted a year later, in 2015, when he earned the 800, the information on resources is pretty sparse. He mentions "some question banks containing quant questions broken down into many categories," as well as "practice problems from various sources" and "taking regular practice CATs," but no sources are specified.

Now, since I am not on Linked In, I am unsure whether Marty has posted an online résumé detailing when he joined the Target Test Prep team, but according to a scathing post on reddit, 2016 seems to fit. One can only reasonably conclude that Marty either did not utilize Target Test Prep resources for either of his two attempts—the company has at least existed since 2008—or he did not see fit to mention the company by name.

I have no insight into how Marty may have overhauled the TTP offerings as the Chief Curriculum and Content Architect, and I have known a few contributors to its product, but I do not care how strong its Verbal course may be, the official questions that have been released are still far superior. At best, the TTP questions will be based on the content tested in official questions and appear as reasonable proxies; at worst, they will be plagiarized official questions (an unfortunate but common practice in the industry) or test concepts in a way that the GMAT™ would not. I cannot offer an opinion, since I have not examined the product. I do feel the need to add that I trust the expertise of those I know who have contributed to the TTP program, and I imagine that the organizational framework (e.g., testing the same concept in one module, then moving on to another) is strong.

Marty, please understand, I have no personal animus toward you or toward Target Test Prep. I have enjoyed our discussions in the forum and the few times we have spoken by PM, even when we have not altogether agreed on a question. But there is a noticeable difference in tone between the person who wrote the debriefs above and the person who is writing these short responses that seem to imply that TTP is the magic bullet for GMAT™ prep. To illustrate, the person who writes this (from the first debrief)



and who writes this (from the second debrief)



does not sound like the same person who writes the following response (found here):


For reference, I had written earlier that


Marty, as you know, I awarded a kudos to your post quoted above, even though we seem to disagree on the notion that practice makes perfect. I look up to you and read your responses to questions with great interest. I simply miss seeing the more vulnerable side, and I hope that the earlier Marty does not get lost behind a TTP marketing façade. Do not get me wrong: if I had put so much work into developing a product, I would want to stand behind it too. Your response would be more helpful to onlookers, though, if you would elucidate why you feel your product may be worthy of study beyond (or even in lieu of) the thousands of official Verbal questions that are available, when there is near universal agreement in the industry that nothing beats official Verbal questions for GMAT™ preparation. And if you think some other prep company product may also be worth a glance as supplemental material, feel free to share. I doubt you signed a contract that says you cannot hold non-TTP-sanctioned views anymore.

- Andrew
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Andrew, I'm grateful for your insights and suggestions, and I'm sure that I'll use them.

At the same time, the funny thing is that, in reading the quotes you took from my debrief from 2014, I'm amazed by the degree to which that I was saying basically the same things I'm saying now, though in way that reflects that I had less experience with the GMAT at that time.

Regarding the official versus non-official questions thing, my only point is that high-quality third-party questions can be much more useful than some people imply they are. In fact, for certain purposes, they can be even more useful than official questions.

For instance, if I want to show someone how a certain type of verbal trap choice works, I can create a set of questions that focus on that exact type of trap. Or, in the case of a certain type of quant scenario, there may be a total of two released official quant questions that involve that type of scenario, but TTP may have a dozen such questions and thus enable people to practice handling that type of scenario over and over.

On a related note, I've had a tutoring student request that I use TTP CR questions rather than official CR questions in our sessions because he felt that most official CR questions were too easy for him to learn from. Also, I recently had the opportunity to watch another tutor teach CR to a student, and the tutor used a mix of official CR questions and third-party questions to teach a particular concept. This tutor has been teaching the GMAT for over a decade, is familiar with the available questions, and is not affiliated with any test-prep company that creates third-party questions. So, the fact that he used questions other than official questions suggests that he too finds that third-party questions can be more useful than official questions for some purposes.

Anyway, my point was not to argue that people should use third-party questions rather than official questions. It's simply that the notion that people should use only official questions doesn't serve people as well as some people seem to believe it does.

Finally, regarding whether TTP is a magic bullet, TTP does tend to get people to their score goals. In fact, we often hear from people about how they wished they had found TTP sooner before they wasted months using other resources. In my experience, people who simply use the TTP course properly reliably achieve 700+ GMAT scores. So, apparently, using non-official practice questions actually works quite well. There's really no other possible conclusion.
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Hello, Marty. Thank you for responding to my post. It took me a long time to research and write in a way that I felt was respectful yet got my point across. I will respond in-line below.


More experience with something, even mastery of something, should not necessarily translate to confidence without bounds. Many seasoned climbers and hikers, for instance, lose their lives each year as a result of confidence gained through experience. They tend not to be as cautious as someone just starting out would be, and unfortunately, they sometimes pay the ultimate price. I do not by any means see mental exercises such as taking on question sets as the same, but I do see a parallel.


I agree that "high-quality third-party questions can be much more useful than some people imply they are." A well-written question is a well-written question (even though most third-party questions are not), and in the hands of a proper teacher, any material can prove worthy of study. That said, I still advocate the use of official material for Verbal preparation. There is little incentive for GMAT™ experts to categorize official questions in the same granular manner you might do on the Target Test Prep platform, since official questions cannot be sold as part of a proprietary package. That does not diminish the utility of studying these questions.

Your point about TTP and Quant questions is valid, and I am not as staunch an advocate of sticking to official questions for Quant preparation. I have seen plenty of high-quality Quant questions from third parties, even if, once again, many fall short.

Getting back to Verbal preparation, I know that GMAT Ninja and other respected tutors recommend using LSAT questions. I do not consider these third-party questions, since they are official questions, just written for a different test. I see these questions more as an opportunity for cross-training or for supplemental study. In any case, I disagree with your conclusion about the tutor you watched that "he too finds that third-party questions can be more useful than official questions for some purposes" (my italics). That tutor may have simply selected certain questions to fit his pedagogical purpose, perhaps in an effort not to exhaust similar official questions. We cannot know why that tutor used any particular questions for that lesson without discussing the matter directly with him. As for your own student who requested TTP CR questions, if he finds "most official CR questions... too easy for him to learn from," then he might want to spend more time with those he does not find too easy to learn from. That is the point of preparing for the test. However, and for the record, I see no problem with someone like you guiding him using TTP CR questions.


I know that the Verbal arm of the TTP platform is relatively new, so I am waiting to hear more about it before I feel I can comment on its efficacy. (I wish some independent and unbiased group existed to provide reviews of all the major GMAT™ test prep products, but alas...) Since so many reviews still focus on the Quant part, about which I have made my position clear above, I disagree that "there's really no other possible conclusion" than that "using non-official practice questions actually works quite well" for Verbal preparation. If your goal as the Chief Curriculum and Content Architect for TTP is to get its Verbal offerings to the same level of efficacy as its Quant offerings, all I can say is good luck in your pursuit of that goal. Even if the incentive is financial, if a product works, it works, and I am not going to be so close-minded as to say that I find studying non-official questions a complete waste of time.

Again, I appreciate your taking the time to provide a clearer response. I look forward to the next time we may cross paths.

- Andrew
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The thing is, if someone experienced the frissons you describe when studying third party questions before two tests in 2014 and 2015, and then went on to write two 25-paragraph debriefs about their preparation, I'd expect those debriefs to mention how great those third party Verbal questions were somewhere. And do your original debriefs from seven years ago mention how "cool and valuable" those third party Verbal questions were? I have no idea, because you have edited your 800-score debrief 22 times, the most recent edit five years after it was first posted. The 780 debrief has been edited 13 times, the most recent edit just two days ago. AndrewN quoted that debrief above, and at least one of those quotes has now vanished, presumably to hide the fact that you used Veritas Verbal questions to get your scores. But now, if a reader of this thread follows the links posted here, unless that reader can figure out that you edited your post, it may falsely appear that AndrewN misquoted you. Making someone honest appear to be dishonest, whether you did it intentionally or not, is something I have an ethical issue with.

Maybe seven years ago, before they were edited, your debriefs did say how "cool and valuable" those Veritas Verbal questions were. They don't now. The 800 debrief attributes your performance mainly to meditation and visualization; unless you'll edit it again, it describes how, less than a week before test day, you got a 780 on an official diagnostic (with a lower Verbal score than on your earlier real test, after all that practice). You then were "pretty sure I had the answer," and that answer was "meditation and resolving inner conflict" and visualizing success.

I'd add that, from your numbers, you couldn't have studied nearly all of the available official questions. For many years, many prep companies have been essentially plagiarizing official Verbal questions. So those third party Verbal questions you now say you found so valuable may just have been official questions with a few words changed. Of course those questions are valuable, the half of the time when the prep company doesn't ruin the question with their changes, if someone doesn't study the original versions, because they're essentially real test questions. You may have been studying official questions without realizing it.

Lastly the point is not that third party Verbal questions are universally bad. Of course some of those questions are good. The problem is, for every good question there's a question with two right answers, or no right answer, or which tests something the GMAT would never test. So at best it's very inefficient to study unofficial questions, and at worst it's counterproductive because it can lead a test taker to focus on the wrong things, or to learn 'rules' that don't exist. You may have scored a V51 using them, but there's no way to know how quickly you would have reached your score had you studied from official questions instead, and no way to know if your preparation even mattered. You scored a V50 on your first test after you "didn't spend that much time preparing for the verbal section". Someone at that level is going to get a V51 at least a quarter of the time just by luck alone, with no preparation at all.

In general, I don't trust recommendations from people who stand to profit from those recommendations. Of the Verbal experts I know and respect who aren't selling Verbal products, they, without exception, say that official questions are far more valuable than unofficial questions. That's also my opinion, and I stand by the advice I expressed earlier: someone preparing for GMAT Verbal should focus almost exclusively on official questions for practice.
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We are in agreement, IanStewart, and thank you for the kind words. I aim to be honest, even though I sometimes fail. Fortunately, I have photographic evidence in the form of screenshots that what I have quoted above is not conjured up. (I suppose someone could accuse me of doctoring up such evidence, but I am sure the owner(s) of Beat the GMAT could produce older backups of the contents of its site if necessary.) This is not a political arena, though, and I have no intention of slinging mud. The intent of my original reply to Marty was best summed up in the following line:


I will only say that I am disappointed that the posts I quoted earlier have been altered. Many people look to debriefs from high scorers to guide them in their own preparation, and it is misleading for someone to remove information about just what went into a high score when the only pertinent information is a banner ad at the bottom of the post.


Marty, I never advised you to remove information that might run contrary to your business interests. If you want to listen to one suggestion or accommodate a single request I have, please restore the information that you or someone else removed recently from your debriefs.

- Andrew
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AndrewN, nobody, especially me, is going to accuse you of being dishonest. Why would they?

On another note, nobody would benefit from my mentioning Veritas in my debrief because Veritas has been wound down. On the other hand, what they would benefit from is using the Target Test Prep GMAT course. After all, much of the course is based on what I have learned over the years with regards to achieving high GMAT scores. So, using the course is a great way to benefit from my GMAT preparation experience, along with the experiences of the many people with whom I have worked.

Overall, it's been super interesting and valuable talking about these topics with you and IanStewart, and I'm stoked to use the key takeaways from our discussion to continue to improve the TTP course and everything I do.
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I disagree that nobody would benefit. It helps test-takers to know how a high scorer achieved that score: how he prepared and what resources he used, even if the resources are no longer available.

Your full original debrief must have been very instructive. The lesson to learn is about the type of effort needed for 780-800 scores. Debriefs on the lines of "I studied for three weeks and scored 760" don't usually offer many lessons.

Perhaps you could restore the deletions and add a note that Veritas has since been wound up. (That was sad news.)



Posted from my mobile device
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It's also not even true that the resources are unavailable. Through a quick search of this forum, I find hundreds of Veritas verbal questions, freely available. I assume Marty knows this, because he is active on the Verbal forum. And Veritas hasn't vanished; it just merged with Varsity. As far as I can tell from their websites, the Veritas material will still be available, just on a different platform.
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To be honest, vv65, I would have let sleeping dogs lie, if not for your response. It is also worth noting that the mention of "the BellCurves [sic] question bank" was taken down, since that website still appears to be active and running on its own. Anyway, I second the motion to "restore the deletions." It matters to me, it matters to you, and I am guessing it would matter to others.

- Andrew
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