Last few Manhattan tests easier than the first few?

[kris_hansy]

Hi,

I asked the same question at Manhattan Forum but didn't get any reply.

I have observed that starting Tests 3 the Test difficulty level falls. Test 4 onwards it falls dramatically, and the Test score soar! E.g., Lets take the example of verbal questions:

CAT 1 and 2 had 32 questions at 700-800 difficulty level.
CAT 3 had 29 such questions
CAT 4 had 17 such questions
CAT 5 had 12 such questions!

The same story goes for Quant.

CAT 5 was so easy that I finished Quant with 10 mins to spare (I had to guess more than 10 questions in my first two tests!!), while I finished Verbal with 8 mins to spare!! With high scores! Very high!

Why is this happening? Now I am utterly confused. I don't know what to expect in the GMAT exam, which by the way is drawing near. I feel dejected. MY friend took GMAT a month back, and said he felt the Quant and CRs were much more tough than what they were at Manhattan. I think, he faced the same problem, and messed up with his pace.

Does this happen because there are no more 700-800 level questions left? I received a much higher score in the later tests. So it wasn't the situation where I received fewer 700-800 questions because I wasn't performing well.

Thanks a lot,

[michael.dinerstein]

Hi kris_hansy,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you! Sometimes, our Instructors can be a little bit busy and they only check our forums about twice each week.

Now, onto your question.

What appears to be happening is that you're maxing out at the 700 - 800 level questions for various question types. for instance, if you are extremely strong in Sentence Correction, you will see only 700 - 800 level questions for each test that you take when you complete this section. Over time, the CAT pool runs out of appropriate 700 - 800 level questions for Sentence Correction and will ask relatively easier questions the next time you take a test. Hence, after scoring in the 700+ range for Sentence Correction for about 3 - 4 tests, the difficulty level will decrease. While this certainly doesn't help you gauge your ability level on the last few tests, it does denote that you don't have to worry about that particular section since you're already testing at a high enough level.

In your case, it seems like you maxed out in one or two areas after the first 3 tests and then slowly maxed out on another one after your 5th test. Chances are, you'll do just fine on a real GMAT since our most difficult questions are no match for your ability level on the exam!

If you'd like a more accurate score in the meantime, visit www.mba.com and download their GMATPrep software. You get two free full-length practice GMAT exams scored by the same exact algorithm that will be used on a real exam. Additionally, because the questions are made by GMAC, the people who administer the test, they'll be more accurate than any question created by a test prep company - even us!

I hope this helps. Sorry that we can't work out a better fix for the exams you've already taken. We're planning on adding more difficult questions to our CAT exam pool after we do some testing on the difficulty level, so the issue will soon be fixed.

Good luck studying!

Best,