OG 11 Diagnostic Test difficulty

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rajmirra: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 65; Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:40 am; Location: Canada; Thanked: 4 times

by rajmirra » Sun Jan 13, 2008 6:14 pm

Hello All

I am working with OG 11 after completing Kaplan's Math work book. The questions are really difficult to answer (at least according to me) in the diagnostic tests. Has anyone felt this as difficult or it is just to prepare us for the potential difficulty in the exam. Are real GMAT questions this difficult?

Perplexed
Raj

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Quantitative Reasoning | Sun Jan 13, 2008 6:14 pm

solaris: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 41; Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:21 pm; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 9 times

by solaris » Sun Jan 13, 2008 7:35 pm

That's true, the OG11's diagnostic test has some of the harder questions in the entire book. Don't worry too much if you're just starting out and are making a lot of mistakes.

There will however be questions similar to these in the actual GMAT, especially if you're doing well,so it's best you familiarize yourself with all concepts and question types tested in the book.

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rajmirra: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 65; Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:40 am; Location: Canada; Thanked: 4 times

by rajmirra » Sun Jan 13, 2008 7:53 pm

solaris wrote:That's true, the OG11's diagnostic test has some of the harder questions in the entire book. Don't worry too much if you're just starting out and are making a lot of mistakes.

There will however be questions similar to these in the actual GMAT, especially if you're doing well,so it's best you familiarize yourself with all concepts and question types tested in the book.

Thanks for replying. Now it clears the cloud.

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StarDust845: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 158; Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 8:32 am; Thanked: 7 times

by StarDust845 » Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:51 am

I agree. The diagnostic test in OG is much harder than the first few hundred questions you see in the OG. But the real test probably parallels or is more difficult than the diagnostic test. It's a shame that OG makes you feel comfortable with easy questions when in reality the GMAT probably carries difficult questions than most of the questions in OG (assuming you want a 650+) score.

OG should also release another book with the hardest of questions. They are misleading people who want 650+

Calista.

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solaris: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 41; Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:21 pm; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 9 times

by solaris » Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:32 am

I don't think it's impossible to get 650+ by focusing almost exclusively on the quant questions in the OG.

I had a fair bit of trouble with the later questions in the OG and decided to not look at any more difficult questions (Kaplan 800, MGMAT CAT's etc.) to keep my confidence, and I managed to do just fine.

It's more important to get a good sense of what concepts are typically tested in the GMAT, and for that the OG is more than adequate.

StarDust845 wrote:OG should also release another book with the hardest of questions. They are misleading people who want 650+

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rajmirra: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 65; Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:40 am; Location: Canada; Thanked: 4 times

by rajmirra » Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:07 pm

Hey Thanks both of you for your insights.

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sankruth: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 195; Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2007 4:33 am; Thanked: 10 times

by sankruth » Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:07 am

Do you mean to say that even the last 15-20 PS and DS questions in OG are just 650 difficulty level?? I just managed to get only 70% of theose questions right.

I have attemped a couple of MGMAT CAT tests and the math questions are infinitely difficult to the point that most of them can never be solved in 2-3 minutes. Dunno, if those are the kinds of questions I must look to get right on a consistent basis, if I need a 700+ score.

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StarDust845: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 158; Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 8:32 am; Thanked: 7 times

by StarDust845 » Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:13 am

Maybe I am modest in saying "650". OG is good only upto a certain point but it's definitely not good for high scores.

OG should have provided a easy bin, medium bin and hard bin questions, say 100 in each bin. That would have given us a real guage by which we can measure ourselves. Currently we just know the latter questions are hard. How many of them? 20 - 30? They aren't enough.

Actually what bothers me about OG not providing all of the questions is that, we pay to write the test, they put experimental questions in it to see whether they can pose those questions later, and then they come out with a book OG, and sell it again to us!!! We pay them for them to sell something to us!! Great.

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sampleresume: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 55; Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:04 pm

by sampleresume » Fri Apr 18, 2008 6:42 pm

In my understanding, the real test is much easier than the MGMAT in math

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JasonReynolds: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 38; Joined: Wed Mar 11, 2009 12:21 pm; Thanked: 5 times; GMAT Score:770

by JasonReynolds » Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:34 pm

The math MGMAT, Princeton Review, and Kaplan would have you prep for is frankly, just overkill. GMAT math problems are tricky, but they aren't "difficult." Test Prep math problems are flat out hard.

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Donkey_man_88: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 27; Joined: Sun Aug 10, 2008 8:19 pm

Difficulty of Test Prep Vs. Real GMAT

by Donkey_man_88 » Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:52 am

This is just my opinion, but I feel that the real GMAT throws questions that can be harder for a few reasons:

1) Most likely the test-taker has never seen the question

2) Test Prep companies cannot mimic the algo perfectly

3) Test Prep companies create a study plan to ensure that you know how to solve their questions.

I've found that the really hard Quant questions start to mimic the difficulty of Manhattan Gmat. The new GMAT Focus product is much better than the OG 11th edition, and the 12th edition is much better as well. Overall, as previous posters said, know all of the fundamentals learn how to apply them. Verbal is a totally different beast altogether. I've found the Verbal to be much harder, especially the Sentence Correction.

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