eyelikecheese wrote:I'll be taking the GMAT next Friday, the 28th. I'm wondering if you were presented with a problem you've never encountered before while going through various books/OG's. Did something totally catch you off guard, or were the questions like the ones you were used to studying, just more difficult?

I'm just trying to get a gauge of how much more difficult the GMAT is as compared to MGMAT, Veritas, GMATPrep, and Newton practice tests, or just practice test in general

Hello eyelikecheese,

First of all- clever name, I like it. Secondly, the GMATPrep test questions from mba.com will give you a really good idea about what the questions are really going to be like. Keep in mind that you can take each of the two tests two times for a total of four tests. You can actually take it more but after the second time you'll get a fair number of repeats (although you'll still see some new questions). I can't say much about Newton or Veritas because I haven't taken their tests but MGMAT questions were also pretty good. Finally, you will see questions that catch you off guard and that will seem like you have no idea how to do them. The trick is to figure how to use what you've learned and apply it to the problem. Translating the problem from english into math on your paper usually helps you clarify how to approach a problem so make sure you do that (it also helps prevent silly mistakes). You will also have to make some guesses on the test because you can't figure out a question fast enough. Just make educated guesses and move on. I usually missed around 10 questions on practice tests from GMATPREP (which has the same scoring algorithm as the real test) and still got 49s or 50s.

Cheers!
Dan