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Wide disparity in Practice Tests Power Prep and GMAT Prep

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Wide disparity in Practice Tests Power Prep and GMAT Prep

by sabal » Fri Nov 14, 2008 7:37 pm
I have an appointment for GMAT on the 20th of Nov 08 (10 am). I have given a few practice tests.
The scores are as follows:
Powerprep 1 680 (before going thru OG) Q47 V36
Power Prep 2 720 Q50 V 38
Power Prep 1 (Second Time) 740 (after going thru OG) Q49 V41
GMAT Prep 1 600 Q46 V28
GMAT Prep 1 600 Q44 V28 (second Time)
GMAT prep 2 640 Q46 V32
I was just curious as to why my scores are so widely spread out. Power Prep did boost my confidence; However GMAT prep has left me doubting my confidence.

Details about the practice Test:
##As far as the timings are concerned Power Prep was just fine. However, in GMAT Prep (1&2) I was running out of time in the Quant Section. I got a number of them wrong towards the end (7/10)as I had to randomly click on the answers. I have also noticed that towards the end the Questions seem to a lil easier than the questions that came in the middle(I was disappointed that I just had to randomly click on the easy ones) Is the pattern similar to everyone or does it differ each time?
Those mid questions in Quant really cost me dear, spent a lot of time there.
##In all the tests I did not write the two essays. However, I did take the other break in between. I gave all of these tests at around 10 am. I did run out of steam half way thru quant and also in Verbal but finished Verbal with a little over 10 mins left.
## In Power Prep First time there were no repeats.Second time I did see a number of questions repeated (about Q10 V6). In Quant I had to solve it but in Verbal I remembered the answers. In GMAT Prep 1, just a few questions were repeated perhaps only two to three of them. But I always had to solve the Quant ones. In GMat Prep 2 about 5 Verbal were repeats (knew the answers!) In Quant I had to solve it!
## I have also noticed that the OG11 Quant and PowerPrep Quant is a lot easier than GMAT prep. Is that generally the case or is it just me? And which one is a closer representation of the actual GMAT quant.

Any suggestions/ feedback would be welcome!
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by PPP » Sat Nov 15, 2008 1:07 pm
The PowerPrep tests are older ... so it makes sense they are less accurate. I've also heard that the GMATPrep tests are a little too easy, too.
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by Stacey Koprince » Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:03 am
Your scores dropped on GMATPrep b/c you spent too much time on the earlier ones and then had to guess on a lot of problems at the end. If you do that again tomorrow, your score will be lower than it could be. (Also, GMATPrep is the closest representation of the real thing.)

The reason the difficulty levels were dropping? Because you were getting questions wrong. Get Qs wrong and the difficulty levels of the next ones drop.

Also, those questions on which you spent too much time? I bet you didn't get more than 50% of them right. Plus, they cost you a bunch of easier questions at the end. Know that you WILL get a lot of questions wrong on the test. Most people get about 60% of the questions right in a section, regardless of scoring level. Also know that it does not hurt or lower your score to get a problem wrong when it is too hard for you / higher than what you want to score (and you will be given problems that are higher than what you want to score). What does hurt your score, a lot, is getting problems wrong that are at or below what you want to score.

When you go in there tomorrow, pretend you're playing a tennis match. Each question is a point. When the other guy hits a shot that's just too good, say "nice shot" (mentally only, of course!), pick something, and move on. You don't need to do this instantly - spend a minute or so giving it a shot. But if it's just not happening, let it go. Don't "tire yourself out" so much (read: use too much time) that you are too tired to do well on other "points" later in the game / match (read: don't have enough time to finish).

For others reading this, study how to make educated guesses so that you have some other way to narrow down the answer choices before you guess. Unfortunately, there's not a lot you can do in a day to build that skill.

It's not great that you didn't write the essays - there is a stamina factor going on with these. Try to make sure that you don't expend too much energy on the essays tomorrow. Make sure to bring food and drink, and to do things like stretch or walk around on the breaks.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
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by sabal » Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:00 am
Hi!
Firstly thanks a lot for the tips!
Gave my GMAT today. Disappointed!

Q 44 V 32 <630> I think I can do a lot better.
I did take all the breaks to get refreshed.
I ran out of time towards the end. Last 3 question in Quant and Last 4 Questions in Verbal were just random guesses.
(Just clicked any choice without any basis had very lil time left then)
To what extent can these last few questions affect my score?

Also I think I wasted a lot of time doing some Maths calculations. I had figured out the logic involved in the question but there was just too much calculation to do to solve it.
In Quant I have no idea what I did wrong except on the timing part. I guess the pressure got on to me during the test. 2 of the word problems were really confusing. I started solving however, only half way thru did I realise that I had wrongly interpreted the question.(costing me those precious minutes.) On a few of the Quant Problems I some how noticed that these were tough ones; and some very tempting answer choices were given too. And in these I did figure out the answers. One of them was a Geometry one which came up early on. Somehow just could not figure it out then.
What was really frustrating was that I remembered that Geometry Quant problem and solved it when I reached home!! When I was a lot more calm and composed!Damn!! I got that wrong!! And I solved it at the wrong place.. At home!!< That was frustrating.. very very frustrating!!

In Verbal I had a bit of a problem understanding one of the passages in RC. I do seem to waste a lot of time in RC as I cannot skim to get a brief overview. I have noticed that sentences the appear early on in the passage are often contradicted later half. Any tips on how to save time in RC and comprehend it well at the same time?

I will schedule my appointment soon say in about a month from now.

Increasing my Points in Quant and Verbal by about 6 points at least in each, I suppose will really increase my score. Is the way I am viewing these essential 6 points correct? Am I right to conclude that I am not too far behind?
How do you think I should approach my GMAT preparation now??

Thanks,
Sabal.
PS. I think the Tennis match idea is great!
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Nov 24, 2008 1:33 pm
I'm sorry that you didn't get the score you were hoping to get.

Guessing randomly on the last 3-4 will have some impact but the actual amount can vary. If you got them all wrong and they all counted (none were experimental), then it probably cost you about 1.5 to 2 percentile points per question. If you happened to get one right or one was experimental, then the penalty wouldn't have been as severe. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell for sure. (Note: I'm estimating on the per question penalty here. It does vary based on the number of wrong answers in a row - the more there are, the more the average penalty - and the difficulty level of the questions.)

You're still thinking about specific problems! Remember that you only need to get about 60% of the questions in each section right, so who cares about one question here or there? But if you take the test with the mindset that you must get everything, then you're not going to get the score you could get. Instead, you're going to spend too much time on questions that are really too hard for you (and get many of them wrong anyway), and then you're not going to have enough time to spend on the ones you can do (and, the less time you have, the more careless mistakes you're going to make, even when you know what you're doing).

In short, you have to fix this timing problem or your score is not going to be what it could be. But if you can fix this timing problem, you can definitely improve.

Re: RC, follow this link for some ideas:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/verbal-strategy-t14035.html

The main thing to remember is that, on your first read-through, you are ONLY trying to understand the high-level information. Think of it as an outline. You don't care (much) about the detail unless and until you get a question about that detail!
Last edited by Stacey Koprince on Mon Nov 24, 2008 8:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by sabal » Mon Nov 24, 2008 7:22 pm
Thank you for the tips.
will let you know my results.
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