MGMAT Scoring accuracy and Strategy

[vik123]

I have given four CATs to date and plan to take the test next week:

07/26 - GMAT prep : 740 (Q50, V41 I think I am not sure about individual scores)
07/28 - MGMAT-1: 670 (Q48, V33 SHOCK and AWE with the math section...completely went down hill after that and affected my verbal. Hopefully this is a one off result)
07/31 - MGMAT-2: 710 (Q49, V38. Revised some verbal topics and was mentally prepared for the Math onslaught)
08/03 - MGMAT-3: 750 (Q48, V45. After complete review of sentence correction. Was main concern after the previous tests. Significant improvement in SC questions)

1. Some of quant problems involve insane calculations and could take as much as 4 minutes to solve correctly. On GMAT should I expect such questions? I thought in the real test even if some questions appear difficult, there are shortcut solutions. That does not seem to be the case with MGMAT tests.

2. After each test I have been carefully identifying problem areas and concentrating on them. However seems like I am stuck at 48-49 in Quant in MGMAT tests. I am pretty confident about my Math concepts. On MGMAT time seems to be a problem. Should I expect the score to be a little better say 50 on GMAT?

3. One area of concern I have noticed is the critical reasoning questions. Any good books or resources for tackling these questions. How is the MGMAT guide for critical reasoning.


Thanks,
Vikram

[vik123]

Clarifying the first point:

1. Some of quant problems on MGMAT involve insane calculations and could take as much as 4 minutes to solve correctly. On the real test should I expect such questions? The question on GMAT prep were definitely simpler.

I read somewhere that on the real test even if some questions appear difficult, there are shortcut solutions to them in most cases. That does not seem to be the case with most MGMAT questions.

[Ian Stewart]

Clarifying the first point:

1. Some of quant problems on MGMAT involve insane calculations and could take as much as 4 minutes to solve correctly. On the real test should I expect such questions? The question on GMAT prep were definitely simpler.

I read somewhere that on the real test even if some questions appear difficult, there are shortcut solutions to them in most cases. That does not seem to be the case with most MGMAT questions.

I don't think I've ever seen a real GMAT math question that takes longer than a minute to complete, provided you quickly see the best way to solve the problem, and are reasonably fast with algebraic manipulation (and if anyone knows of such a problem, I'd be interested in seeing it!). Seeing that quick solution is much easier said than done, however, especially under test conditions, and I'd expect even the best test-takers to need much longer than a minute for many questions- there are very often longer approaches to questions which still lead to the correct answer. Still, if a problem can only be solved by performing 'insane calculations', it is not a realistic GMAT problem.