Regarding 3rd party questions on GMAT verbal

Question

I ve completed every official question(SC and CR) that is available on the GMAT club forum but still didn't get the desired verbal score. Should I solve 3rd party verbal questions for further practice or strengthen the concept, change my approach, and start practicing the official questions again?

MartyTargetTestPrep AndrewN GMATNinja ScottTargetTestPrep

MartyTargetTestPrep   AndrewN   GMATNinja   ScottTargetTestPrep

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Have suggested Manhattan-Prep's 6th Edition for SC and CR to students. If you've run out of Official Guide questions, consider checking out the online only question banks available on the main MBA website. Working with a study buddy who is strong on Verbal may be helpful to see how they approach different Verbal questions as well.

How to get a V40 or higher on the GMAT? What about a V51?

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Nakul.

Some third-party Verbal questions are very good. Others are badly flawed.

So, yes, you can use third-party Verbal questions to practice by getting a sense of which companies provide questions that work and learning to discern which questions are the good ones and which ones don't make sense.

Two companies whose Verbal questions generally work are TTP and Manhattan.

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  NakulDiwakar10 . I would say that you made a mistake in chasing a greater number of questions in hopes that you would necessarily understand SC or CR any better. I would further suggest that the probability is high that you would do the same thing, were you to seek even high-quality questions from third parties. Marty is correct above in saying that some such questions are "badly flawed." One issue I have with their high-quality counterparts is that they are often plagiarized or closely modeled after official questions: you run the risk of thinking you are doing much better than you are because you have effectively seen the questions before.

Your problem is likely that you are not spending adequate time grasping the underpinnings of questions you miss, or even those you guessed on but answered correctly. Until you do that by yourself, with a study buddy, or with a tutor or teacher, you will keep making the same mistakes, and SC and CR will never be more than a guessing game at medium or more challenging difficulties. I am of a firm belief that you could learn more from a smaller set of questions, even fifty, than you could from ten times as many if you are just going through the motions.

I suspect my opinion will differ from that of each of my colleagues mentioned above. Scott and Marty have a product to sell; GMAT Ninja, I know, recommends using LSAT questions for supplemental CR preparation. One thing I would like to be clear on is that I do not find LSAT questions to be of poor quality, but different in many regards, and I think that with several hundred official GMAT CR questions to practice, not even counting those from GMAT Prep, there is little reason that one would need to seek outside questions. Also, I cannot say anything about the quality of TTP questions on the whole. If I were in your position, I would comb through official GMAT questions again, starting with all those I had missed, and take the time to understand them. Ask questions when they still do not seem to make sense. Finally, once you find that you are able to trace the correct lines of reasoning on these questions, if you feel like putting your newfound understanding or methods to the test, try out a small set of novel questions. (My first choice, after GMAT questions, would be LSAT or GRE logic-based RC questions.)

Thank you for thinking to ask, and good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi NakulDiwakar10,

You would likely find it beneficial to do a 'mix' of what you are discussing (re: re-doing OG questions so that you can practice/hone NEW SC and CR skills and work through some new, reputable, third-party questions).

In your recent messages, you noted that you were planning to take the GMAT on June 10th. Did you take the GMAT as scheduled - and if you did, then how did you score?

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

Contact Rich at: [email protected]

Regarding 3rd party questions on GMAT verbal

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