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Differerences between Practice Tests

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Differerences between Practice Tests

by skalevar » Fri Sep 17, 2010 4:06 am
Hi,

I've been following the 60-day Beat the GMAT study guide, and I'm now on day 53. I must admit I'm a little shaken by my most recent practice tests and have not booked a test date because of it.

Can anyone provide some suggestions?

Here are my scores so far:

mba.com Practice Test 1: 680 (Quant 42, Verbal 46)
mba.com Practice Test 1 (Attempt 2): 680 (can't find my Q, and V breakdown at the moment, but from what I remember, Quant was high, Verbal was low)
mba.com Practice Test 1: (Attempt 3): 740 (Quant 47, Verbal 46)
Kaplan Practice Test 1: 550 --> I'm discounting this since I was really tired and hungry after work
Princeton Review Free CAT: 650 (Quant 44, Verbal 36)
Kaplan Practice Test 2: 610 (Quant 40, Verbal 33)

Clearly, I'm not pleased with the trend on the last 3 tests. Does anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone noticed any differences between the different practice tests? What is the best predictor for performance on test day? I'm hoping for a 700+ but I now have my doubts whether I'm ready to beat the GMAT.

Any help or insights are very much appreciated!
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by Gurpinder » Fri Sep 17, 2010 8:49 am
hey,

just had a question. do you remember your raw score for the mba.com practice test 1?

thx.
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by skalevar » Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:11 am
I can look it up when I get home later. Do you have any comments on the differences between practice tests? What has been your experience? Are Kaplan's much harder? Are mba.com tests the best simulation of the actual tests?
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by Gurpinder » Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:38 am
skalevar wrote:I can look it up when I get home later. Do you have any comments on the differences between practice tests? What has been your experience? Are Kaplan's much harder? Are mba.com tests the best simulation of the actual tests?
kaplan & mgmat = hard. Hard in the sense that the questions take longer.

of what i have read over the past 3 months, mba.com tests are THE BEST!!

A point that I should mention is that do the mba.com tests (GMATPREP) few times even if you see repeat questions. The point is, you'll begin to get a feel of all the different types of questions that can come on your real gmat!!

and please let me know your raw score (the reason i am asking this is because i want to see how many questions you can get wrong and what kind of a typical score you get). PM me if you dont want to post here!

Thx.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Fri Sep 17, 2010 12:37 pm
As to the predictive quality of the various tests, only the official GMATPrep is considered to be truly predictive of your score on test day. I had a tutoring student score a 710 on the GMATPrep, then a 590 three days later on an unofficial test and then (after much convincing that she was not, in fact, going to score 590) the student was over 700 on the official GMAT test a few days later.

I share this with you because you really have to remember that tests other than the GMATPrep and more useful for practice than for prediction.

That said, I would also somewhat discount the score you got on the 3rd attempt of the GMATPrep test 1. You may have seen some repeated questions on that third attempt.

So, to sum up, I doubt that your ability has really declined that much as your studies progress. Focus on any weaknesses that you have identified, get your confidence up, and then take the second GMATPrep test. My prediction is that it will be 700 or above!

As to booking a test date, you can either wait until you are more convinced that you are in the range of your goal score - or you can go ahead and book a test date that fits into your life and study schedule/ plan. Remember you can always reschedule as long as you are more than 7 days away from the test. (The fee is just $50).

Happy studying!
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by skalevar » Fri Sep 17, 2010 12:45 pm
Thanks so much for the reassurance David. I think I'm going to do a bunch of practice questions over the next couple days, and then the GMAT Practice Exam Sunday.

The note about your tutoring student is very reassuring. I know taking the GMAT Prep test for the 3rd time boosted my score, but I thought I had gotten to the point where I could get at least get 700 or higher. These low 600's have been very discouraging.

Who knew studying for the GMAT would be such a grind? If you had asked me 2 months ago, certainly not me. Also, I just ordered the Veritas Prep Advanced Word Problems & Quant Review. Hope it helps!
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by skalevar » Sat Sep 18, 2010 6:45 am
hi the raw scores for GMATPrep Practice Test 1 were:
- 20/37 for Quant
- 33/41 for Verbal

Hope that helps!

Please let me know if you have any other tips or hints!
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