Strategy for Pearson GMAT

Question

Guys and Gals,

Obviously The new GMAT is harder. From what we have heard from other people's eexperiences, the QUANT is lot harder. The intent out here is now to outline a strategy for those who have already done OG 11, and now dont know how to study Quant further. The reason is until now I thought(sure more of you) that if you were doing well in OG 11 and GmatPrep math.. you were doing fine with the exam.. but now things have turned around, and we need to come up with a plan on how to encounter the new math.

I have started the following:
Manhattan Math Series. Got them to learn in more depth of each area of the math. This has helped me a little bit more, especially the word translation.
DS getting harder: What to do? How to prepare for it? OG,Kaplan,Princeton all are solvable, and lot more easy than the real test. What preparation material is there to study now?

Any ideas.. I feel bad that I waited to give my test this long .. I wanted to improve my verbal from a 60%.. now tghat I have hit 80%.. it looks too late.. because I dont know how to judge Math any more... IT is scaring me like S**T. 
Atleast till now I thought Math was going good, If I score a 47+ in Math, and get 80% hit ratio is Verbal, I would hit 680+.. Now i doubt that..

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NTLancer · Answer

Well from what i can see people are still scoring about the same on their Gmat Prep tests and their real exams ... thus i think the difficulty of the quant section is reflected rather well by the Gmat Prep exams. Personally i find the harder Kaplan problems to be best for studying quant. My real exam is in 3 days so il let you know how it worked out

trivikram · Answer

NTLancer I wish you the very best for your exam

NTLancer · Answer

thanks ! il write a full report once im done ( good or bad i think everyone can benefit from the info )

willget800 · Answer

thanks a lot NT... I think it will benefit everyone..

ALL THE BEST FOR YOUR EXAM!!!!!!!!!!!

It is really satisfying reading people's experiences here with the gmat when they do well.. It makes us all feel good!!!!

SpongeBoob · Answer

I'd like to hear from folks who took the GMAT in late 2005 and the new one. From all the press releases and other info sent out when the changes were announced, none of them talked about the content of the test changing. It wasn't supposed to get harder just because a new company was administering it. The GMAT always seems to be getting harder, but changing from GMAC to Pearson Vue wasn't supposed to actually make it harder.

OasisNYK · Answer

Does anyone think there is a possibility people are hyping it up to be harder so others will worry more about the test and not do as well?

It is possible...

rhyme · Answer

Honestly, I think this is just a simple case of adaptive tests doing what they do best.

I don't think anyone is tricking anyone, or purposefully trying to say its hard to "psych" the competition out. I think one very simple this is happening - the adaptive tests are being adaptive, and those that take it twice are seeing this.

That is, the only people who have the ability to provide any information on this subject are those that took it in 2005 and 2006. Generally speaking, what would you expect to happen to someone who takes the exam twice? Their score goes up right? 

And how does someone score go up? They are getting harder questions right, right? So, by the very definition of how the GMAT works, you are going to see harder questions as you improve.

Therefore, all this talk of "Wow the quant was harder!", to me, is merely a reflection of people having studied or being less nervous and it only proves one thing - the GMAT is in fact adaptive. 

Why dont you see that in the verbal then? It's harder to tell what is "easy" and what is "hard" in a verbal question. In math, if you get a basic rate and work problem, you can probably guess it's a medium question. If you get some crazy combinatorics stuff, you can bet it's not in the medium category. There's no way to know for sure, but odds are, a question like that would be considered more tricky. 

For verbal, how can you really judge how much harder once sentence correction is over another? Would "Tommy enjoyes food like tamales and pizza" be a more difficult question than "Jodie and I went to the store along the street, which was dirty because the owner never cleans it." ? 

So, I suspect the verbal is actually probably a bit harder in some cases, but because its much harder to tell if you have a "hard" GMAT question - you dont hear about it. I also think people tend to focus on the math side of things - I mean, if you don't know the ratios of a 30-60-90, you can learn, but if you don't know how to think critically, there isn't that much you can do. So, typically, I would expect that most people focus on math, and see the largest improvement there, and hence, the harder questions. 

In other words, in my view: pay all this crap about it being harder no mind. 

(That being said, this is purely speculation as I did not take the exam in 05, so I cannot compare.)

Charlie45 · Answer

Why on earth do you believe people would do that :beat

drummond · Answer

OasisNYK: 

Nah, I think it's just normal worry from people facing an important challenge. I got a 730 (42 V, 48 Q, 6.0 AWA) when I took it, and it's both very much like and a bit different from the practice tests. Now, I strongly recommend reading all the posts from people who have already taken the GMAT, because each person will have a different perspective, but for me the questions were very much in line with what I had seen in studies, though I have to say you get the best results from the Adaptive Tests, not least because you want to be ready for that variety of questions thrown at you - when you are too used to seeing all the Algebra questions together, and the same for the Geometry questions, it messes with your head to have to shift gears for the new type. I still hate Data Sufficiency, because I have to go from looking for the answer to saying whether the information applies to that answer. 

And for my opinion, the first five questions in Quant are the most important on the whole test. Not to say you can blow off the last part of the section, but if you need a few more minutes to think through those first five questions, it's a good investment. 

Also, as a suggestion, bring fruit for your break snacks. Easy to eat, and it won't give you that rush-then-drain feeling that processed snacks and candy will, although I admit I chugged a diet cola before the Quant section because my brain cells have become caffeine-dependant.

Good luck!

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