GMATPrep Question repetition

[AleksandrM]

wanted to know what others’ experience has been as it pertains to question repetition. In other words, about how many similar questions pop up after you’ve taken the test two or three times?

[mayonnai5e]

I've read from other members that you can take each of the two GMATPrep cats twice with only a few repeats. Doing the same test more than twice is probably a bad idea. However, be aware that seeing repeats has a significant impact on your score: 1) you'll know the answer to it immediately 2) since you know the answer immediately, you can answer within seconds and this artificially gives you more time to work on other harder questions, which in normal testing conditions you may not have. If you do see repeats, you cannot do anything about 1) but you can allot the full 2 minutes to the question (even though you know the answer) to minimize the impact of 2). This will help eliminate the time shift.

In any case, I suggest doing other respected cats if you have access (PR and MGMAT come to mind) and if you don't have access, you can shell out a few bucks to buy the books and get access. It's a worthwhile investment in my opinion.

[labelfree]

I've read from other members that you can take each of the two GMATPrep cats twice with only a few repeats. Doing the same test more than twice is probably a bad idea. However, be aware that seeing repeats has a significant impact on your score: 1) you'll know the answer to it immediately 2) since you know the answer immediately, you can answer within seconds and this artificially gives you more time to work on other harder questions, which in normal testing conditions you may not have. If you do see repeats, you cannot do anything about 1) but you can allot the full 2 minutes to the question (even though you know the answer) to minimize the impact of 2). This will help eliminate the time shift.

In any case, I suggest doing other respected cats if you have access (PR and MGMAT come to mind) and if you don't have access, you can shell out a few bucks to buy the books and get access. It's a worthwhile investment in my opinion.

do you recommend doing MGMAT over the Kaplan CD CATs? thanks!!

[AleksandrM]

Actually what I was going to do for repeat questions is:

1) If I vaguely remember the question, try again

2) If I clearly remember the question and answered it correctly before, work it out as I did in the past and answer correctly

3) If I clrealy remember the question and answered it wrong, then I would spend 2 minutes on it and answer it wrong again to minimize its impact on my overall score (in this case making artificially higher than it would otherwise be).

[mayonnai5e]

I've read from other members that you can take each of the two GMATPrep cats twice with only a few repeats. Doing the same test more than twice is probably a bad idea. However, be aware that seeing repeats has a significant impact on your score: 1) you'll know the answer to it immediately 2) since you know the answer immediately, you can answer within seconds and this artificially gives you more time to work on other harder questions, which in normal testing conditions you may not have. If you do see repeats, you cannot do anything about 1) but you can allot the full 2 minutes to the question (even though you know the answer) to minimize the impact of 2). This will help eliminate the time shift.

In any case, I suggest doing other respected cats if you have access (PR and MGMAT come to mind) and if you don't have access, you can shell out a few bucks to buy the books and get access. It's a worthwhile investment in my opinion.

do you recommend doing MGMAT over the Kaplan CD CATs? thanks!!

Yes, the Kaplan cats have a bad reputation. I had the PR, MGMAT, PowerPrep and GMATPrep cats - that was about 14 cats - so I skipped the Kaplan ones.

[mayonnai5e]

Actually what I was going to do for repeat questions is:

1) If I vaguely remember the question, try again

2) If I clearly remember the question and answered it correctly before, work it out as I did in the past and answer correctly

3) If I clrealy remember the question and answered it wrong, then I would spend 2 minutes on it and answer it wrong again to minimize its impact on my overall score (in this case making artificially higher than it would otherwise be).

This approach is better than just answering it correctly immediately, but you can avoid this whole problem altogether by doing new cats from other companies.

[AleksandrM]

Actually, I would prefer NOT taking CATs from other companies. I took Princeton Review and scored in the 480. I took Kaplan and scored in the 560. I took GMATPrep and scored 640. Granted, this was at different stages of my studying progress, but I still would rather practice with actual GMAT questions. So, if I see that GMATPrep is a poor indicator after my 3rd attempt of the same CAT, I will try PowerPrep. It’s old, but I think it’s still better to practice with real GMAT questions. Any opinions on that?

[mayonnai5e]

You want real GMAT questions? Doing the OG 11, OG V and OG M will expose you to 1400 such questions. As long as the CAT is good, I think it's worth taking even if it's not GMATPrep; PR and MGMAT are the only other two that I respect. PowerPrep has a lot of repeated material from OG11 and even GMATPrep - your score will likely be skewed due to this.

The ultimate decision is up to you to decide where the greater risk is: seeing the same questions over and over on and having inflated scores or taking other well respected cats that have been shown to be pretty good indicators without any repeated questions.

[AleksandrM]

Mayo,

I heard that MGMAT tests have some convoluted questions that are not representative of questions that appear on the real test. I have read people reporting that the questions are too long (this is about the math section). What do you think? Also, what can you say about the verbal secton of MGMAT tests? What do others think?

[mayonnai5e]

That is true - there are some questions that are very long and convoluted and would probably never appear on the GMAT; in fact, I wrote about that in my blog. The thing is that these questions are more outliers and there are only a few such questions that appear - the rest of the questions are very good including the verbal questions. I personally disagreed with some of the answers on verbal, but the thinking and methodology behind the answer solutions made me think on a different level also so even those questions were helpful in the end.

Lastly, do you measure a cat purely on the strength of the questions - the algorithm is also very, very important. The algorithm is one of the main reasons people dislike the kaplan cat: it almost always gives a score that is far below what the person is capable of. The PR cat has easier questions than the MGMAT cat and the GMATPrep but because the algorithm for scoring is decent most people say it is representative and you will see scores from the PR cat similar to what you'd see on GMATPrep. MGMAT, I feel, has the best algorithm short of GMATPrep and combined with very good questions (barring those outlier crazy long Q questions) makes it one of the best cats out there.

[AleksandrM]

mayo,

I did a bank of questions from MGMAT, and found a number of them to be quite difficult. I have read that they do this intentionally to challenge folks preparing for the test and avoid unpleasant surprises on test day. Do you feel MGMAT question difficulty correspond to the "actual" difficulty. For example would an MGMAT question at the 650 level = to GMATPrep 650 question, or would you say it is a few decades above? Thanks.

[mayonnai5e]

My experience with the MGMAT cat is that the questions are fairly close with the exception of a few ridiculous questions that are too long and complex to actually appear on the GMAT, but overall I liked the MGMAT cats a lot. They were challenging and really prepared me for the real deal.

Plus it's a bonus when you score well on a challenging cat - you go into the real test with even more confidence. The last 4 tests I did before my actual test were: MGMAT 1, 2, and 3 followed by GMATPrep 2.

[AleksandrM]

I have read a number of "success stories" as well as general posts about strategies that various people have adapted. The verdict seems to be split about 50-50 on whether to take GMATPrep numerous times. I guess it works for some and not for others. I suspect it depends on how you approach the whole question repetition issue and how honest you can be with yourself. Also, this guy

https://www.beatthegmat.com/debrief-770- ... 11262.html

says that taking each test a THIRD time might not be a bad idea. Again, everyone has a different approach, but I think I'll stick to just doing the GMATPrep stuff.

[AleksandrM]

Alright mayo, I am convinced. By now I have taken each GMATPrep CAT twice: 640, 610, 580 (after a week of not doing any problems, I was quite nervous), 630. My test is scheduled for July 18, and I think that I will gain a lot from doing MGMAT CATs from now on.

GMAC is also going to send me a CD with CATs on it; though I suspect that these CATs are the same as the ones I have already downloaded from the site.

Anyway, I'll update on what I think of the MGMAT. Thus far, I think that the questions are fairly representative with a few that are quite hard, which parallels what you said. However, these are questions that came from the question banks that come with each book (I have access to the four quant banks). This weekend, I'll take the first of six MGMAT CATs.