E-Gmat vs OG CR?

Question

I have a question to verbal experts on this forum about the validity of E-GMAT CR resources?

I have studied MGMAT and PowerScore CR books and now going through E-gmat resources.

On E-gmat, Inference is the 2nd topic after concept topic (I scored approx 90-100 % on concept section on e-gmat).

While going through the inference questions, my score was approx. 50% on various quizzes (Easy and medium) - background: I am clear on concept but i have doubts on the english and wording of answer choices on e-gmat. However, right after my e-gmat quizzes, I attempted Official Guide questions and I scored 100 % on all 12 questions which are refereed on the inference topic on E-gmat. This is making me perplex, so I would like to hear experts opinion.

I also scored approx 80-90% on MGMAT and Powerscore questions while going through those books.

Is OG, MGMAT and PowerScore the true assessment of my skills or E-gmat? If OG and others then it is worth spending time and going through E-gmat CR resources and quizzes?

mvictor · Answer

Mate,

I completely understand you, and I had the same frustration while doing the e-gmat CR concept. Note that OG questions are almost all the time sub-600 lvl questions, while on e-gmat, you will see medium, hard, and some very hard questions. E-gmat is tough, but if you can master its course, you will see the results. On inference, you must get an answer that is true 100% based on the information given. Moreover, answer choices should not have new information. Just by keeping this in mind, you can narrow down to at least two answer choices. I, for example, had as well problems with inference vs. assumption questions on e-gmat CR. OG i was getting all right, but mostly because I saw the questions before, and this i believe affected the true level of the accuracy.

optmistic2016 · Answer

Thanks for your comments. However, all the reasoning you mentioned - doesnt fall in my case.

I attempted OG for the first time and got 100 % in easy, medium and extremely hard ones. Secondly, the questions which went wrong in e-gmat were easy and medium and not difficult ones.

I would appreciate if other verbal experts can also present their views.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Non-official material can be very useful for a lot of things, but not for this. If you're looking to get some additional practice, great. If you're looking to get valid comparisons against the actual GMAT, not so great.

If you feel confident and you want to test yourself, you could take a GMATPrep. But make sure that you're taking that test because it fits with your plans, not because you want to see whether official material is more representative of the actual GMAT than non-official material is.

One more thing: do not ignore the easy/medium questions you see in the OG. They're also great for initial practice.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi optmistic2016,

You posted back in February about your CAT scores (at that time). Have you taken any FULL-LENGTH CATs since then? If you have, then how did you score (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)? At the time, you had some concerns about your Quant scores, but now you seemed to be focused on the Verbal section. Have your Quant scores improved?

There are LOTS of different resources that you can use during your studies, but the quality and 'style' of those resources will certainly vary. If you find that certain study materials don't seem to be helping you (or they don't seem to 'match up' with what you see in Official materials, then you should invest in other resources.

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

optmistic2016 · Answer

Hi Arun,

Many thanks for your honest opinion, it makes a lot of sense - I would act upon your advise, do you think there is any other reliable material very close to OG? I don't want to focus on that material that varies from OG because of two reasons:

1) First it will not assess my skills - If my score accuracy different between OG and other material . 
2) Secondly, it would shatter my confidence - which I don't want because it would not be a accurate measure of my skills.

Hi Rich,

I am impressed, you remember me.

I haven't started my Quant section - focussed on verbal section entirely. SC done, and now doing CR. Next would be RC. Once I am done with verbal, then I would move to Quant and then will dedicate a month for full-length questions in the end.

I agree - I should move on and focus on other material for practice.

Whats your advise how to improve OG 700 difficulty verbal questions?

Regards,

Optimistic

mbaspire · Answer

Hi optimistic, I agree with you on EGMAT. I tried their Free Trial and found their methodology confusing, and didn't agree with their answers for a number of their CR n RC questions.

I am not a studious person, and knew that I will be having ~100 hours for studying for the GMAT. Hence I saved my time and didn't take their course (EGMAT).

Although I feel their course can be really beneficial for SC. So if you have time on your side, and you aren't allergic to studying, then go for it!

As for advanced verbal questions, I have no idea. May be searching on GMATclub can be your best bet (I did that!).

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

AjiteshArun · Answer

You're probably already looking for new material, but no matter what you eventually decide to go with, you should try to compartmentalize the inputs coming in from non-official material. Take what you need from it, but don't let it affect you too much. You will be going through plenty of official material, and the GMATPreps in particular will help you get a good idea of where you are.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi optmistic2016,

Waiting to the last month of your studies to take CATs is NOT a good idea. There are a variety of aspects to the GMAT that you can really only train for by taking FULL-LENGTH CATs (with the Essay and IR sections) under realistic conditions. If you're not taking CATs at regular intervals (1 FULL CAT every 1-2 weeks), then you're not giving yourself the opportunity to discover those other areas that you need to work on. As such, I highly recommend that you take a FULL CAT sometime soon; you should then report back with your scores and we can talk through the rest of your study plan.

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

optmistic2016 · Answer

Hi MBA Aspire, Thanks for your inputs - I am not a bookworm but I want to make sure that if I need to improve my weaknesses or basics and for that if I need to put more number of hours - then definitely I will do it. Yes, I agree with you, e-gmat CR completely didnt work out for me but SC is a good tutorial and it helped me understanding concepts and questions. If someone wants to challenge my logical reasoning - please go-ahead as since first comment on this topic - a week ago - I attempted more than 100 OG questions and my accuracy in over 600-700 difficult is 100 % and above 700 Difficulty its (70-80%) but according to E-gmat it varied and score was around 13-50%

. No offense to anyone but I would like to share my honest opinion about e-gmat CR for other students. May be they need to put more efforts to improve their CR section as they did in SC. My brain doesn't work with E-gmat CR logic that's for sure - so no point banging my head on the wall - I think I need to move on. Hi Arun, Definitely, I agree with you - I need to look for other resources too apart from OG - there are many other credible resources, experts have recommended on GMATclub beside e-gmat such as LSAT questions too - I will practice them too. Hi Rich, Thanks for the valuable suggestion. I would give one full-length verbal test after I am done with Verbal section - and will do it after I refresh my Quant concepts. Thanks for all the valuable inputs by MBAaspire, Arun and Rich! Cheers!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi optmistic2016,

From all of your posts, it certainly appears that you've been studying for MONTHS. Is that true? Have you been studying consistently?

There's some question as to when you took your last CAT (and you don't seem to want to include that information in any of your posts), so WHEN did you take your last FULL-LENGTH CAT?

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

optmistic2016 · Answer

Hi Rich,

Yes - I have been studying since I took my diagnostic test in mid of Feb 2016 - Its been over 2 months now - focussed mainly on foundational topics and get familiar with GMAT verbal.

I didn't take any CAT after my diagnostic test.

My reasoning: My verbal score was 16 on Feb, 2016, mainly because I was completely out of touch with studies since last 10 years - now what I am doing is to get back to study routine, focus on foundations concepts and gaps first and once I overcome them, then I will take CATs. If I take CAT now without preparation or overcoming my gaps - I will end up in bad score again - which will not make any difference in my overall preparation.

Lets take an example of CR Section - if my score was 16 during diagnostics time - I was not clear about GMAT pattern or whatever the question type is asking - thats why I end up in very low percentile however, after going through the concepts and understanding what the question is asking for - I end up scoring pretty well in CR section (Accuracy upto 100 % in OG-15 Question) with difficulty level upto 700. This is giving me more confidence that I am following the right path and diagnostics was not mere true reflection of my skills (whatever reason that may be, lack of familiarity with GMAT questions etc).

Yes, I have been studying consistently 1-2 hours on working days with full-time job and 4-5 hours on weekends (Except I took one week off for vacations).

Thats my plan - what works or doesn't work - will be clarified after CATs - lets see!

optmistic2016 · Answer

I just came across this post, so though to share with you all. Another student who is doubting the credibility of E-gmat CR question. e-gmat-cr-questions-167357.html?fl=similar

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