GMAT Strategy

dabral wrote:@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.

Thanks! I went ahead and purchased them.

Anyone else feel that these tests are a bit harder than the previous ones?

I myself noticed a difference in difficulty level of questions thrown at me in Exam 3 vs Exam 4. Exam 3 seemed to consist of higher difficulty level questions. Of course none of this matters because the final score normalizes such difference. The main difference would be the stress level and possibility of panicking if the software throws too many difficult questions in a row. Another thing that happens in computer adaptive tests is that if a student accidentally gets a few difficult questions right(especially in the beginning), the algorithm maintains the difficulty level for some time before stabilizing to the appropriate difficulty level.

Overall, in my opinion the Exam Pack tests are very much in line with my experience during actual GMAT test.

dabral wrote:I myself noticed a difference in difficulty level of questions thrown at me in Exam 3 vs Exam 4. Exam 3 seemed to consist of higher difficulty level questions. Of course none of this matters because the final score normalizes such difference. The main difference would be the stress level and possibility of panicking if the software throws too many difficult questions in a row. Another thing that happens in computer adaptive tests is that if a student accidentally gets a few difficult questions right(especially in the beginning), the algorithm maintains the difficulty level for some time before stabilizing to the appropriate difficulty level.

Overall, in my opinion the Exam Pack tests are very much in line with my experience during actual GMAT test.

Spot on! I experienced the same. Verbal is definitely a killer on GMATprep #3.
I hope what you said is true about the scoring algorithm and normalizing. Although my 30 point difference between #3 and #4 suggests that you have to prepare yourself to expect the unexpected.

These are hands down a must for anyone taking the GMAT!

@faraz_jeddah

30 point difference is within the standard deviation of the GMAT CAT, and one can't really interpret the difference either way.

Jim@StratusPrep wrote:These are hands down a must for anyone taking the GMAT!

Hi Jim,

Does it make sense to go a step further and buy the GMATPrep® Question Pack 1 after exhausting the 4 tests ?

Thanks & Regards,
Vivek

@ all,

The exact changes in the GMATPrep software itself can be found here:
GMATPrep Changelog

Yes, GMATPrep Question Pack 1 is also a valuable source of recent officially released questions. One can in fact create mini tests using the questions in the database. I recommend students to create six such tests. The images below list the recommended number of problems that one should select from the different difficulty levels to create practice tests consisting of 37 questions to be completed in 75 minutes. The only downside is that there will be no score, but these tests are an excellent way to stay in the mode of testing under time and pressure.

The first image shows the distribution for Tests#1 through #5. The second image shows the suggested distribution for Test#6.

Dabral - out of curiosity - are you a student or teacher?

If a student when have you planned to take the gmat?

faraz_jeddah wrote:Dabral - out of curiosity - are you a student or teacher?

If a student when have you planned to take the gmat?

Hi Faraz , Dabral belongs to expert community . He owns the https://www.gmatquantum.com/ site , which is extremely helpful . visit the link & you 'll get to know ..

I bought the Exam Pack and wrote a review of it here:

https://www.thegmattutor.com/gmatprep-ex ... -1-review/

I highly recommend both the Exam Pack and the Question Pack for anyone taking the GMAT. The GMAC has made big improvements in the amount of official material they provide. If you don't use it, you're at a big disadvantage.

I had the same problem as the earlier poster regarding the missing exam results. After I took the exam, I was able to see the "Review your responses" option. However, the exam results completely disappeared later. So there's still a bug in the software.

@faraz_jeddah

I am a virtual GMAT teacher trying to lessen the pain of students wrestling with the GMAT. Feel free to ask me any questions, I am here to help.

Cheers,
Dabral

I just bought the GMAT exam pack 1. Agreed that the price is steep, but nothing like the real practice questions. I was stuck between GMAT focus and Exam pack 1 and Exam pack 1 seemed to deliver more bang for my bucks hopefully .

@Joshnf

With the release of Exam Pack 1,GMATFocus has become less relevant. Exam Pack 1 gives an exact score and is identical to the real test. GMATFocus only had 24 questions to be completed in 45 min, and gave a score range. It is still good for additional practice, especially for students targeting high scores, but it is pretty expensive for what it provides.

c23678 wrote: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.

-C23678

Had the same issue. Did the test, saw the score even went back and reviewed my answers that I click on end review and lost everything. I can't even see the the test score. Maybe is an issue for Mac users?

Sent an email too, so disappointed...