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OG 12 DS Difficulty level

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OG 12 DS Difficulty level

by navalpike » Wed Jun 17, 2009 11:09 am
Hi all,

I would love to hear Ian's or any other expert's opinion. Others are welcome as well.

May be it is just me but has anyone else noticed how difficult the OG 12 DS section is. I FLEW through the pro. solving section in two days and may be got 7 wrong. But when I got to the DS section, I have already missed about 20% and I am not even half way through. Some of the problems are taking me over 2 minutes in "set-up" alone and then 5 minutes to solve.

I can post examples but I was more curious if someone else had noticed this discrepancy. Even OG 11 DS was not this difficult. If you feel otherwise, please correct me.

(Also, if this belongs in a different section of the forum, please feel free to move it)

Thanks all,
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by raleigh » Wed Jun 17, 2009 2:01 pm
It is most likely caused from you being unfamiliar with the problem type. Data sufficiency problems seem weird at first.

What is your strategy for approaching data sufficiency problems? And remember, that you don't have to solve the problem, you just have to determine whether or not you have enough information to answer the question.
Last edited by raleigh on Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by madhur_ahuja » Wed Jun 17, 2009 7:41 pm
You are right, problems in OG 12 DS are tougher. But thats reflect the actual GMAT pattern. Do you want to do easier questions when the questions in the real GMAT will be tough ?
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by Ian Stewart » Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:09 pm
I agree with navalpike. The PS section in OG12 is similar to what was in OG11 (about 25% of the questions are new, the rest old), while the DS section has been completely overhauled (about 50% of the questions are new). In recent years, the difficulty level of the mathematics on the GMAT has increased noticeably, and the DS section of OG12 reflects that. Because, as raleigh mentioned above, most test takers are understandably less comfortable with DS than with PS questions, I find OG12 to be much more valuable than OG11, since it offers more, and more challenging, DS questions to practice from, and better reflects the current test.
For online GMAT math tutoring, or to buy my higher-level Quant books and problem sets, contact me at ianstewartgmat at gmail.com

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by navalpike » Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:33 pm
Thanks for that Ian. I really appreciate you responding.

Just to add to that, another thing that I have noticed (may be it is just me) is that the OG 12 DS section does not follow the PS pattern of "the difficulty level increasing from start to end". I noticed that there are some pretty tricky questions peppered throughout the section. No doubt that the questions towards the end are in general harder than others. But there are some pretty tough ones in the 80's and 90's range as well, not much easier than the ones in 160's. (although ofcourse some of that depends on your personal skill level).

With that said, obviously I believe that it is for the better since this will prepare us better for the real thing.

thanks again Ian.
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