IanStewart
MartyTargetTestPrep
Those third party questions were so cool and valuable.
The original poster might find it helpful if you would specify which companies produced those third party Verbal questions.
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)
Marty@TargetTestPrep
One thing that really seems to work on quant is seeking out problems I am afraid of, or get queasy even thinking about. For instance, I realized that when a data sufficiency question showed up, I was not a happy man. So, I did dozens of data sufficiency questions until doing data sufficiency questions became second nature. I did the same with other problem areas. I would be like "A mixture question, ohhh nooo." So I would do mixture questions, next thing might be penny flipping questions, on and on, until I was confident in areas that I had been worried about.
I guess the strategy started working because after a couple months of work I started scoring 770 or 780 on practice tests. I was a little surprised and didn't trust the scores...
As far as the verbal goes, reading comp kept tripping me up. It seems simple enough, just read and answer, and yet some of the tougher types of reading comp questions can take a little getting used to...
I was hoping on test day maybe I would step it up somehow and score 800.
and who writes this (from the second debrief)
Marty@TargetTestPrep
The main thing I did to raise my quant score was work some more on weaker areas, and the more I looked for areas to work on, the more I found...
One interesting thing I discovered in using these question banks was the way my weaker areas matched up pretty well with the categories in which I hadn't done many practice questions... I would realize that I was not that good with, say, absolute value, and sure enough I would then see that I had almost ignored that category when I was practicing...
So, in addition to learning about things I was not clear about, I had to work on getting good at handling questions that involved things I did understand but was not that great at working with...
I also wanted to lock in 51 on verbal, and the thing that, was even though I was getting 50 or 51 on verbal on most CATs I took, practice or real, at times I would get smoked by verbal questions and score less than 50 on the section. A verbal score lower than 51 would not get me to a total score of 800, and in a way I didn't even know what to do to make sure I would get all of the verbal questions correct...
Sentence Correction seemed to involve a sea of rules and idioms and some of the questions are pretty tricky, and the thing that made Sentence Correction seem particularly challenging was that sometimes in a way the credited answers didn't even seem right. So, getting them all correct seemed like an impossible or at least rather impractical dream... The truth was that there were certain things that consistently got me on Sentence Correction, things such as quantity words and certain idioms, and I figured that maybe if, along with doing some more general practicing, I could just get good with those dozen or so things, I would be OK.
does not sound like the same person who writes the following response (found
here):
MartyTargetTestPrep
AndrewN has given you some good ideas for how to handle this question when taking the GMAT, even if I think practice can perhaps make you a bit more perfect than what he said implies...
When practicing, stick with each verbal practice question until you are close to 100 percent sure of your answer.
For reference, I had written earlier that
AndrewN
No one answers every Verbal question with 100 percent confidence—the test is designed to exploit weaknesses at many levels and in many forms—and anyone who claims otherwise is probably trying to sell you something. All you can do is give yourself the highest probability you can that what you think is correct in a given question ends up being correct. You improve your accuracy by fine-tuning your approach to any type of question the test can throw at you. Practice may not make perfect, but practice will make you better, provided you take the time to adequately study the questions you come across.
, 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
12 May 2022, 06:44
