Read this before you take a Kaplan test

[Spence]

Ok, I haven't been on here that long, but it boggles my mind how many people every week (sometimes seems like every day) come in here and post panic-laden messages about their alarmingly low Kaplan test scores. They're worried they'll never achieve their target score because their Kaplan scores are so low, but they have NO idea it's because of the Kaplan tests, not them.

If you spend even ten minutes reading discussions before you post, you'll see that most people say the same thing: Kaplan scores are way off from what you can expect on the GMAT. 50 points, 100 points, it varies, but it's enough to freak people out. But people post here all the time, completely unaware of this. How is that possible?

So I'm doing everyone a favor and posting this here and now:

IGNORE YOUR KAPLAN SCORES. COMPLETELY. Take the tests if you want (I personally don't see the point, but others still find value in them), but do it for practice ONLY.

And for crying out loud, READ the forums before you start posting. There's a wealth of info already here, available 24/7. It's a fantastic resource, so make use of it before you post. We'll all get more out of it that way.

/rant.

[vittalgmat]

So, if I "train" myself to get better on Kaplan, are my chances of getting higher scores highly probable??? Or is there any relation at all ??

thanks
-V

[Spence]

That's a very good question. In general, since Kaplan is harder than the real GMAT, it would in theory prepare you for harder questions. But a lot of people had said the questions weren't really representative of the real GMAT, and in that case, I would say no, it wouldn't help. I specifically avoided Kaplan because of all the horror stories, so I personally can't say.

Manhattan GMAT is also supposed to be a lot harder, and would be better than Kaplan from what I read here. But MGMAT does have some overly complicated math questions (Stacey has mentioned this herself) that require more steps than you'd have time to do on the real GMAT, but if you know that going in...you'd be ok. I would do MGMAT over Kaplan.

[jbdpramod]

I don't think that doing fantastic in Kaplan tests would bring your chances up to get a high score in real GMAT. The reason is that GMAT is adaptive. You won't get tougher questions until and unles you do easier and meium ones correctly. Practicing on Kaplan will make you ignore easier questions and then you might be out-of-touch with those and do silly mistakes in real GMAT. So you will never see the questions you are comfortable with answering.