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Bombed Ultimate Practice Test. What Happened?

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Bombed Ultimate Practice Test. What Happened?

by GTwinkie » Mon Dec 01, 2008 6:13 pm
Hi guys -

So I wrapped up my Kaplan classes a few weeks ago and just took my Ultimate Practice Test today. Simply put, I bombed it. Got the first question in both Quant and Verbal wrong (though I thought I got them right) and you know where that goes. My performance looked to be on par with my very first paper diagnostic, which, as you can imagine, is a huge step backwards for me.

The questions, oddly, seemed far more difficult than those of ANY Practice CAT I took. Because I felt I was getting such difficult questions, I thought I might be doing rather well, but that was not the case. I felt super confident going into the UPT (having done reasonably well in my latest CATs), so I'm not sure what happened.

Is there any particular explanation as to why the questions I got in the UPT seemed so difficult? Am I imagining things? Are the UPT questions more challenging than those of the CATs or (hopefully) the real GMAT?

I take the real deal GMAT next week and I'm hoping I can course correct.

I'd also like to note that I was surprised that the UPT was just like any other Kaplan Practice CAT I've taken at home. I thought it was supposed to be the actual GMAT, but the scores just didn't get sent anywhere. Same basic application, same look and feel, etc. How much different is the User Interface of the actual GMAT?

Anyone else have a similar UPT experience? Can anyone from Kaplan offer some insight?

Thanks guys - I appreciate the help. Good luck to everyone.
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Do not give up

by Donkey_man_88 » Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:16 pm
Hey man, it all depends on how well you do on actual exams. I scored a 710 on my UPT and didn't get below a 680 on act CAT. Took the exam today and scored a 600. I took the exam last year and scored the same thing. The Kaplan course didn't improve my score at all. The Kaplan verbal does not represent the actual GMAT verbal very well.
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by GTwinkie » Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:45 pm
Sorry to hear man.

In what ways do you think the actual GMAT verbal differs from that of the Kaplan CATs?

I've been consistently scoring about 650 on my Kaplan CATs, but I ended up with an abysmal 570 on the UPT. Might've been a fluke, who knows. Just hope it doesn't happen again when I take the real deal.
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by Donkey_man_88 » Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:28 pm
The Sentence Corbection question for Kaplan are really easy. Overall, I scored 93% correct from all of my CATs. The SC on the real exam are way different. I saw a lot of style, usage, and modification question. Make sure you brush up on subtle differences, such as knowing which phrases are more concise, but also knowing which is more correct. Math doesn't differ that much, although Kaplan is slightly easier. RC is killer on the real thing. RC uses a lot of convoluted language. CR is not that bad, but I'd definitely go over the OG11 in order to get the most reliable practice. Even then, I don't think there is any material that mirrors the actual test day experience. That is just my opinion.
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by GTwinkie » Sat Dec 06, 2008 9:21 pm
OG11?
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by logitech » Sat Dec 06, 2008 10:10 pm
GTwinkie wrote:OG11?
I love this question.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/books.html

"Many people refer to OG as the Bible of GMAT prep. But it’s so much more than that. The Official Guide is the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, and the Gita of GMAT prep. Every person should buy these books because they are the only GMAT materials that feature real (but retired) test questions.

If you have time, do all the problems in OG. If you are under time constraints, emphasize the last 100 or so questions from each section, as they tend to contain the most recently retired GMAT questions and also tend to be the hardest questions of each section. [Note: this advice refers to OG 10, but is applicable to the latest OG 11 as well–questions in the latest book are also listed in increasingly levels of difficulty.]

Be sure to carefully analyze your mistakes and to read the explanations to ALL the problems. GMAC likes to test the same patterns over and over again in their tests; on my actual GMAT many of the quant problems were virtual replicas of the problems I saw in OG. Be keen on learning these patterns–this can only be done through rigorous practice.

I recommend buying all three OG books, but if you're on a budget get the yellow book. "
LGTCH
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"DON'T LET ANYONE STEAL YOUR DREAM!"
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by GTwinkie » Sat Dec 06, 2008 11:22 pm
Ah, gotcha. Glad I already have the book!

Thanks for the clarification, Logitech.
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