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is Manhattan GMAT CATs harder than GMAT Prep?

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not really

by rangerguy2000 » Sat Jul 18, 2009 6:43 pm
i wouldn't say there r harder ... depends what qs u were getting right or wrong?
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by Spaceman Spiff » Sun Jul 19, 2009 12:25 am
Manhattan vs. GMATPrep: almost the same and in my case they were the closest to the real thing.

Veritas is harder than both (their free exam).
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by gmat_dest » Sun Jul 19, 2009 2:54 am
Different perspectives I guess :)

Veritas , I found it ok ..... but 8 DIs in one stretch and 3 RCs in first 12-13 questions is not mimicked by real GMAT....

MGMAT is what I have found that is giving me the kicks...

Quant is much harder than real GMAT.

Verbal, some of the choices are very similar....

All in All, MGMAT tests are good. :)
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by Toph@GMAT_REBOOT » Sun Jul 19, 2009 11:19 am
I think you see more questions that require several steps in the quant section of the MGMAT exams. I don't think the questions are necessarily more difficult. But I do think many people are more pressed for time when they take the MGMAT quant section... which can result in a lower score.

I found the GMAT Prep exams results to be the most representative of my score on the real GMAT (and I scored higher on the GMAT prep exams than I did on the MGMAT exams). However, I think GMAT prep scores can sometimes be a slightly inflated on GMAT Prep exam if they see a lot of questions they've already done in the OG book.

Also, this question has been asked a ton of times in the past, so you can use the forum's search function and get more opinions on the matter. You'll get more input from reading all those posts than you will from reading this thread.
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by tj123 » Sun Jul 19, 2009 2:48 pm
ok thanks.
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by theGoodLife » Mon Jul 20, 2009 6:31 am
i dunno, my results are the complete opposite of yours, as you can see from my last 3 tests.

jul4-mgmat cat 3: 640 45Q 33V
jul12-gmatPrep: 570 44Q 27V
jul18-mgmat cat 4: 670 44V 37V

i know there is a margin of error on these tests, but this is ridiculous.

I do agree with you that the quant section kicks @ss, but somehow it all balances out with the scoring, it seems as though you're allowed to get more wrong on mgmat, i make A LOT of strategic guesses in order to save time on the mgmat quant and pick my battles. whereas with the gmatPrep IMO there is less margin for error, and less difficult questions... as for verbal, I have no clue, as you can see from my verbal results.
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by gmat_dest » Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:00 am
I have given two MGMAT tests:


MGMAT CAT 3 : 680(Q47, V36)
MGMAT CAT 4 : 710(Q48, V38)

Princeton : 730 (Q50, V41)
Veritas : 710(Q51, V41)

Apart from this I have given 800 score sectional tests.
All pretty good.

Based on that, I will say MGMAT tests are toughest :-)

But I have my test in another 18 days, Will keep on doing the other MGMAt tests + GMAT Prep , till I am scoring consistently above 720.
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by myohmy » Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:41 am
MGMAT verbal was tougher for me -- but I don't think any test prep company replicates verbal particularly well. The best source for V is the OGs and GMATPreps. Problems are easy to write/create, CRs and RCs are much more difficult.
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by RumpelThickSkin » Mon Jul 26, 2010 1:29 pm
Spaceman Spiff wrote:Manhattan vs. GMATPrep: almost the same and in my case they were the closest to the real thing.

Veritas is harder than both (their free exam).
I just gave veritas recently it gave me a 720 (with 44 on verbal) .. my scores on mgmat cats are 650 & 640 respectively
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by giovanni.gastone » Wed May 25, 2011 12:12 pm
I have bought both MGMAT and Veritas courses, on top of Knewton, PR, and Kaplan. So, I have taken all and am taking all of their CATs. It cost me quite a bit of money because none of them sells CATs alone, and when I bought MGMAT they weren't selling CATs as a standalone product yet.

It's hard to say which CATs are harder because you can be more familiar with one topic than another, and there is not a perfect distribution of topics in all of these CATs. So, while some people, for example, might be better with parallel reasoning (CR) might say Veritas, for example, is harder others who are not all that great with parallel reasoning might say the opposite.

If I'm going with overall scores, then I will rank these CATs in this order:

1. Manhattan (great for quant practice and for getting your verbal basics down)
2. Veritas (great for testing harder verbal concepts, which you may or may not see on real test)
3. Knewton (great for verbal and quant. content is good, but the delivery of the questions is lacking)
4. Kaplan (all around good content. if you're aiming for 650 to 680, this will be enough for you)
5. GMAT Prep from GMAC
6. PrincetonReview (not the best product overall, in my opinion. While i was scoring low 600s with MGMAT, I was getting low 700s with them)

If there is just one place you want to spend your money, i recommend MGMAT. They also allow you to reset your CATs so you can either get more difficult questions as you get better or just to work on your timing. Lots of companies like Knewton tell you the "downside" to repeating CATs, but that's because their pool of questions is not big enough yet and indeed if you were to rest these CATs you're practically going to see the same questions. Plus, I suspect they don't want to expose all of their questions in the pool. Kaplan, by the way, allows you to reset as well.
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by giovanni.gastone » Wed May 25, 2011 12:21 pm
I should also mention that MGMAT has the best explanation for their questions. The worst is PrincetonReview. Knewton has great verbal explanations, but their quant explanations, while detailed, aren't as easy to digest as that of MGMAT. Knewton will often recommend approaches that are very academic and seemingly brute; whereas, Manhattan provides approaches to solving math questions that make the problem seem much easier to tackle.

As an example, for overlapping sets, Knewton recommends against using the matrix that MGMAT recommends for certain questions; Knewton recommends using only the circles for overlapping sets including questions that work better with the matrix. Whereas, MGMAT teaches you when to use which method. The difference, my friend, if you're not a quant guys like me, is a savings of about 15 to 20 seconds. If you get even 3 overlapping questions on a test, that's about a minute's worth - it's enough to give you another minute to allocate to harder questions or give you a peace of mind that you solved the question correctly.
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by vomhorizon » Thu Jan 17, 2013 1:38 am
You will never improve by practicing against an equal enemy , but by constantly being pushed to your limits..

I just took my First MGMAT CAT (CAT 1 W/o IR). Having taken two of the GMAT PREP CAT's (TEST 1 Twice, and Test 2, once) here is my take on the MGMAT CAT so far :

I scored a 720 (Q45 V44) and 700 (Q47 V39) on the two GMAT PREP tests...Except for GMAT PREP Test 1 where i was rushed for the last question in quant (had to do it in about a minute), i wasnt rushed for time on quant. In the verbal section i always had to hurry with about 10 questions to do in the last 15 - 16 minutes or so, and depending upon what type of questions i had left i was pushed in the last 2-3 questions...

I found timing on the MGMAT quant to be brutal to say the least...I had 3 minutes left with 11 questions remaining in quant. No matter how poorly i was performing in the GMAT prep i was never this much behind. Overall the level of questions was similar to MGMAT material, they surely did involve many more steps than your routine Official question from either the OG's or the GMAT PREP. I als saw a lot more of geometry that involved more computation and steps... I will surely agree with other's observations that the MGMAT Quant is tougher because it involves questions that are lengthier for many (unless you are very good at quant and know all the tricks and shortcuts etc). I had to guess blindly on the last 10 questions in quant and that reduced my score to a Q40.

The verbal section was better as far as timing is concerned but i did find that the OG questions were of "better quality", and the RC passages in the GMAT prep were much tougher to comprehend then the MGMAT..CR was pretty similar but i got only 1 bold face CR question. I was rushed for the last 3 questions in the verbal (pretty similar to my GMAT PREP performance)and scored a V38.

Overall my score : 650 , Q40, V38 . This is the lowest i have scored in the last month, and of course much of it has to do with the fact that i bombed the quant section due to the fact that i randomly guessed nearly a 1/3rd of the section.

Because my aim to cover the MGMAT tests was to become a better "Tester" and not simulate the actual test or estimate my actual test score (for which i will prefer the gmat prep) i think i am well on my way. With 5 more CAT's to go, and their associated reviews if i can get on track in quant and improve my timing to a point where even with the LENGTHIER quant seems manageble i would have greatly improved my quantative ability ... and that is the entire point of the exercise..

From my experience with the first CAT , i would rate MGMAT CAT's very highly if one uses them as a practice tool...Many who are not in the 85-90 percentile in quant might see a lower overall score then gmat prep due to the tougher or rather lengthier quant section but they will be pushed to the limits when reviewing and practicing as a result will become much better when they go back to the real thing ..[/b]
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by jppaa » Fri Jan 18, 2013 7:19 am
I agree with everyone else: MGMAT Quant section requires a lot more steps to solve than questions from GMAT Prep and the OG (which come from the same source). I will say: they are conceptually just as difficult as GMAT Prep, but require far more steps and computations in arriving to the answer. This greatly affected my score on the last MGMAT Quant test I took. I was scoring in the 70-75 percentile after question 22, and then my score took a nose dive because I was guessing and in a hurry to finish. It really depends on the type of test taker you are. If you are someone like me that tends to set problems up with equations in order to avoid conceptual or arithmetic errors, then the structure of the Quant section of the MGMAT is not in your favor, and you are likely to do better on other CATs. If you are someone that can quickly visualize everything in your head, and you don't rely as much on writing out your steps, then your score on the MGMAT CATs will probably correlate with your overall score.
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by Jim@StratusPrep » Fri Jan 18, 2013 9:50 am
Harder is a tough choice of words. I agree with everyone on the number of steps, m Gmat has the most. GMAT prep is more difficult conceptually. I have seen people perform better and worse on gmat prep than they had performed on m GMAT.
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