Is GMATPrep adaptive?

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by crejoc » Fri Jun 26, 2009 3:50 pm
To my knowledge , yes it is adaptive. I have never heard anyone say any complaint about it. It is the best practice test available.

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by aim-wsc » Fri Jun 26, 2009 7:39 pm
Of course it's adaptive.
crejoc wrote:To my knowledge , yes it is adaptive. I have never heard anyone say any complaint about it. It is the best practice test available.
yeah agree with crejoc.

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by Sweetshel86 » Wed Jul 01, 2009 6:56 pm
How indicative is it of what you'll score on the real thing? Ive done princeton review prep class and my test is in a week...last few PR tests I got 610, 670, 640 and on GMATPrep test #1 710.

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by tkherrmann » Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:32 am
Single GMATPrep tests aren't simply the most reliable predictors of performance in general. It depends how you take the test. I've found that the average of multiple GMATPrep tests is a generally reliable predictor.

Also, I've heard LOTS of people say that test prep companies skew their score reports low so that when test day arrives, your resulting score makes it look like the company helped you improve. Of course, this effect probably varies from company to company.

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by Ian Stewart » Thu Jul 02, 2009 12:09 pm
tkherrmann wrote: Also, I've heard LOTS of people say that test prep companies skew their score reports low so that when test day arrives, your resulting score makes it look like the company helped you improve. Of course, this effect probably varies from company to company.
It certainly varies from company to company, but there are a few reasons why companies have a commercial interest in producing test scores which are too low:

-if you get an 800 on their test, you're not going to think you need help, so you won't buy anything from them;

-if the company offers some kind of guarantee ('you'll improve by 150 points!') and that guarantee is based on a comparison between a score on a company test and your score on the real test, the company has a clear incentive to produce low scores on their test, so that they will not need to honor that guarantee as often.

Even companies which make an honest effort to produce reliable scores - and some do, certainly - run up against the difficulties of emulating the GMAT scoring algorithm. To do this well, you need to compile a lot of data on each test question, and only GMAC has a large enough test taking audience to do this successfully.
For online GMAT math tutoring, or to buy my higher-level Quant books and problem sets, contact me at ianstewartgmat at gmail.com

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by tkherrmann » Thu Jul 02, 2009 2:46 pm
To Ian -- exactly what I was thinking. There are definitely multiple incentives. I just did n't want to make a blanket claim about all testing companies. :D

Basically, the best tests are GMATPrep, no matter how you cut it.

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by tkherrmann » Thu Jul 02, 2009 2:47 pm
To Ian -- exactly what I was thinking. There are definitely multiple incentives. I just did n't want to make a blanket claim about all testing companies. :D

Basically, the best tests are GMATPrep, no matter how you cut it.

Tim