Real GMAT SC experience

Question

Hi all,

I noticed that the questions in real exam differ from all those in question banks. And the all strategies that we used to solve SC1000 and other questions simple don't work.
The main difference is the concept of creating alternative answers choices.

What was the original concept in majority of the SC1000 questions

A few mistakes in sentences that are really close one to another.

Something like that

a. ....is both X as well as Y, that
b. ....are both X and Y which
c. .....

All You need to do is spot the errors and eliminate the wrong answers choices. One spotted error narrow you choices to 2 or 3 answers. Only exception is type of questions where all sentence is underlined and you need to deel with modifiers.

What is in real GMAT

1. All answers choices are different, you cannot eliminate 2-3 choices just spotting one error. You need to read all the choices and this lead to extra time consumption
2. A lot of questions where the only difference among majority of answer choices is meaning
3. A lot of confusing questions with dirty tricks, examinator specially distract your attention with changing that only look like error and cover real error. For an example creating visibility of idiom, changing preposition which are in fact all correct, but in the end you have only one mistake .... economical vs economic.

MY QUESTIONS????????

- Why is SC so dramatically changed? Share you experience with real GMAT SC
- How to deal with REAL GMAT SC?
- Where to find questions bank that looks like real exam questions, all those SC1000 and others look obsolete for me now
- Where to find good strategy to deal with new type of questions , i found useful E-gmat meaning, but that definitely not enough

saikarthikreddy · Answer

slywork i completely agree with each and every word of yours .The questions in the original GMAT are very different !! Especially for SC.
And one more pattern i have noticed is that the initial two or threee questions seems to be too tricky.They consume a lot of time and are certainly not the sub 600 level questions .Is this against the adaptive rules of the GMAT .
Experts please share your views !!

actionpak · Answer

I agree with this as well... the first couple of questions really screwed me up the first time I took the GMATs...
I am taking this exam again this Friday and would also like somebody's advice on this topic
Thanks

Slywork · Answer

Yes, agree short questions at the start that should be sub 600 questions don't look like easy ones,
May be they look so for native speakers, but not for me. These questions definitely beyond the standart theory of GMAT English. 
They have 3-4 grammatically correct answer choices with only emphasis on the meaning.

I don't found any differences in RC and CR questions, they look exactly the same as in any question bank.

But SC questions differ significantly
 I have even bought the Question Bank 1 for GMAT Prep - there are no new type of question there. They look like SC1000, I have solved all the question with 90% accuracy with average timing 1 min 20 sec. But questions in real GMAT puzzle me. I found this dishonest!!!!

Those who have just passed exam - please share your experience.

rajeevrks27 · Answer

@Slywork...Great that you started this thread. I took the test this month and even i was wondering during the test that what's wrong with the SC questions. They were really really different from all the official material including the newly released question pack. Jesus! I was thinking as if i have encountered some really weird questions but then after reading that you people have also encountered similar questions, I'm convinced that the questions have really really changed.
I didn't encounter a single question with a 3/2 split. Most of the answer choices were worded differently and the difference was very subtle.
I believe the old questions are taken out by the gmac periodically and the new questions are added. I suppose now the pool consists mostly of the new meaning based questions whereas the old retired questions are still showing up in og 13 and the question pack 1.
Seems the test authorities have made things more difficult for the non-natives.

revanth4gmat · Answer

Guys. your posts are driving me crazy...If the most of the SC's are meaning based non-natives will be thru hell.. :cry:

Slywork · Answer

The real exam drives me crazy! 1. Practicing with old question bank is just waisting your time. 2. You don't know how to approach new type of questions, eliminating answer choices don't work. I found only one useful resource E-GMAT significance of meaning 3. Timing strategy, when you solve all SC bellow 1 min and save extra time for challenging CR RC questions, don't work - cause you need to spend extra time on SC, which indeed may be not so hard if you know how to crack them 4. I have received 34 and honestly don't know what to do to improve my score. I am deeply depressed.

5. I am surprised that people still posting old type of questions on this forum and no one seems to be bothered with this issue 6. I am angry that GMAC selling new question bank for GMAT Prep doesn't include even a single new type SC question!!!!! For what i have paid?????? :evil:

7. I am surprised that other resources don't pay enough attention to this issue, and also asking money for obsolete materials, may be only E GMAT trying to do something, but meaning part is free of charge, while i paid for whole corse. 8. I am ready to pay any money for any resource that help me to deal with issue! But i don't found anything, only comments - Yep meaning is important bla bla bla,! Advice me if you know good resource!

srikirs007 · Answer

Can some Experts reply on this thread? 
My weakest of all the sections is SC and I started preparing for it based on the current questions in OGs and GmatClub Tests. 
If the real GMAT Experience is completly different, I am afraid my preparation could go waste.

thevenus · Answer

@slywork

Your first post is kind of funny and i found it a true satire.
I have few suggestions for you and many of us who fear GMAT VERBAL , but before- take a deep breathe and relax:-

(i) Don't get disheartened,many of us like you are non-natives but fighting hard to score better, but it takes time- have patience, you have to invest quality time before you get your dream figure on real test.

(ii)Tone up your basics :-

(a) download a copy of Gmat club grammar book and start reading 6 passages from wall street journal,Wired,NatGeo,The Economist etc EVERYDAY-Magoosh recommends this. (news paper editorial simply doesn't work).
(b)choose an appropriate course for you e-gmat,as u have mentioned, is a wonderful resource for non-natives -start with a new zeal and you will see the difference.

(iii) Keep limited resources of books 1000 RCs,SCs are no more representing the real GMAT tests.Buy the Manhattan GMAT strategy books for SC,RC and CR they are more like text books and cover extensively on all the topics.Powerscore CR, Aristotle SC Grail, are among few fantastic resources.Give a fresh start with kaplan verbal workbook and move gradually.

(iv) STAY ACTIVE ON GMAT CLUB - ENGAGE YOURSELF HERE -Gmat club will help you a lot in many ways , just join , follow the good guys(you can find few good verbal power-packed guys below- who are moderating this forum :-D

) and instructors of gmat prep companies-there inputs are "invaluable".Post your answers , join forums and see how others are replying , seek help from others and earn kudos as many as you can.

Read bb's forums for self prep,retaking,best books reviews and many such forums , you will get an insight. :idea:

Never leave Official guides but don't catch them early else you will end up wasting the best GMAT resource.First,fine tune yourself with the basics.OGs are genuine in their design and help us get the feel of the real test and in the end - NEVER GIVE UP !!!

) and instructors of gmat prep companies-there inputs are "invaluable".Post your answers , join forums and see how others are replying , seek help from others and earn kudos as many as you can. Read bb's forums for self prep,retaking,best books reviews and many such forums , you will get an insight. :idea:

Never leave Official guides but don't catch them early else you will end up wasting the best GMAT resource.First,fine tune yourself with the basics.OGs are genuine in their design and help us get the feel of the real test and in the end - NEVER GIVE UP !!!

Slywork · Answer

@thevenus

This is not funny and sarcastic. Don't underestimate the problem.

I got MGMAT SC and Gmat club grammar, both great books.

Also i found E-Gmat very useful tool, unfortunately very short and sometimes without deep coverage, but now after all tasks are done with 100% accuracy i don't sure that reviewing E-Gmat can help.

Also bought GMAT club ipad tool, already more than 2k question done, but since it download questions from forum, and here people continue to post useless old questions, i cannot use it any more.

But my question is the same
Even if SC1000 is no more representative, why GMAT Prep Question pack 1 is not representative too?. This is fresh stuff which is sold by GMAC, it must be at least something looks like real exam, but the after GMAT PREP on real exam you fill like rugby player in the american football game. This sucks.

To improve SC score practice is crucial, without good question bank with at least few hundreds representative question this is not possible.
Again, Any advices where to get this questions are welcome.

Will try resources that your recommended, thanks for help, let you know if i find them useful.

By the way, when you last time had exam, did you spot the difference?

souvik101990 · Answer

An awesome initiative
I'd love to have a few experts here

MohitGarg · Answer

Guyssss...this thread has driven me crazy too..
For SC, i am practicing like crazy from the GMAT club threads and trying to gain perfection.
I have done the OG 12 once and was feeling confident.

Can any1 pls let me know which is a good resource for SC keeping in mind the how the actual SC in the GMAT exam is.

Aiming to nail it this time :wink:

megafan · Answer

Any insights from the "experts"?

ratinarace · Answer

I had a similar experience with the real gmat that I took in november....I have recently renewed my access to Manhattan Tests after manhhattan did some caliberation, and I see an increased level of difficulty on those tests particularly verbal...I am curious to hear something from Manhattan

imhimanshu · Answer

Count me in too.. I scored 30 in real Gmat, however I was scoring close to 38-40 in MGMAT tests. Infact, i never went below 35 in GMAT PREP.

I still remember that first 3 SC's threw me off, and then whole verbal section suffered because my timing went haywire. In the end, I could see 4/5 SC's that were same as that of OG GMAT style, but till that time, damage has already been done. Infact the first SC was that I couldn't understand the meaning itself and I doubted on my preparation.

just to add, I recently gave one Veritas Mock test, and I somehow got the same feeling as I had received in real Gmat. I am planning to give another mock again and will let you know in case I encounter the same feeling again.

Thanks

egmat · Answer

This seems to be a great discussion and truly a topic that has touched many people. And I would have responded to this sooner than this had I known about this discussion. So here are my two cents regarding this topic.

GMAT SC is about application. In very simplistic terms one needs to understand what the author is trying to say and then communicate that in grammatically correct way through the correct answer choice.

But before I further explore this idea, I will make a claim - Official questions in OG13 and GMAT Prep question banks are representative of real GMAT SC. In fact one of our team members recently (Feb 20, 2013) took the GMAT and scored 770 with 44 on verbal. He found OG13 and GMAT Prep questions very representative of SC questions on the test.

Now that being said, a number of you felt that questions in the beginning were very difficult. So there must be something leading to this observation. Here is my hypothesis – I feel two factors play a role here – one that you are just starting out with the test and you are not as yet warmed up to attempt verbal questions. So while you are in the warming up phase, the other factor comes into play. Since the test wants to calibrate your level, it may throw difficult questions at you right at the onset. Now it’s my hypothesis that the combination of these two factors leads to your observation that initial SC questions are very difficult and are not representative of what you have seen in OG and GMAT Prep.

But in reality, these questions are no different from the official sources as I have already stated above. To reiterate my point – GMAT SC is all about application. In order to do well on GMAT SC you need to be well prepared not only with grammatical concepts but also with your approach to SC questions. Through e-GMAT SC course we drill down this process in your mind so that it becomes second nature to you and so that you do not get scared when you see these “seemingly out of the world” problems.

Now there are ways in which a question can be made more difficult than the others. One such way is that the original sentence can be written in a complicated fashion such that understanding the meaning may become difficult. How to do you combat this – you go back to the basic core skills of how to simplify the sentence structure to understand the meaning. At e-GMAT we teach this in detail through our sentence structure files and then apply this skill on all questions in the application files and practice questions. In fact this methodology should be used on all official GMAT questions as well.

Ok now the other way in which a question may be made more difficult is by creating answer choices such that there are fewer similarities among the 5 choices. How do you combat this – you do thorough analysis of the original choice so that you understand the intended linkages – parallelism, modifiers, verb tense, etc. Once you know these pieces, you should be able to discern the different errors in the answer choices. Once again, the grammatical conceptual knowledge and the process of conducting thorough error analysis are the other two core pillars of e-GMAT SC course.

Lastly, the answer choices may be grammatically correct but logically incorrect or the choice may change the intended meaning of the sentence. In this case, you go back to the original meaning analysis and you spot such meaning change and you reject the answer choice. Once again, e-GMAT’s SC process is based on meaning as that is the crux of SC section. Also, we conducted a thorough investigation of all official material and came up with 5 strategies that GMAC uses to change the meaning of the sentence.

So all in all – the available official material is representative of the actual questions that you will see on the test. In order to ace the test you need to prepare well for the same. E-GMAT SC course will equip you with all the skills that you need to ace GMAT SC. The most important thing is that you attempt the course by applying the best practices as detailed out here.

One last point – if it were really true that GMAT SC is nothing like what is seen in official resources, then we would not be seeing so many success stories of e-GMAT customers and non-e-GMAT customers. These success stories are of people who are just like you.
Marcab - unexpected-but-still-happy-after-all-there-is-no-such-rule-147145.html
Sanket Sharma - 760-ping-pong-did-the-trick-145833.html
Manish Mehta - 600-to-740-all-about-timing-and-fundamentals-147029.html

I will be happy to address any other questions that you may have.

Regards,
Payal

Izomer85 · Answer

Excuse me for this dead topic resurrection, but I also want to add my, as you say, 2 cents to share the real GMAT experience... I prepared for the test through the use of different sources including official ones, GMAT Toolkit application, Manhattan GMAT SC, CR and RC guides, Manhattan tests, and GMAT Club test. The results of the last tests were quite encouraging - official GMAT Prep tests 720-750, Manhattan tests - 730... Everytime I scored 50-51 on Quant, and 37-38 on Verbal. Then I passed the GMAT on 11th of March 2013 and scored Q51,V33. Verbal scores were absolutely surprising for me and I am almost sure that this result was caused by SC questions. The main reason was mentioned by the author of this topic - those questions differed from usual ones (questions from all the sources), moreover, the answer choises significantly differed from each other in structure.

Another way of getting bad score is not as probable as above-mentioned one. CR was easier. There were few questions in which I could notice no usual pattern, so, I'm sure about good results in this kind of problems. I slack a bit in RC questions, but in that test questions were not too tough, the texts were quite comprehensible (my main problem is usually text misunderstanding because of complex structure or many unknown words), and I also saw the logical patterns.

In conclusion ( :-D

), I don't think the existence of this topic is absolutely groundless. I decided to retake the test and to try e-gmat courses, aming at GMAT 750.

), I don't think the existence of this topic is absolutely groundless. I decided to retake the test and to try e-gmat courses, aming at GMAT 750.

PiyushK · Answer

Even, I experienced the same issue in real GMAT SC. I was expecting some signature problems such as not only.. but also.., unlike, S-V agreement kind of, but in real GMAT I didnt get any such question.

I am not able to set any strategy or to tune my mind for such questions, OG looks insufficient, and even GMAC is also not sharing practice questions of this new variety.

MisterD · Answer

How do you feel if there is any difference in SC in the new shortened test?

VerbalBot · Answer

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