Ultimate GMAT Grammar Book: Practice Test 3: Q5 & Q46

Dear Saurabh,

I'm happy to respond.

I discussed the first question here:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/catherine-tr ... l#p1805371

My friend, this is an embarrassingly bad SC question. If my company published a question of this sort, I immediately would start preparing a formal apology.

It appears that the person who wrote this question did not have any familiarity with the standards of the GMAT: they appeared to be filling in content to the format without any understanding of what the GMAT is or what it assesses.

The topic is storybook-like, not academic at all. This is very un-GMAT-like.

This question is a study of colloquial expressions. I could see that this would be challenging for non-native speakers, but they really are assessing something different from what the GMAT assesses on SC.

As a professional question writer, I would give this question a grade of an F. If the question writer was attempting to write a question that prepared students for the standards of the GMAT, he failed utterly to do so.

Let me be clear: focusing on the details of this question will not prepare you for the GMAT. You need to focus on high quality verbal content. Both Magoosh and MGMAT have excellent content, and I have been highly impressed by many Veritas questions. Those are high quality. Unfortunately, there are many low quality sources available for GMAT Verbal practice questions. I have seen a large number of exceptionally poor verbal questions on GMAT Club. Don't be naive in trusting any source. Read testimonials and reviews. Read book reviews. If an expert from one company says that another's company's material is good, then that is high praise: for example, I work for Magoosh, but I will tell you that MGMAT has excellent material. This is high praise. Pay attention to such things. Don't be naive in accepting all sources as equal.

Does all this make sense?
Mike