GMAT Strategy

The reson I believe GMATPrep being optimistic is that I make so many mistakes it makes me believe that scores are not reflecting the truth. I'd be grateful if you can provide some comments on them
My scores:

PowerPrep CAT1: 670 Q: 51 V: 28 (I just began my verbal studies when I took this)
Q: All 28 correct (so 9 are experimental stuff?)
V: 11 Incorrect, 19 Correct (so the rest 11 are experimental stuff?)

GMATPrep CAT1: 710 Q: 50 V: 35
Q: 6 Incorrect
V: 15 Incorrect
Now it seemed weird to have 6 incorrect answers and still score 50? Also 15 Incorrect and have 35 scaled in V. (Yes I know it is not totally about the # of correct answers but about the difficulty of questions, however it is still weird imo!)

GMATPrep CAT2: 720 Q: 50 V: 37 (the most recent test result)
Q: 7 Incorrect
V: 13 Incorrect


Princeton CAT2: 678 (didnt get this actually cuz it was written like 67 8 so does this mean 670 or 680?) Q: 47 V: 36
Q: 1 Incorrect (weird cuz I got 47! I made the only mistake at Q #18!)
V: 16 Incorrect

So isnt that weird? In powerprep I do 11 incorrect and have 28, in gmatprep and princeton I do more but have higher verbal, is this purely about having incorrect answers on harder questions? Is there a way to understand this? (not by just checking the question on my own I mean). Or did GMAC changed its way of scoring from the older POWERPrep software??
Could you please let me know what your oppinion is? Since I aim for a 700+ and not really confident cuz I dont know which score to trust to evaluate my level! Of course I'll do my best, but I'd be more motivated if I know which test is a closer simulation of real. I hope it is GMATPrep! What do you think??:roll: Thank you!!

It's not that simple to judge/conclude about your scoring pattern. GMAT (& GMAT Prep s/w) do not use absolute or linear scale in its algorithm.

Maybe I'll write a detailed article about it on my blog. (these days I cant write long posts I'm facing some PC trouble )

Yes I know that, but when I took the exam back in 2005, while it was still ETS, my actuall 640 score was really close to what I got from Powerprep trials. And I understand that many people get close to their scores with GMATPrep on the real thing, I just need a comment about if you think GMATPrep really reflects the truth. I'd think so if I had not got this kind of mixed scores to he honest, it is just confusing now since I have less than a week till the exam

aim-wsc wrote:It's not that simple to judge/conclude about your scoring pattern. GMAT (& GMAT Prep s/w) do not use absolute or linear scale in its algorithm.

Maybe I'll write a detailed article about it on my blog. (these days I cant write long posts I'm facing some PC trouble )

ETS doesn't conduct GMAT, so there has to be some changes in the way GMAT scores you. (perhaps thats why the s/w is new & changed now) (dont quote me though )

But superficially they are same. As you know it's known that GMAT PREP score reflects your real GMAT test; I'd trust my GMAT PREP score & be optimistic

yep, I am trying to be optimistic, thank you for your motivation...hopefully I'll break the 700

aim-wsc wrote:ETS doesn't conduct GMAT, so there has to be some changes in the way GMAT scores you. (perhaps thats why the s/w is new & changed now) (dont quote me though )

But superficially they are same. As you know it's known that GMAT PREP score reflects your real GMAT test; I'd trust my GMAT PREP score & be optimistic

Just to let you know guys (if any of you are interested in )

I did the MGMAT free test, result as follows:

Total: 710
Q: 48
V: 38

This is far my worst Quant performance but I did better in verbal. I have to admit most of the MGMAT Quant questions are really hard compared to official guide stuff, I mean the question itself may not be hard but the wording or the concept challenges you which can lead to many mistakes as I did. I got some a probably Q that I had to guess.

My timing was the worst ever in Quant, I hardly finished it. Have you ever suffered that? I never had timing problem in Quant section before, thanks to MGMAT questions I did this time:) Surprisingly I finished verbal with two mins remaining, I'd use it more efficiently but I always had timing problem in other CATs' verbal sections that's why I was kinda pesimistic about it, but had plenty of time for the remaining 3 questions.

So overall I hope the actual exam Q will not be as challenging as MGMAT and hopefully I can score this high on verbal as well Then I can secure a score over 700 I guess.

Thanks to MGMAT team that gives us this opportunity to have an exam for free and create really useful statistics on the site

i had scored 720 in GMATPREP1, 740 in POWERPREP1..
but online free MGMAT brought my score to 670..
not sure what to make of it... but it certainly was very very tough as far as questions are concerned...
also, i do not agree with some of the explanations given for the verbal RC & CR questions...
what about you, are you convinced about the explanations..

edit: I change my mind after reviewing all explanations, some 700-800 Qs in CR does not even make sense, it just thinks about possibilities to eliminate the answer choices and does not do that when it's telling about the correct answer. I believe some questions violate the GMAT border in order to make them more difficult, neither the questions nor the answers are clear and concise in some cases. that's my personal point of view of course!

I think explanations are not bad at all. However contrarty to Quant, I think RC and SC Qs are easier than GMATPREP material, or I was just in a good mood and got the easier stuff.

xeqtr wrote:edit: I change my mind after reviewing all explanations, some 700-800 Qs in CR does not even make sense, it just thinks about possibilities to eliminate the answer choices and does not do that when it's telling about the correct answer. I believe some questions violate the GMAT border in order to make them more difficult, neither the questions nor the answers are clear and concise in some cases. that's my personal point of view of course!

I think explanations are not bad at all. However contrarty to Quant, I think RC and SC Qs are easier than GMATPREP material, or I was just in a good mood and got the easier stuff.

Hello,

I have done only MGMAT prep test but I agree that Qant is really though. Some questions are simply impossible to solve in less than 4/5min. Even if the way to get to the solution is immediatly clear in your mind, compotations sometimes take a very very long time... Anyway, I let you know once I took GMATPrep as well.

Regarding Verbal, could you elaborate on your point? I am not sure I see what is your original vs edit... Do you thinks CR and SC are easier in MGMAT or you think they are weird/not well backed up?

Thanks

xeqtr wrote:
GMATPrep CAT2: 720 Q: 50 V: 37 (the most recent test result)
Q: 7 Incorrect
V: 13 Incorrect


Princeton CAT2: 678 (didnt get this actually cuz it was written like 67 8 so does this mean 670 or 680?) Q: 47 V: 36
Q: 1 Incorrect (weird cuz I got 47! I made the only mistake at Q #18!)
V: 16 Incorrect

xeqtr,Even i felt it is kind of weird.
In my GMAT prep cat 2 my score was
GMATPrep CAT2: 660 Q: 51 V: 28
Q: 4 Incorrect
V: 14 Incorrect --here make note of my verbal score ,which is only 28

But later when i was reviewing the questions ,i tried the same questions and i got 100% of them right.I realized that the questions i went wrong were very simple.Thats probably one of the reasons why my verbal score was very less.

Coming to Princeton,i dont think their scoring pattern is right,atleast when it comes to quant.when i got only 2 questions wrong , my quant score was 44.

But what i realized later is that,as everyone said,GMATPrep is the closet thing to the real test.