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Gmat Prep vs. Real Gmat

by HPengineer » Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:52 pm
Took the real gmat for the first time today... I found the Real Gmat to be much harder then Gmat prep on the quant side. On verbal side it was about the same.

I have taken several MGMAT test scoring from 40 -43 on quant consistently... Today i laid down a 39 on Real Gmat.

The questions just seemed very tricky in a subtle way not sure how to explain. They are less wordy the MGMAT quants but provide a different kind of challenge.

Anyway i will wait 4 weeks and try again... Really hate this test and im starting to wonder how much a four hour marathon of solving puzzles reflects on ones ability to perform in the real world...
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by rishi raj » Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:22 pm
Sorry to hear about your low score.
I don't think that the GMAT is that irrational an exam as you're making it seem to be. Firstly, the questions are anything but puzzles, they really check your analytical skills.
Secondly, I agree with you that the GMAT may not be an indicator of your performance in the real world, but studies have shown that the GMAT is indeed an indicator of how well you can cope up with the rigor of a top MBA program.
When you go to a top MBA program, you're expected to have a certain competency level . You'll be doing numerous case studies and will be doing a lot of number crunching ,so it makes sense to have a good aptitude.
You may want to base your decision to take the GMAT again based on your competency level. If you think that you'll be able to tackle the GMAT within one month, then go ahead ; otherwise , you may want to just prepare for some more time.
And don't get disappointed. People do make come backs. You'll see lot of people here who scored badly on their first attempts, getting fabulous scores on their subsequent attempts.
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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:32 pm
EDIT: deleted and reposted later.
Last edited by Geva@EconomistGMAT on Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:41 pm
In my experience, tests by any other source out there have their own little biases. This is not necessarily meant to disparage MGMAT: we offer simulation tests as well, and in many cases they're spot on, but I would still hesitate to say that they're completely predictive of your final score. The mba.com GMATPREP tests are the best indicators of your true score - and even those have a +/- 20-30 point bias due to a good/bad day. The only indication of whether you have underperformed on the test day is your GMATPREP scores - can you post those?

Also, was there anything different on this test? time management any different than what you're used to? Were you particularly tired/stressed? Perhaps there's something that can e tweaked for next time, although in many cases you just have to chalk it up to a bad day and shrug it off.

The good news is that Rishi is right - many people manage to improve on their subsequent attempts, if only for purely psychological reasons: you've already seen the test center and gone through the process, so you are more mentally prepared and have fewer surprises.
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by shovit_dhar » Thu Jan 06, 2011 12:22 am
Its interesting that you found Quant more difficult. Usually test takers find the verbal section on the actual GMAT more difficult than the GMATPrep. Even in my case it was verbal that I thought was more difficult on the actual test.
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by HPengineer » Thu Jan 06, 2011 12:48 am
Rishi

I understand the science of the exam and your right i wouldn't call it irrational I just think the environment and types of questions on the test are not indicative of the settings in a college classroom. And sorry but to me data sufficiency questions are basically like puzzles when in college did you ever see such a question type? Also there is just a tremendous amount of material on the GMAT... In college at most your responsible for a quarter or a semester worth of material on a final exam. The Gmat test concepts (sentence correction) that some of us haven't studied since high school.


In addition i am a messy writer and the damn laminated pad was not helping. WHY CANT I USE A PENCIL AND PAPER?? every math class i was ever in the professors insisted that we use pencil... I know i know these are silly complaints but please let me vent as i studied for 6 months and laid an egg :)

Geva,

I wish i could say i felt tired or something but at most i can say i felt uncomfortable with the pad and was a bit nervous at first but i felt that after the essays i relaxed and was ready to go. The questions just came off as hard and i did panic a bit during the test.. it was similar to the OG but there seemed to be an extra lil twist to each problem that left me feeling unsure.

All im shooting for is above a 600 but today i couldn't even muster that. I took the second GMAT prep exam Monday morning under real test conditions and got the best score i have ever gotten on any exam. I have attached it above a 48 quant and a 35 verbal for a 680 total score... Since im really only aiming for a 600 i thought i was well on my way... when i saw the 530 pop up i was sick to my stomach.. I posted the MGMAT quant score cause i hear those are the hardest quant sections of the many prep programs. figured if i could pull 40+ there i could do the same on real test.

I have studied quite a bit and went thru the OG at least twice hence im pretty sure i understand enough material to muster a 600 maybe i just had a bad day but for me the Gmat Prep problems are much easier then the real thing. So at this point im at a loss as to how to proceed from a study strategy.. My thought was just go thru OG again and get into the test center ASAP and hope nerves are much calmer. Any thoughts?
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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:08 am
ok. As I said, with a GMATPREP score of 680, I'd estimate that you're worth a 640 on a bad day, 700 on a good one. A drop of 150 points compared to your GMATPREP is RARE. To me, this indicates that you were performing at nowhere near your potential on test day - for some reason, probably due to some intangible stress factor (the laminated pad may have some small part in it, as it took you out of your element) - you just didn't bring it.

With this in mind, I would repeat my earlier recommendation - forget that this test date ever happened, order a new date as soon as possible, and just be sure to maintain momentum in the time that you have. Because I am sure of two things:

One - that if you were given the chance today to look at the problems you encountered on the test date again with a clear mind, you would want to turn around and smack past-you for letting such simple problems psyche him out and shake his confidence over nothing.

and

Two - that if you were to retake the test tomorrow, with no additional prep, you would score higher than your 530 - probably passing your target of 600.

This is not meant as just false kind words to pick you up - this is based on my experience of ~8 years with this test.
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by HPengineer » Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:23 am
My thought process is the same as yours... in my mind i know enough material to score a 600 i think the 680 might have had some luck i actually guessed four times and got them all right on that exam in the quant section but hey im sure it would have still landed well above 600...

Im thinking to take a few days off maybe pick up the exam prep on Saturday but im unsure what i should study? Should i hit the OG again? SHould i go thru MGMAT material again? Should i focus on verbal since it was lower then my quant?

Good to hear advice from someone who has been around the test for so long thanks alot.
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by rishi raj » Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:31 am
HPengineer wrote:Rishi

I know i know these are silly complaints but please let me vent as i studied for 6 months and laid an egg :)
Lol! That was funny.
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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:36 am
HPengineer wrote:My thought process is the same as yours... in my mind i know enough material to score a 600 i think the 680 might have had some luck i actually guessed four times and got them all right on that exam in the quant section but hey im sure it would have still landed well above 600...

Pure guess, as in 10 sec guess and move on, or educated guess with a small degree of uncertainty?

I'm thinking to take a few days off maybe pick up the exam prep on Saturday but im unsure what i should study? Should i hit the OG again? SHould i go thru MGMAT material again? Should i focus on verbal since it was lower then my quant?

Verbal scaled scores are usually lower than quant. That is to be expected. Keep in touch with everything.

Ideally you would find fresh material. The only materials I can wholeheartedly recommend (other than our own, of course :)) are official materials - the Official guide, the quantitative and verbal review guides (some overlap with the main OG, though), the GMATPREP software and latest GMAT focus quant simulation CATS available for sale on the GMAC website.
I also know that the GMAC website has PDFs of old GMAT paper tests for sale - many of the questions there made their way into the OG, but you will find some questions you have not seen yet.



Good to hear advice from someone who has been around the test for so long thanks alot.
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by HPengineer » Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:46 am
i would say two were educated i worked them down a bit... and two were pure guesses within 10 seconds i am terrible at complex probability problems which i actually saw on my exam today which led to believe that i was on my way to high score.
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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:48 am
rishi raj wrote:
HPengineer wrote:Rishi

I know i know these are silly complaints but please let me vent as i studied for 6 months and laid an egg :)
Lol! That was funny.
Indeed :)

Regarding that - I believe they use the laminated paper for security reasons. Up until 2005, they used to give you 6 regular sheets of paper (two pink, two yellow, two blue, if memory serves) and a pencil, but I guess test-takers used to hide torn parts of their scribbles on their person and post the questions later on the net.
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by lucasd06 » Thu Feb 28, 2013 10:40 am
Similar topic as the original poster--hopefully someone can address my problem. I actually only made the decision to apply for a Master in Accounting a few weeks ago when my company tentatively approved me for 90% education reimbursement (VERY exciting). That meant furiously compiling information for application deadlines as well as cramming for this ominous GMAT event. My first practice GMAT test, administered by the free downloaded software from mba.com, landed me a score of 530; Quant-36, Verb 27. Since the admissions offices will be considering the Quant score most heavily, I focused on learning all the applicable problem solving and mathematical concepts. I ONLY studied Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency problems. A week later, my second test score was a 570; Quant-39, Verb-29. I know that my scores don't hold a candle to some of the geniuses out there, but I consider myself a pretty intuitive guy.

The next week, I spent hours doing about 150 problems out of the OG GMAT book in all ranges of difficulty to try to get that Quant score up. By the end of the week, I was getting about 18/20 questions correct, on average. I felt REALLY good about it. I wasn't even concerning myself with the verbal section.

TEST DAY: I got 8 hours of sleep. Ate a great breakfast. Got to the test center in plenty of time. Completely calm, ready to stick it to the test. As I'm going through the problem solving section, I spent a little more time trying to get the right answers than I should, and ran out of time before I could put any answer for the last question. Other than that, I felt like I got a majority of the questions correct and I was confident in my answers. In the verbal section, however, I felt distracted, I was guessing far too often, and there were too many answers that appeared like they could be correct. No confidence in that section.

END EXAM: Accepted scores, and the results shocked me! Completely opposite from what I thought! Total score: 530; Quant-32, Verb-31.

QUESTION: How did my Quant section drop 20 percentile points from my practice test?? Do the practice questions represent a different degree of difficulty than what I saw on the test? How much does the omission of answering one question affect my score?

I am at a loss. I don't even know how I would begin to prepare for a retake.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Thu Feb 28, 2013 11:16 am
The practice problems may be easier at times, and the official test may be harder but please remember that the test is comparing you to others -- so harder for you also means harder for them, so that tougher problems would not lead to a lower score unless other people dealt with those problems more effectively than you did.

What really happens when people get a much lower score than they expect is that they make a few "silly" mistakes and think that they are getting problems right on the actual test but are actually missing them based on a something subtle, such as answering the wrong question (you should have answered for the amount left over, not the amount used, for example), making an assumption (particularly on data sufficiency), a small calculation error, etc.

You say that you were confident in your answers and then the score was lower. This is how such a thing can happen:

1) You make some subtle mistakes and are confident that you got the problem right (the official GMAT test is REALLY good at this -- the person who misses the question is often more confident than is the one who got it right!)

2) Since you missed some of those problems based on the subtle errors you are actually at a lower level than you might think, so subsequent problems might feel easier because they are actually of lower difficulty.

3) You make enough errors throughout the rest of the test so that you never do quite get up to the level of questions that would give you the score that you expected.

Now the question is, "What can you do about this going forward?"

Well you know that you have to wait 31 days to take the test again. I hope that this does not pose to big of a problem.

When you go back in a month to take the test you need to be even more conscious of the little tricks that the questions play and you need to be even more prepared to get the questions right that you can get right.

Here are some things that might help you.

The importance of avoiding silly errors:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/12/ ... n-the-gmat

How to practice for both diagnosing a problem and for doing the "math":
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/04/ ... at-success

Ways to avoid silly errors:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/10/ ... -handrails


Do you find that Data Sufficiency is a strength for you or a weakness?
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by karan_s » Thu Feb 28, 2013 12:28 pm
Thanks David for the links.

I am also having the same issues

Following were my scores

Actual GMAT 1st attempt Q47 V 20

MGMAT 1 680 Q 47 V 35
MGMAT 2 710 Q48 V 38
MGMAT 3 680 Q49 V 34
MGMAT 4 690 Q47 V 37

GMATPrep 1 750 Q 50 V40
GMAT Prep 2 710 Q50 V 35


Actual GMAT(2nd attempt) 600 Q48 V25


Still confused when and where to start....
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