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GMATPrep Exam Pack 1: Release and Initial Comments

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GMATPrep Exam Pack 1: Release and Initial Comments

by dabral » Sun Sep 15, 2013 12:31 pm
The GMAT test writers have released the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1, which consists of two additional full length computer adaptive tests and are an extension to the free Official GMATPrep software. The cost of these two additional exams is $39.99. Together with the two free official tests that come with the GMATPrep software, students now have access to a full set of four computer adaptive tests. The screen below shows the additional two tests that appear in the software after you have paid and activated the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1. The software allows you to either choose the practice tests from the default GMATPrep Default Question Pack(free) or from the paid GMATPrep Exam Pack 1.

The Exam Pack 1 says that if one were to take the tests more than once, it is likely that student will see the same questions repeated. My guess is that the design of these two tests is similar to the Official GMATPrep tests that uses a small database of questions. The exams in GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 are numbered as Exam 3 and 4. I took the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 several times and I first attempted Exam 3 and Exam 4 and then I repeated the two exams again. I found that when I repeated Exam 3, 25 of the questions came from the questions that I encountered when I first took Exam 3, and another 5 were from Exam 4. This means that there is very little to gain from repeatedly taking the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 because of the large amount of repetition. In my opinion, the best way to use the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 is to take the two tests once.

I installed the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 on both a PC and a Mac, and encountered errors and was not able to analyze the tests. I have reported this error to GMAC, and I will need to wait until GMAC fixes this error. At this stage, it is unlikely that the error is confined on my end, but that is a possibility as well.

So for now, the release of the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 is good news for students preparing for the GMAT, because it gives them additional authentic tests to practice and gauge where they stand in their GMAT preparation. I highly recommend students to exclusively use these practice tests for assessing their preparation.

Cheers,
Dabral
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by guerrero » Mon Sep 16, 2013 1:47 pm
Hi Dabral , why is it not visible to me ? I looked into the mba.com site ,but, the newly released GMATPrep@Exam Pack 1 is not visible anywhere in ---Home > Store Home > GMAT Preparation?
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by dabral » Mon Sep 16, 2013 2:42 pm
@guerrero

Here is the link: https://www.mba.com/store/store-catalog/ ... ack-1.aspx

I do want to caution you that the exams are currently not working properly, at least for me. I can make them work, but it is not ideal and certainly not if you are going to do them timed. They freeze at a certain point. I am sure GMAC is trying to fix the error. I encountered the error on a PC and a Mac, so I am pretty sure that there is a bug in the GMATPrep Exam Pack 1. They have not announced it formally, so may be they will have a fix by then.

Cheers,
Dabral
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by guerrero » Mon Sep 16, 2013 2:55 pm
thanks Dabral . I 'll wait for a week before i get my hands on the new product . Hopefully , it will be fixed . Could you also let us know in case you see the glitches gone?

I really appreciate your valuable feedback , thanks a ton for the help.
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by dabral » Mon Sep 16, 2013 11:09 pm
@guerrero

I will definitely update once I know for sure that the software is working how it is meant to work. I am sure it will be ironed out in a week or so.
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by dabral » Wed Sep 18, 2013 12:37 pm
The GMATPrep software has been updated to version 2.2.315 and that takes care of the initial error I was facing with GMATPrep Exam Pack 1. Now the two new computer adaptive tests are operating properly. Feel free to download these tests from mba.com.
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by c23678 » Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:48 pm
Thanks for the update dabral.
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by c23678 » Fri Sep 20, 2013 8:57 am
I took Exam 3 from the GMATPrep Exam Pack last night. I did not run into any issues after the software update. Not all questions were new though. I could find solutions for few (<5) questions online, suggesting that these were copied from paper based tests. I also noticed that the latest GMATPrep lets you review your answers after ending the exam. This is good as now we dont have to worry about accidentally ending the exam without reviewing the answers.

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by dabral » Fri Sep 20, 2013 9:13 am
@c23678

Yes, the software now runs without any hiccups after the GMATPrep 2.2.315 update.

You are right that not all questions are new, well they are new if you only consider officially released GMAT questions. The questions that you were able to find solutions to online are official GMAT questions that had been illegally shared in the past. There are actually a lot of those questions that are discussed on this and GMATClub forums. Because there are so many questions that are discussed, the students actually don't know which ones are official and which ones are not. This is some ways can bias ones score if they have seen a few of these questions before.

To the best of my knowledge, all of the questions in the Exam Pack 1 are written by the current test writers and have been tested only in the last six years or so. None of them are from old paper based GMAT tests.

And yes, the software does allow one to review the questions after the test. This was fixed with the previous release of GMATPrep 2.2.306.

Dabral
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by c23678 » Fri Sep 20, 2013 5:46 pm
Dabral,

The latest GMATPrep software is no longer showing the test that I took last night. It now shows both the tests as new. Is this a known issue?

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by dabral » Fri Sep 20, 2013 6:08 pm
c23678,

I personally have not encountered this issue. I hope you did not accidentally reset the tests. That does wipe out the data from past tests, although it will display the scores from prior attempts. I don't know what to say.

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by c23678 » Fri Sep 20, 2013 6:56 pm
I did not reset the test nor I see the test results that I took yesterday. I emailed MBA.com store customer service regarding the same. Waiting for their response.

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by faraz_jeddah » Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:40 am
Hey Guys!

apart from the software glitches - How are the exams? Are they worth the $$?
A good question also deserves a Thanks.

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by c23678 » Sat Sep 21, 2013 9:21 am
I think they are definitely worth it.

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by dabral » Sat Sep 21, 2013 12:18 pm
@faraz_jeddah

The tests are a bit expensive at $39.99, but they are excellent in my opinion. None of the tests from any company can come close to the official GMAT tests in terms of style and difficulty level. I highly recommend them.
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