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21 Jul 2016, 21:35
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bb
Hi bb, I was planning to cover the new questions from the OG 17. So, would it add value to do them now since you have pointed out that there are multiple errors in the same? Thanks!
25 Jul 2016, 05:03
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First of all, I am not a GMAT tutor or an expert. I am writing about my opinion which some other person may not agree with. I have come to this opinion from my experience, my friends' experience and some of the experiences of GMATClub users that I read here.
If anyone is targeting a score of 700+, then relying on only official materials, questions and mock tests may not work very well. From my experience and the experience of some of my friends whom I helped, it is evident that one needs to have very good understanding of the concepts that GMAT tests to score 700+. There is no shortcut. To build these concepts, one needs to go through some test prep materials like MGMAT SC guide or PowerScore CR Bible or similar things. The official guides do not deal with these concepts and strategies in detail.
One cannot build these concepts by just looking at the answer explanations of the official guide. They are not focused on any particular topic and they are arranged randomly. As suggested by every one here no two GMAT question are same. So, no two answer explanations are also same. If you don't have a good understanding of the basics, you won't understand the explanations fully. The test prep companies do use synthetic questions that is aimed at building one specific concept. These should never be used for actual GMAT practice. But they are very helpful for building concepts and that is what they should be used for. Once you build the concepts, you can practice the official question as they are very close to the actual ones.
Regarding the official tests (GMATPrep,EP etc), they are the closest to the actual ones. But again they are not actual GMAT. There is certainly some difference which GMAC will never reveal. They use real questions from past. But you need to remember these will never be repeated and no two GMAT questions are same. Over the time the questions have changed and that's why people stress on the latest version of the official guide first. Again, what have not changed much are the underlying concepts that GMAT tests. So, to score 700+, you need to be strong with the concepts. If you are playing soccer and you want to be on the peak of your game every time then you should not only watch past match videos and practice similar situations in similar way. You need to practice in every condition to be immaculate. You need to practice with computer simulated hypothetical scenarios, you need to practice in low pressure, in extreme heat, with extreme load and what not. This kind of practice makes you ready for any unforeseen situation. The idea is you need to practice under varied condition so that you build such strong basics that can work under any condition. The same is true for test prep company tests. They are not close to GMAT. Some questions are mere imitation, some are too difficult, some are vague and some use heavy calculations that will never come in actual GMAT. But they are built by experts to test the core concepts tested by GMAT. In my opinion, they are successful in doing that more often than not. They give you the varied practice that you need to strengthen your basic concept. You should probably stick to GMATPreps when you are near to GMAT, but in the earlier stages you should use some of the MGMAT or VeritasPrep or Kaplan practice tests to give your practice some variety.
If practicing only the test prep companys' tests and questions is a pitfall, then practicing only official questions and tests is also a pitfall. The problem with GMATPrep tests is that they don't have too many difficult level question. If you have practiced a lot of difficult level official questions and have given 3-4 GMATPreps scoring 700+ in each attempt then there is a high chance that you will get around 2-3 repeat or known questions in your 5th or 6th attempt. Not only you can answer those correctly, it will also mean you take less time to answer those which in turn will further increase your score as you get more time for other questions. This may give you an inflated score. It happened with me in my 4th GMATPrep test that I gave just the day before my actual GMAT exam. I scored 770 as some of the questions were repeated. I knew the score was inflated a bit as I was scoring between 720-740 earlier in GMATPreps. Anxious, I gave a MGMAT test and scored 730. I was happy. I never scored beyond 710 in MGMATs before that and I knew that I can score higher in GMAT. So, that gave me the confidence that if I do well I can get 740 or more.
I have seen this happen with some of my friends as well where some of the later GMATPrep scores were very high even though they were not repeats. It was mainly because they got 2-3 common questions in each section. So if you were scoring about 700-710 in earlier GMATPreps and in your last test you get 740 and suddenly you are confident about a 720 in actual one. Whereas you never crossed the 710 level really. There are 2-3 bad mistakes in the actual test and you get 680. You think what went wrong, I practiced so many official questions, I got a 740 in the last GMATPrep, then why 680 in the actual test? Because due to practicing too many official questions and giving too many official tests you probably got some common questions. You may not have even noticed it as you have done so many of them. But your subconscious mind knows the answer due to the practice earlier. It has happened with some of my friends and some GMATClub members. This is a pitfall for practicing too many official questions for too long.
I know this post is long, but I only wanted to share my opinion as I can really see that some people are falling into this 'practice only official question' pitfall and gaining false confidence of scoring high, but failing in the actual GMAT. In my opinion, the reason was they did not build the concept strongly in some areas to score a definite 700+ but were still getting high scores in GMATPrep due to practicing too many difficult level official questions.
If anyone is targeting a score of 700+, then relying on only official materials, questions and mock tests may not work very well. From my experience and the experience of some of my friends whom I helped, it is evident that one needs to have very good understanding of the concepts that GMAT tests to score 700+. There is no shortcut. To build these concepts, one needs to go through some test prep materials like MGMAT SC guide or PowerScore CR Bible or similar things. The official guides do not deal with these concepts and strategies in detail.
One cannot build these concepts by just looking at the answer explanations of the official guide. They are not focused on any particular topic and they are arranged randomly. As suggested by every one here no two GMAT question are same. So, no two answer explanations are also same. If you don't have a good understanding of the basics, you won't understand the explanations fully. The test prep companies do use synthetic questions that is aimed at building one specific concept. These should never be used for actual GMAT practice. But they are very helpful for building concepts and that is what they should be used for. Once you build the concepts, you can practice the official question as they are very close to the actual ones.
Regarding the official tests (GMATPrep,EP etc), they are the closest to the actual ones. But again they are not actual GMAT. There is certainly some difference which GMAC will never reveal. They use real questions from past. But you need to remember these will never be repeated and no two GMAT questions are same. Over the time the questions have changed and that's why people stress on the latest version of the official guide first. Again, what have not changed much are the underlying concepts that GMAT tests. So, to score 700+, you need to be strong with the concepts. If you are playing soccer and you want to be on the peak of your game every time then you should not only watch past match videos and practice similar situations in similar way. You need to practice in every condition to be immaculate. You need to practice with computer simulated hypothetical scenarios, you need to practice in low pressure, in extreme heat, with extreme load and what not. This kind of practice makes you ready for any unforeseen situation. The idea is you need to practice under varied condition so that you build such strong basics that can work under any condition. The same is true for test prep company tests. They are not close to GMAT. Some questions are mere imitation, some are too difficult, some are vague and some use heavy calculations that will never come in actual GMAT. But they are built by experts to test the core concepts tested by GMAT. In my opinion, they are successful in doing that more often than not. They give you the varied practice that you need to strengthen your basic concept. You should probably stick to GMATPreps when you are near to GMAT, but in the earlier stages you should use some of the MGMAT or VeritasPrep or Kaplan practice tests to give your practice some variety.
If practicing only the test prep companys' tests and questions is a pitfall, then practicing only official questions and tests is also a pitfall. The problem with GMATPrep tests is that they don't have too many difficult level question. If you have practiced a lot of difficult level official questions and have given 3-4 GMATPreps scoring 700+ in each attempt then there is a high chance that you will get around 2-3 repeat or known questions in your 5th or 6th attempt. Not only you can answer those correctly, it will also mean you take less time to answer those which in turn will further increase your score as you get more time for other questions. This may give you an inflated score. It happened with me in my 4th GMATPrep test that I gave just the day before my actual GMAT exam. I scored 770 as some of the questions were repeated. I knew the score was inflated a bit as I was scoring between 720-740 earlier in GMATPreps. Anxious, I gave a MGMAT test and scored 730. I was happy. I never scored beyond 710 in MGMATs before that and I knew that I can score higher in GMAT. So, that gave me the confidence that if I do well I can get 740 or more.
I have seen this happen with some of my friends as well where some of the later GMATPrep scores were very high even though they were not repeats. It was mainly because they got 2-3 common questions in each section. So if you were scoring about 700-710 in earlier GMATPreps and in your last test you get 740 and suddenly you are confident about a 720 in actual one. Whereas you never crossed the 710 level really. There are 2-3 bad mistakes in the actual test and you get 680. You think what went wrong, I practiced so many official questions, I got a 740 in the last GMATPrep, then why 680 in the actual test? Because due to practicing too many official questions and giving too many official tests you probably got some common questions. You may not have even noticed it as you have done so many of them. But your subconscious mind knows the answer due to the practice earlier. It has happened with some of my friends and some GMATClub members. This is a pitfall for practicing too many official questions for too long.
I know this post is long, but I only wanted to share my opinion as I can really see that some people are falling into this 'practice only official question' pitfall and gaining false confidence of scoring high, but failing in the actual GMAT. In my opinion, the reason was they did not build the concept strongly in some areas to score a definite 700+ but were still getting high scores in GMATPrep due to practicing too many difficult level official questions.
25 Jul 2016, 05:14
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Himpuju,
Agree with you on the quant as it is pedestrian at times in the official guide. I realized this when i took up GMATFocus tests after solving around 300-400 GMATCLUB quant quizzes (part of the test package) and found the GMATFocus tests to be out of sync with actual OG questions in general. Some of the DS questions on OG can be solved without putting your pen to paper.
.
However, what is your opinion about verbal? The toughest and most convoluted CRs or RC's I've seen are part of the OG and Verbal OG and not in any other third party resources I have access to. May be Magoosh's questions are on the harder side as well but few of the OG CRs and RCs were T.O.U.G.H!
Agree with you on the quant as it is pedestrian at times in the official guide. I realized this when i took up GMATFocus tests after solving around 300-400 GMATCLUB quant quizzes (part of the test package) and found the GMATFocus tests to be out of sync with actual OG questions in general. Some of the DS questions on OG can be solved without putting your pen to paper.
.
However, what is your opinion about verbal? The toughest and most convoluted CRs or RC's I've seen are part of the OG and Verbal OG and not in any other third party resources I have access to. May be Magoosh's questions are on the harder side as well but few of the OG CRs and RCs were T.O.U.G.H!
