GMAT Strategy

TPR=the princeton review. I don't know how 800tests are, unfortunately.

You are bringing your score down a HUGE amount by running out of time. All of the questions on the test are worth the same amount - so it's the same as getting the first 10-12 wrong (it's a myth that the ones at the end aren't worth as much). If you get, say, the last 10 questions wrong, that will result in a decrease of about 20 to 25 percentile points from whatever you were scoring just before you got those all wrong.

Whenever the test puts a question in front of you, the issue is not just whether you can answer that question, but whether you can answer it IN 2 MINUTES. If you cannot, then even if you get it right, it's costing you another question (or more than 1!) later in the test - so, at best, you're at 50/50 when you spend too much time on a question. That assumes you actually got that question right, though, which is less likely because the reason you're spending extra time is probably because it's a harder question!

What does this mean? First, it means you're going to get a lot of questions wrong, no matter what, so don't worry so much about the percentage you get right - that's not how the test is scored. Worry more about spreading those wrong answers out - the penalties are more severe when you have strings of questions wrong in a row.

Second, you need to move through the test at a steady pace so that you can give yourself a shot on every question. If you can't get something in 2 minutes (1.5 for SC), then pick something and keep going - even though, yes, it means you're more likely to get this question wrong! You'll still have a shot at the later questions though.

Do a little exercise, if you can. If the practice tests you're taking record the amount of time spent on each question, add up how much time you spent getting questions right and how much time you spent getting questions wrong. Most people are amazed at how much time they spend on questions they get wrong - and, lots of times, they knew they didn't know how to do at least some of those questions but they hung on anyway and wasted time. (If you took our tests, you can get the timing data from the problem list that you can access after the test is over.)

In order:

II: you can see OG questions when you take GMATPrep - you just have to hope you don't see too many that you remember. If you see a ton, then that particular test will likely have an inflated score. You may not actually remember all of the ones you've done before though - it has to be something where you remember enough to either get the question right when you otherwise would've gotten it wrong OR you spend far less time on the question to get it right than you otherwise would've spent.

nick_mask and xeqtr: generally, you should assume a 2-min per question average in OG (though 1.5 min for SC), though you should also do at least half of the questions in "blocks" - that is, 10 questions in 20 minutes, where the questions are spread out across topic area and question number (as the numbers get higher in OG, the problems get harder). That last is NOT true, unfortunately, for RC. The questions are not in order of difficulty even within one passage - instead, they are in chronological order of the info presented in the passage. Generally, spend about 2-3 min reading the passage - enough to understand the main information presented and the structural outline of the passage - but not so much that you learn all of the detail. Remember that, although in OG you see ALL of the questions written for the passage, on the test you'll be given only half of the questions written for that passage. No sense in learning a bunch of detail you won't need to know, since you won't actually have to answer all of the questions! Then, take about 1 min for any general questions (the author's primary purpose is...) and 2 min for specific questions.

Also, nick_mask, you've already described very nice improvement in RC. In order to answer the question "how do I improve?" though, I'd basically have to be your private tutor and know precisely where you're doing well vs. where you're struggling, etc. There are a lot of things you could do to improve depending on your individual strengths and weaknesses.

vgmat2: I knew GMAC was going to release the new online test but I didn't know it had finally launched! (The initially slated the math test for release in January.) I haven't had a chance to try the math test yet but it sounded very intriguing when I heard it described last October by some GMAC folks at a conference last year. If it does what they said it would do last fall, it should be a really useful tool. They didn't announce a release date for a verbal test - they said math should be out in January and verbal would be sometime later in the year. So, it's probably going to be a little while before the verbal is out.

Approximately 10 questions per section are experimental - and, no, there's no chance you won't get any at all. Everyone gets experimentals (quite a few, actually).

The experimental questions do NOT follow order of difficulty - you can get an experimental that is much harder or much easier than your scoring level. And GMATPrep does include experimental questions (they're not really testing the questions anymore, but the algorithm does use some as experimentals). So, at any point, you can get a question that is nowhere near whatever level you're scoring!

FYI - GMAC has an official policy that any questions they sell cannot be posted online. We have also agreed not to comment on such questions in an online forum.

But I agree with what Stuart wrote in that post - the conversion is correct.

ok, so i know i'm a day late and a dollar short coming into this discussion - and i certainly haven't read all twenty-seven posts - but i feel that i should add the following.

if you really completed the entire o.g. in a single fortnight, then you almost certainly didn't study the solutions diligently enough. here are some things you can go back and do:

* for math problems, especially data sufficiency problems that require unusual rephrasings or connections, go back and highlight the key terms, quantities, or situations that dictate the proper strategy on each problem.
- once you've done this, try to make connections between as many of the problems as possible. see if you can gain a general understanding of problem-type signals, so that, after some time, you can see just about any problem and immediately know its specific content and the types of strategies that will most likely prove fruitful against it.

* for sc problems, make sure you know why every single wrong answer is wrong, especially on more difficult problems.
- you need to get a feeling for the way the correct answers use language. in the same way you might read a favorite magazine and get a sense of its particular writing style, you should, likewise, peruse correct answers (say in the back of the o.g., especially if you've already gone through and done the problems before) until you think you have a better feeling for the way in which they're written. every author has his/her own style, a verity to which the gmat authors are no exception.
- pay particular attention to whatever the o.g. labels as 'awkward' or 'wordy', especially things that you didn't recognize as such. only by studying these diligently can you hope to eliminate them correctly on the actual test.

once you've analyzed the problems in this sort of detail, then you can truly claim to have finished the o.g. if all you've done is solve problems one by one - which is almost certainly the case, if you've finished the entire volume on that sort of timeline - then you're leaving a great deal of valuable learning unfinished for now.

good luck!