Practice like you play: GMAT test day audio script

Let’s say you’ve studied every quant topic, you’re confident in your verbal technique, and your practice tests are going well. Despite all of this, you’re still nervous about taking your official GMAT test. Will you be able to hold it together when you get to the test center?

These kinds of doubts are completely natural and normal. Even professional athletes at the top of their game get nervous before stepping onto the court!

So, what can you do to prepare yourself for test day pressure?

One option is to simulate this pressure by making your practice tests as realistic as possible. The audio script linked below, created by Mental Performance Expert Jen Schumacher, will help you visualize arriving at the test center, going through the check-in process, and starting your official test.

Right before your next practice test, give it a listen and immerse yourself in the sights, sounds, and feelings of taking the GMAT at a test center. On test day, you’ll know that you’ve prepared yourself for the test day experience.

Want more tips on how to perform your best on test day? Check out our Anxiety and Performance Blog!

Interim GMAT and at-home GRE FAQ

by Dana Stepleton & Charles Bibilos

By now, you’ve almost certainly heard that the GMAT and GRE have begun to offer at-home versions of the exams during the COVID-19 pandemic. We can’t pretend to have all of the answers yet, but here’s our best take on our students’ most pressing questions about the Interim GMAT and at-home GRE.

Are Interim GMAT questions easier or harder than those on the “normal” GMAT? 

The quant, verbal, and integrated reasoning sections of the Interim GMAT will be exactly the same as in the “normal” version of the GMAT. If you hear rumors that the GMAT testing algorithm has changed -- or that the questions themselves have gotten harder somehow -- please don’t believe them. 

The GMAT is a standardized exam, and the test remains “standardized” only if the construction of the exam is the same as it’s always been. There is zero reason to think that anything has fundamentally changed about the questions or the GMAT algorithm.

What about the at-home GRE? I read online that it’s definitely harder than the “normal” version, especially on quant.

Sorry, but that’s not true, either. The setting and delivery method have changed, but the GRE questions and testing algorithm definitely have not changed.

Please say it with us again: the GRE is a standardized exam, and the test remains “standardized” only if the construction of the exam is the same as it’s always been. We’re 100% certain of this.

Will MBA admissions committees know that I’ve taken the Interim GMAT or at-home GRE instead of the version in the test center?

ETS (the company that produces the GRE), has said that “your GRE score report will not indicate that you took the test at home.”

The GMAT, however, is a different story: MBA programs will definitely know that you’ve taken the Interim GMAT rather than the traditional, test-center version. 

For one thing, they’ve very specifically labelled this as the “Interim GMAT,” setting it apart from just the plain old “GMAT.” In addition, there’s no AWA section on the Interim GMAT, so that will be a dead giveaway on your MBA application. 

Will MBA admissions committees treat the Interim GMAT or at-home GRE any differently than the “normal” exams when deciding who gets in?

No, MBA programs almost certainly won’t discriminate against you just because you took the Interim GMAT or at-home GRE exam. 

For starters, the Interim GMAT will use the same algorithm and the same question design as the “normal” GMAT, and the at-home GRE is identical to the “normal” GRE. We’re deeply skeptical about the value of GMAT scores in general, but there’s no reason for MBA programs to treat the at-home GMAT or GRE as inferior to the “normal” editions.

In theory, you could argue that the absence of the AWA section on the GMAT would make MBA adcoms hesitate, but nobody really cares about your GMAT AWA score anyway. So that’s a non-issue for the overwhelming majority of MBA candidates.

If you’re still concerned about how your target MBA program will view an at-home version of the GMAT or GRE, the best thing to do is to contact the relevant MBA admissions office and ask them. 

But it’s very unlikely that you have anything to worry about here. If you get a 760 on the Interim GMAT, we can promise that MBA admissions committees will be just as thrilled as they would be if you earned that same 760 on a “normal” GMAT exam.

How will they make sure that the at-home GRE is secure?

On the at-home GRE, a proctor will (creepily) watch you through your webcam for the duration of the test, and the proctor will ask you to show them the entire room before you start your exam. Your picture will be taken during the at-home GRE so that schools can verify that it was you who actually took the test -- and not your super-smart roommate or a scummy GRE tutor. 

You’ll also be asked to use a dry-erase board during your test, and the proctor will watch you erase it after you complete the in-home GRE exam. 

For more information on the at-home GRE security measures, check out this page on the ETS website. 

For whatever it’s worth, far more sophisticated techniques exist for catching cheaters on standardized exams. There are plenty of seemingly obvious ways to cheat on an at-home version of the GRE or GMAT, but it isn’t particularly hard for a skilled testing organization to spot anomalies in test-takers’ responses. So at least in theory, it should be possible for the GRE and GMAT to maintain current levels of test security during at-home exams.

In practice, there’s no guarantee that ETS and their partners at ProctorU are going to do a great job of using state-of-the-art techniques to identify cheaters. But at the very least, it’s theoretically possible to make cheating on the GRE extremely difficult for test-takers. 

What about test security on the Interim GMAT?

GMAC is taking test security extremely seriously, and the organization has taken stricter security measures than ETS has.

The biggest single difference between the at-home GRE and the Interim GMAT is that you can’t use scratch paper AT ALL on the Interim GMAT. There’s an on-screen whiteboard, and that’s all you get. This is clearly GMAC’s way of prioritizing test security over the experience for the test-taker: if you can’t write anything at all, then you can’t easily “steal” questions and pass them along to other test-takers.  

Again, plenty of other sophisticated techniques exist to catch cheaters on standardized exams, and the ban on scratch paper is just the most obvious sign that GMAC is serious about test security. GMAC isn’t telling us anything about other measures that they’re taking, but my hunch is that they’re doing everything they can -- including plenty of behind-the-scenes statistical analyses of response patterns -- to catch cheaters.

Also, you won’t receive your Interim GMAT score until seven days after your exam. Our bet is that this time lag exists to give GMAC the opportunity to investigate any irregularities in test-taker performance. 

If there are major security issues with the Interim GMAT, will my score still count?

The biggest concern of most of our students is that the GMAT will somehow be compromised, and innocent test-takers will have their scores invalidated.

There’s no way to know exactly how this might all play out, but we do have a past incident that gives us an idea of how GMAC might react to a security breach: in 2008, a website called ScoreTop.com was caught posting official GMAT questions that were still actively used on the test. This obviously gave an advantage to students who paid to see the questions.

GMAC sued the website and got access to all of its records. From those, GMAC was able to trace exactly who posted the questions and who commented on threads containing the questions. Only people who had confirmed knowledge of the illegally posted questions were penalized. 

In all, GMAC caught twelve people who memorized questions and then posted them on the website. Their GMAT scores were cancelled and they were not allowed to take the test again for 3 years. Seventy-two additional people were confirmed to have seen the questions; their GMAT scores were cancelled and their target MBA programs were notified, although they were allowed to retake the GMAT right away. No one else, including other ScoreTop.com users, was penalized in any way.

So basically: don’t cheat and don’t help anyone else cheat. If GMAC stays consistent with its previous actions, cheaters will be hunted down and everyone else will be fine.

Are there any advantages to taking the Interim GMAT while it’s available?

The Interim GMAT is cheaper ($200) and shorter, since it doesn’t include the AWA section. Also, the Interim GMAT doesn’t count toward your yearly limit of five GMAT exams, or your lifetime limit of eight GMAT exams. These are all great things for most GMAT test-takers, so enjoy!

In addition, taking the test in the comfort of your own home could mitigate test-day anxiety and help you perform at your best. After running the gauntlet of palm scans and pat-downs, many students (and even some GMAT tutors!) find it tough to match their normal GMAT practice test scores. If you have found this to be true for you, then taking an at-home version of the GMAT could be a nice change.

But the trouble is…

Are there any disadvantages to taking the Interim GMAT while it’s available?

Yes, definitely. The lack of scratch paper is a tough thing for most GMAT test-takers, and it’s clear that GMAC gave zero thought to the way that the human mind actually works. Unless your brain is wired unlike that of any GMAT student we’ve seen in our 20+ years as GMAT tutors, you’ll underperform if you can’t write anything down. We’re not sure that you’ll underperform by much, though — see below for more on that.

The only other meaningful disadvantage is that the section order is fixed: you’ll have to do quant, then verbal, then integrated reasoning. For most test-takers, that shouldn’t have a massive impact on performance, but if starting with quant gives you the willies, you won’t love the Interim GMAT.

We should also mention that the breaks are structured differently on the Interim GMAT: you’ll only get a single 5-minute break, after you’ve completed both the quant and verbal sections. So if you can’t live without a pair of breaks during your exam, then maybe the Interim GMAT isn’t going to be your cup of tea.

Then again: since the Interim GMAT doesn’t count toward your yearly or lifetime limits, there’s not much downside to taking a shot at it, other than $200 and three hours of your time. 

Just how bad is the Interim GMAT online whiteboard?

The Interim GMAT online whiteboard isn’t as bad as everybody initially feared. You can type text, you can easily create squares and circles and other shapes, and you can even change fonts and colors. So it’s more feature-rich than we might have expected.

If you want to give it a try, the official version is available here: https://www.mba.com/exams/gmat-online/prepare-for-your-exam/online-whiteboard.

Somewhat surprisingly, our GMAT students — and other friends who have taken the exam — haven’t underperformed by much on the online GMAT. If anything, the whiteboard forces GMAT test-takers to choose more deliberate solution paths, instead of scribbling the first thing that comes to mind. In other words, if you’re going to write anything on the on-screen GMAT whiteboard, you’ll probably do it thoughtfully — and that’s not a bad thing for your overall GMAT performance.

Bottom line: the whiteboard is annoying and not ideal, but it certainly isn’t the apocalypse, especially if you practice with it before your exam.

That on-screen Interim GMAT whiteboard thing sounds awful to me. Should I just take the at-home GRE instead?

Yeah, if you’re forced to take one of the exams during the COVID-19 madness, you might be happier with the GRE. Virtually all major MBA programs accept the GRE, and the format of the Interim GMAT will cause most GMAT test-takers to underperform their true abilities.

Of course, other factors can influence the GRE vs. GMAT decision. For more help deciding which exam to take, check out our seven-part blog series on the GMAT vs. the GRE, or this video on the GMAT vs. GRE decision

And if you’re interested in tutoring but aren’t sure which exam to take, feel free to contact us, and we’ll help you through the GRE vs. GMAT decision.

Gimme the bottom line, ninja tutor people: should I hurry up and take one of these at-home GRE/GMAT thingies? 

The best thing to do is to fully prepare for the exam, and then take whichever version is available when you are ready. Don’t rush or delay your studies in order to take -- or avoid -- the at-home version of the GRE or GMAT. Just take the GRE or GMAT whenever you’re confident that you’ll get the score that you want.

Useful Links

Want to know more? Here are some good places to get info:

Interim GMAT

  • Ok, “useful” is a bit of a stretch, but GMAC is supposedly posting updates about the Interim GMAT here.

  • This GMAT Club forum thread starts with some useful links and background information on the Interim GMAT, but you may want to skip the ensuing, speculation-filled discussion.

At-home GRE

  • General info available here

  • FAQs answered here

The GMAT Has Changed How It Handles Testing Irregularities

I’m reasonably confident that the GMAT does its honest best to ensure that the GMAT testing experience is the same for every GMAT test-taker. But unfortunately, stuff happens in life – even in the tightly controlled environment of a GMAT testing center. I documented a few minor GMAT testing center horror stories on my GMAT blog a bunch of years ago: basically, a few GMAT test-takers encountered computer glitches that torpedoed their tests, or had shorter breaks because the proctor failed to release them promptly from the testing room – that sort of thing.

Since then, my GMAT students have occasionally experienced computer failures, GMAT test-center power outages, and even a haunting or two -- though the latter might have happened only in a GMAT student’s (literal) nightmares. In each of the real-world cases, the folks at the GMAT have done the right thing: they’ve at least offered a free retake of the GMAT.

Sadly, it sounds like the GMAT has modified its behavior toward testing irregularities lately, and that’s pretty frustrating. The circumstances of the latest GMAT testing center horror story aren’t terribly interesting: as one of my GMAT students returned from his post-Integrated Reasoning break, the proctor botched the password when he tried to log back into the computer. He apparently botched it several times, and my poor GMAT student – let’s call him Mr. B, since he apparently makes a mean bhindi masala – lost about two minutes from his GMAT quant section.

In theory, losing two minutes shouldn’t have affected Mr. B’s quant score much – after all, that’s only the equivalent of one GMAT question, right? But let’s be realistic: since we all know that you need every possible advantage on the GMAT these days, wouldn’t you freak out just a little bit if you lost two minutes from the test? And wouldn’t that affect your performance?

Unfortunately, Mr. B badly underperformed on his GMAT that day – particularly on his slightly shortened quant section – and he chose to cancel the score. We can’t completely blame his GMAT quant score on the proctor’s error, but it certainly didn’t help.

Regardless of the effects of the proctor’s error, it's still true that the GMAT is supposed to be a standardized test. “Standardized” means that every test-taker should be given the same, fair testing experience. The GMAT quant section is 75 minutes – not 73 minutes. What happened to Mr. B is pretty much the textbook definition of a testing irregularity.

In this situation, the GMAT should have apologized, wiped the score off Mr. B’s score report, and offered him a free retake. After all, that’s what they’ve done in the past – plus, it just seems like the right thing to do. Mr. B didn’t have the same testing experience as his competitors for coveted MBA slots, and that’s not fair – even if the disadvantage was relatively small.

Mr. B is not a particularly shy man, and he pushed the GMAT for a fair resolution. There was a paper trail – the proctor filed a report indicating that there had been a testing irregularity. What did the GMAT do after several phone calls and a few emails? Nothing. They told Mr. B that he “didn’t have to cancel his score” and refused to offer a retake.

Again, it’s not the end of the world. Mr. B earns a good living, and the $250 he paid for his next GMAT exam did not bankrupt him. But it seems unfair – and it definitely represents a departure from the GMAT’s behavior in the past.

Here’s my rather cynical theory about the GMAT's decision: perhaps due to increasing competition from the GRE exam, the number of GMAT exams has fallen recently, and the GMAT’s revenue has presumably fallen accordingly. But if each GMAT question costs somewhere between $1500 and $3000 to develop, the GMAT can’t really afford a loss of revenue.

So it looks like they’re making up that revenue however they can. Since 2012 – when the number of GMAT tests dropped – the GMAT has begun to offer plenty of pricey (and often very useful) products, as I mentioned in an earlier GRE vs. GMAT blog post: enhanced score reports ($24.95), the ability to cancel ($25) or "un-cancel" ($50) your score after test day, the worth-every-penny GMAT Exam Packs ($49.99 each), and new GMAT OGs, released every year instead of every few years ($85 for the latest bundle on the GMAC website).

And we can apparently add a new revenue source to the list: a refusal to compensate GMAT test-takers when minor testing irregularities occur.

I’m obviously not impressed by the GMAT’s behavior in this case, but if you’re just a reader of this little GMAT blog, the good news is that these sorts of things don’t happen very often. But if you’re truly paranoid about the GMAT’s increasing miserliness, then maybe you have another reason to think about taking the GRE instead of the GMAT?

an easy way to improve your GMAT score: eat

If you know me personally, you probably know that I’m obsessed with food.  If you ever want to torment me, watch this video for inspiration.  And if you ever want to get on my good side, take me to one of the interesting places on this crazyass NYC food website. So when somebody asks me how I managed to get a perfect score on the GMAT, I sometimes point to my stomach and grin stupidly.  And I’m only half-joking when I do that.

As you already know, the GMAT is a brutal, four-hour marathon, and the worst part is that the verbal section appears at the end of the GMAT, when you’re completely exhausted.  And fatigue is one of the primary reasons why unfortunate GMAT test-takers experience GMAT verbal underperformance.

There are plenty of ways to improve your GMAT verbal score—such as completing 4,000 GMAT CR and RC questions if you’re into that sort of thing—but I would argue that a thoughtful approach to your test-day food and drink intake is a simple and often underappreciated way to maximize your performance on the GMAT.

Your brain is a hungry little bugger, and studies suggest that your brain uses 20% of your caloric intake.  Your brain tends to run best when it has a steady supply of carbohydrates, and if you starve your brain of energy, you’re pretty much guaranteed to perform badly on the GMAT.

Your gastronomic goal on test day is to keep your blood sugar as stable as possible, so that you don’t suffer through a sugar crash or a food coma while you’re taking the test.  Ideally, you want to eat a solid—but not gut-busting—meal an hour or two before your test.  And during each of your breaks, you want to make sure that eat some sort of snack to help keep your brain moving.

And here comes the important part:  you definitely want to avoid consuming overly sugary snacks (M&Ms, Skittles, chocolate, etc.) during your breaks, since they’re likely to lead to a blood-sugar crash before the GMAT verbal section is over.  Stick with something a little bit healthier, ideally with a lower glycemic index:  energy bars, a mix of nuts and dried fruit, or a light sandwich on whole wheat bread.

Pure sugar might work for a short-term boost, but it can hurt you during a four-hour GMAT marathon.  A number of years ago, one of my high school students loaded up on Skittles before the SAT, was a brilliant ball of energy for the first 45 minutes of the test, and then literally fell asleep.  I swear that I’m not making this up.

So don’t mess around.  Plan out your meals and your snacks well before you take the real GMAT, and think carefully about the nutritional value of your snacks.  When you do full practice tests, be conscious of your food and caffeine intake; experiment with different meals and snacks and drinks to see what works best for you.

You might end up choosing snacks that aren’t particularly tasty, like chalky energy bars.  But even though some energy bars aren’t particularly delicious, they always taste better than a subpar GMAT score.

 

Hootie and the (very old) GMAT Paper Tests

Q: What are the GMAT Paper Tests, and why don’t I hear about them very often? A: Back in the Dark Ages before Steve Jobs and Bill Gates conquered the world, the GMAT was a paper-based test. The GMAT Paper Tests are basically old, retired exams from way back in the day. Each test contains approximately 110 questions, divided into one data sufficiency section, two quant problem solving sections, one sentence correction section, one critical reasoning section, and one reading comprehension section.

You don’t hear about them terribly often because they aren’t very popular. GMAC has sold the GMAT Paper Tests on their website for a long time, but I don’t get the impression that they sell many copies, largely because test-takers have newer and sexier options available, including the GMAT Official Guide, the GMAT Quant Review guide and Verbal Review Guide, the GMATPrep Question Pack, and tons of materials from test-prep companies.

Considering all of the other options out there, the old GMAT Paper Tests—somewhat understandably—don’t seem to register on most test-takers’ radar screens.

Q: How old are the GMAT Paper Tests?

A: Pretty old. Most of them have a publication date of 1995, and a few were initially published even earlier.

In case you don’t remember 1995 very well: back then, a BlackBerry was just a type of fruit, Google didn’t exist yet, and hits by Coolio, Real McCoy (!!), Alanis Morissette (ouch!), Seal, and Hootie & The Blowfish topped the U.S. music charts. Yup, Hootie & The Blowfish.

Back in 1995, the average GMAT score for entering students at Wharton was 650. The median score is 720 now. In 1995, the GMAT was written and administered by ETS; today, the questions are written by the wise Iowans at ACT, and the test is administered by Pearson VUE, which loves palm vein scanners.

In 1995, palm vein scanners didn’t exist.

So yeah: the GMAT Paper Tests are old.

Q: Wait a minute… what the heck is Hootie & The Blowfish?

A: If you have to ask, you probably don’t want to know. Can we get back to the GMAT now, please?

Q: OK, fine. So the GMAT Paper Tests are old. But have GMAT questions changed that much since the 1990s?

A: GMAT questions haven’t actually changed all that much since the 1990s. The old GMAT Paper Tests still include problem solving, data sufficiency, sentence correction, critical reasoning, and reading comprehension, just like the current version of the GMAT. The only major difference is that the GMAT now includes Integrated Reasoning, which may or may not be very important to your MBA goals.

So if you need practice with the core GMAT quant and verbal question types, there’s no reason why you couldn’t use the GMAT Paper Tests. Sure, these questions are old, but they’re not radically different from, say, current GMAT Official Guide questions. And for whatever it’s worth, many of the questions in the GMAT Official Guide are from the 1980s and 1990s, and have appeared in several consecutive editions of the book.

The GMAT is constantly evolving in subtle ways, it would be ridiculous to suggest that 20-year-old GMAT questions are exactly the same as new ones. But if you’re just looking for some extra practice materials, the age of the GMAT Paper Test questions isn’t really a huge problem. They aren’t all that different from the questions you’ll find in the GMAT Official Guide.

Q: If I buy the GMAT Paper Tests, will I recognize some of the questions from the GMAT Official Guide or other GMAT resources?

A: This is where things get a little bit tricky. There is substantial overlap between the GMAT Paper Tests and other GMAT resources, and my best guess is that somewhere around 40% of the GMAT Paper Test questions have appeared elsewhere at some point in the last 20 years.

But “elsewhere” is a funny place when we’re talking about GMAT questions. Since 1995, GMAC has released six different editions of the GMAT Official Guide, and some of the GMAT Paper Test questions have appeared in each edition. GMAT Paper Test questions also pop up in both editions of the Quant Review Guide and both editions of the Verbal Review Guide, as well as the GMATPrep tests and the now-obsolete GMAT PowerPrep tests. So yes, the GMAT Paper Test questions are scattered all over the place.

Even if 40% of the GMAT Paper Test questions appear in other resources, you probably won’t recognize nearly that many, since many of questions appeared only in older editions of the Official Guide or in the thoroughly ancient GMAT PowerPrep tests. My best guess is that only 15-20% of the GMAT Paper Test questions appear in the newest versions of the GMAT Official Guide, GMAT quant and verbal supplements, and the GMATPrep exams.

So the bottom line is that you’ll see an overwhelming number of repeats if you’re a connoisseur of obsolete GMAT resources, but you’ll see only a moderate number of repeats if you’re sticking with the newest versions of the official GMAT books and software.

Q: Is the scoring on the GMAT Paper Tests accurate?

A: The GMAT Paper Tests were very accurate back in 1995, when the test was actually administered on paper. But in the 21st century, the scoring on the GMAT Paper Tests is pretty much irrelevant.

Think about it this way: one of the biggest challenges of the modern GMAT is time management. You can’t go back to review the questions you already answered on the GMAT, so you constantly face a difficult choice: do I keep grappling with a particular question, or should I guess and move on? I would argue that the GMAT timing conundrum is one of the single biggest determinants of your score on the exam.

But on the GMAT Paper Tests, you can move around within each section as much as you want. If you want to change an answer, great. If you want to skip a question and come back to it later, that’s no problem at all.

So the testing experience is completely different. Yes, the GMAT Paper Tests will generate scores on the familiar 200-800 scale, but they don’t mean very much. Despite the name, it’s best to think of the GMAT Paper Tests as practice questions, not as practice exams.

Q: Are the GMAT Paper Tests hard?

A: Because the test wasn’t adaptive back in 1995, the GMAT Paper Tests include an incredibly broad cross-section of questions, ranging from insanely easy to insanely difficult. In theory, the GMAT Paper Tests are much like the GMAT Official Guide: they contain a little bit of everything, and many of the questions will be of limited value to you if you’re either a very weak GMAT student or a very strong one.

If you’re scoring above a 650 on the GMAT, you’ll probably be bored by the majority of GMAT Paper Test questions. Sure, some of the questions will offer you a good challenge, but plenty of them won’t. That doesn’t mean that the GMAT Paper Tests aren’t useful; it just means that high-scoring students will get a thorough workout from perhaps 20-40% of the questions. And that’s probably better than nothing, though you could easily argue that it’s not worth spending the money on the GMAT Paper Tests if you’re a relatively advanced GMAT student.

Speaking of which…

Q: Are the GMAT Paper Tests worth the money?

A: Well, I suppose it depends on your skill level and how much you value $29.99. For that price, GMAC will send you a set of three GMAT Paper Tests, each of which contains roughly 110 questions, give or take a few. So you’re paying a little bit less than a dime per question.

That’s pretty cheap compared to GMAT Focus (which costs more than $1 per question), but a little bit more expensive than the GMATPrep Question Pack (roughly six cents per question), and much more expensive than the GMAT Official Guide and Quant Review Guide (around three or four cents per question, depending on the exact price you pay for the books).

So if we’re talking about an either/or proposition, the GMAT Paper Tests pale in comparison to the newer, cheaper GMAT Official Guides or the GMATPrep Question Pack.

But if you simply need more practice questions—either because you’ve already burned through the newer resources, or because you want to save them for later—then the GMAT Paper Tests aren’t a terrible option. Advanced GMAT students might get less mileage out of the tests, since so many of the questions are relatively easy, but you’ll still get something out of the GMAT Paper Tests.

I don’t know whether you’ll get $29.99 worth of GMAT awesomeness from the tests, but official GMAT questions are never exactly bad for you. So if you have the money and the time to do the GMAT Paper Tests, go for it. But keep in mind that they’re not a particularly good substitute for the Official Guide or the quant/verbal supplements or the GMATPrep Question Pack.

GMATPrep Question Pack FAQ, part II: GMAT “fake tests”

(This is part two in a series on the GMATPrep Question Pack.  If you’re interested in reading more about the basics of the GMATPrep Question Pack, please check out part one.) Q: What is the best way to use the quant questions in the GMATPrep Question Pack?  Should I do the questions in order, or should I randomize them, or…?

A: Here comes a very long answer.  Consider yourself warned.

If you want, you could just do the questions in order, the same way you would use the GMAT Official Guide or any other GMAT test-prep book.  But I think it’s better to compile the GMATPrep Question Pack exercises into what I call “fake tests,” since there’s a desperate shortage of computerized practice tests that use actual, retired GMAT questions.

Here’s how it works:  for quant, select the questions that you think are appropriate for your level.  If you’re struggling on the quant section of the GMAT, maybe you should stick with the easy and medium questions.  If you’re consistently scoring in the mid-40s or above on the quant section, then you should probably select all of the medium and hard questions, as shown below.  And then hit the buttons for “random” and “study” mode.

This will give you a nice, randomized selection of questions, vaguely approximating the feel of the actual GMAT exam.  This isn’t a perfect approach, since the actual GMAT is adaptive, and the GMATPrep Question Pack “fake tests” are randomized.  But to be honest, the actual GMAT exam often feels pretty darned random, and if you select your GMATPrep Question Pack difficulty levels correctly, the 37-question “fake test” will feel very much like an actual GMAT exam.

The only problem is that you’ll have to set your own timer for 75 minutes, and you’ll have to stop yourself when you’ve completed 37 questions.  The software won’t do it for you.  That’s annoying, but easily fixed with the help of a stopwatch or a kitchen timer.

Sure, this isn’t exactly the same thing as taking, say, a GMATPrep practice test.  You won’t get a scaled score.  But these “fake tests” will give you an opportunity to test your mettle on real GMAT questions, under timed conditions.

Even without a scaled section score, you can learn a ton from your mistakes. Did you make a lot of careless errors under time pressure?  Did you have to scramble at the end of your “fake test” because you spent too much time on a handful of hard questions?  Should you have been quicker to let the tougher questions go?

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, you probably need to focus carefully on your timing and accuracy before you take the actual GMAT exam.  So the GMATPrep “fake tests” aren’t exactly perfect, but they’re still an outstanding tool for improvement if you’re diligent about analyzing your errors and your timing.

Q:  What about verbal?  How should I use the verbal questions in the GMATPrep Question Pack?

A:  On the quant side, I would argue that the GMATPrep Question Pack “fake tests” offer a reasonable facsimile of the actual GMAT experience.  On the verbal side, I’m not so sure.

In theory, you could select a nice cross-section of GMAT sentence correction, reading comprehension, and critical reasoning questions, and then select “random” and “exam” mode, just as you would for the quant “fake tests.”  And then you could do 41 questions in 75 minutes, and it would feel much like the actual GMAT.  In theory.

Here’s the problem:  there’s a little hitch in the GMATPrep Question Pack software, and if you select “random” and “exam” mode for reading comprehension questions, you’ll only receive one question for each reading comprehension passage, instead of the three or four questions that you would  see on each RC passage on an actual GMAT exam.  So you might see 10 or 12 or 15 reading comprehension passages in your “fake test”, and each of those passages would include only one question.  Not fun.

The only alternative is to select “in order” instead of “random,” but then you’ll see an endless series of consecutive reading comprehension questions.  And obviously, that isn’t realistic, either.

So the bottom line is that you can’t really do anything to produce semi-realistic verbal “fake tests.”  And that’s a sad story.  You can, however, skip the reading comprehension questions, and stick with critical reasoning and sentence correction only (in “random” and “exam” mode).  You’ll probably have an easier time finishing 41 questions in 75 minutes when there aren’t any reading comprehension questions included, but at least you’ll be able to do something that resembles an actual test.  If nothing else, you’ll get some good exposure to official questions, and your stamina will be vaguely challenged by the experience, especially if you do a quant section beforehand.

And then if you really want to do some extra GMAT reading comprehension practice, you can just do those questions in order.

Q: When should I use the GMATPrep Question Pack?

A: As I discussed in part one of this series, the GMATPrep Question Pack contains some of the newest official GMAT questions available, and it is definitely one of the best GMAT study resources out there.  But it’s wise to avoid burning through the best materials too early in the study process, so you might want to make sure that your quant and verbal fundamentals are sound before you rip through all of your official GMAT materials, including the GMATPrep Question Pack.

At the very least, the GMATPrep Question Pack definitely isn’t the first resource you should turn to when preparing for the GMAT, and it makes sense to use it only when you feel 100% ready.  For most of you, that means saving the GMATPrep Question Pack until the last few weeks before your actual GMAT exam.

Q: I finished a GMATPrep Question Pack “fake test” and now I can’t access the questions I completed!  WTF?

A:  Yeah, welcome to the wonderful world of janky GMAC software.  (And yes, I’m proud that I managed to use the word “janky” on a GMAT blog.)

I also mentioned this in part one of this series, but it’s always a good idea to take screenshots of the questions you missed immediately after finishing anything in the GMATPrep software, including both the “real” GMATPrep tests and the GMATPrep Question Pack “fake tests.”  It’s annoying, but it’s also the only way to be 100% certain that you don’t miss an opportunity to review the questions.

GMATPrep Question Pack FAQ, part I: the basics

The new GMATPrep software and the $25 GMATPrep Question Pack have been around for nearly a year now, but I have a funny feeling that the GMATPrep Question Pack is still somewhat underutilized as a GMAT study resource.  So in an effort to encourage you to use the GMATPrep Question Pack—and to use it wisely—here are answers to a few questions that I’ve been asked about it over the past year or so. This is the first part of a two-part series; I’ll post part two next week.

Q:  Does the GMATPrep Question Pack actually contain new questions, or do the same questions appear in the GMAT Official Guide or somewhere else?

A: Let’s face it:  GMAC has a funny habit of selling recycled questions.  The (rather expensive) GMAT Focus tests overlapped the GMAT Official Guide and the GMAT Quant Review Guide, and GMAC still sells crusty old GMAT Paper Tests that are filled with questions that appear elsewhere.

But the GMATPrep Question Pack seems to contain good, fresh, retired questions, and the official GMAT blog insists that the GMATPrep Question Pack exercises don’t appear anywhere else.  So I think it’s safe to say that the Question Pack really does contain completely new questions.  Pretty exciting.

Q: Is the GMATPrep Question Pack worth the money? 

A:  Absolutely.  I’m completely convinced that there is no substitute for good, official GMAT questions.  They’re infinitely more valuable than “knockoff” materials produced by GMAT test-prep firms. So you don’t want to pass up any opportunity to practice with real, retired GMAT questions.

Considering that you’ll pay $250 just to take the GMAT—and considering that you’re likely to invest more than $400,000 in an elite MBA if you include the two years of forgone wages—$25  for a set of 404 official GMAT questions is a pretty serious bargain.

Q:  Does the GMATPrep Question Pack contain newer questions than the Official Guide?

A:  Presumably, yes.  Although we don’t know exactly when the GMATPrep Question Pack exercises were actually retired, it’s probably safe to suspect that the questions are relatively new.  Some of the GMAT Official Guide questions are also fairly new, but others are at least 20 years old, and have appeared in several editions of the GMAT Official Guide.

Q:  Does the GMATPrep Question Pack include answer explanations?

A: Yup, it does, though I should warn you that the explanations don’t always offer the easiest way to do each question.  But the same is true of the GMAT Official Guide, and I think we’ll all agree that a slightly flawed explanation is far better than no explanation at all.

Q:  How hard are the questions in the GMATPrep Question Pack?

A: Well, the questions are divided into “easy,” “medium,” and “hard” categories, and I think those labels are reasonably accurate.  Some of the “hard” questions are absolutely brutal, and they’re a good representation of the nastiness that you’ll see on the actual exam if you’re doing well.  So there’s something for everybody in the GMATPrep Question Pack, even if the “easy” questions are unlikely to offer a very good workout for anybody with 700-level GMAT skills.

In case you’re curious, the GMATPrep software includes 90 questions for free, an addition to the 404 questions that are sold for $25.  Out of the grand total of 494 questions, 146 are “easy”, 199 are “medium,” and 149 are “hard.”  So even if you completely ignore the “easy” questions and the questions that you would get for free, you’ll still have an additional 300 “medium” and “hard” questions.  And that’s a pretty good deal for $25. 

Q:  Will I see any of the GMATPrep questions on the actual exam?

A:  Sorry, no.  You’ll see a completely fresh set of creative, difficult GMAT questions that aren’t published anywhere else.  So learn everything you can about the concepts underneath the GMATPrep questions, and learn how to approach completely new questions.  Because you’ll see plenty of them on your actual GMAT exam.

Q: Why can’t I review the GMATPrep questions anymore?  I did them, but I can’t access them in the same order.  WTF? 

A: Yeah, the nice people at GMAC are really great at writing standardized tests, but they apparently aren’t very good at developing software.  There are all sorts of goofy glitches and quirks in the GMATPrep software, including some bizarreness when it comes to reviewing the questions you already finished.

The best advice?  Immediately after completing any questions from the GMATPrep software, take screenshots of them, regardless of whether you’re doing an actual practice test or just the Question Pack.  It’s the only way to be 100% certain that you don’t lose an opportunity to review the questions after completing them.

GMAT reading comprehension, sentence correction, and a monkey...?

The fine folks who produce the GMAT exam aren't usually known for their sense of humor, but they decided to release a series of "test tips" on their official GMAT facebook page.  And one of their GMAT test tips ended up being pretty funny... though perhaps not intentionally. An astute member of the GMAT Club forum managed to post a screenshot of the flawed "test tip" before it was removed  from the official GMAT facebook page.  Thanks to his quick internet trigger finger, we're blessed with the following (slightly goofy) GMAT test-taking advice:

GMAT Test Tips: Reading Comprehension

Agreement is Key.

Subject-verb, verb tense, and pronoun to noun/pronoun agreement are essential to a proper sentence.

Yes, you definitely need to pay very close attention to "pronoun to noun/pronoun agreement" on... GMAT reading comprehension??

But that's not the funny part.  Check out the original GMAT Club post for a portrait of the banana-munching scholar who might have written this text.

 

GMAT Focus Stinks

In a previous post, I gave a qualified endorsement of GMAT Focus, which is a series of 24-question quant tests sold by the makers of the GMAT.  GMAT Focus consists of retired GMAT test questions, and I was pretty convinced that the test is a useful product, since so many real GMAT test questions seem to (very, very strongly) resemble questions seen on GMAT Focus. The only trouble is that the tests are too short, overpriced (in my opinion), oddly timed (24 questions in 45 minutes?  huh?), and a little bit of a rip-off, since some of the questions also appear in the GMAT Official Guide and the GMAT Quantitative Review Guide.  If you don't believe me, click here to see a brief discussion of this in a Manhattan GMAT forum.

Over the past year, I've strongly encouraged my students do use GMAT Focus, but I think it's time to advise everybody to stay away from it.  Believe it or not, one of my students just took a GMAT Focus test that had 14 questions that overlapped with the GMAT Official Guide (12th edition) or the GMAT Quantitative Review (2nd edition).  That means that only 10 of them were fresh questions.  Dude, my poor GMAT student totally got ripped off.

(Luckily, my student didn't recognize all of the questions, and still missed 6 of the 14 repeats.  It's safe to say that he still got a good math workout; it's also safe to say that his GMAT tutor needs to kick his butt a little bit harder.)

Here's the complete list of questions that appeared on this particular GMAT Focus test:

  • GMAT Official Guide DS #33, 45, 48 (though I found it interesting that they removed the reference to the year 1989 in that question), 66, 70, 75, and 76

  • GMAT Official Guide PS #48, 81, and 89

  • GMAT Quantitative Review DS #33

  • GMAT Quantitative Review PS #142, 146, and 147

And if you're curious, here's the complete list of GMAT Focus repeats that I've marked over past few months:

  • GMAT Official Guide DS: #44, 45, 52, 53, 62, 66, 68, 70, 75, 76, 79, 82, 87, 90, 94, 110, 121, 123

  • GMAT Official Guide PS: #73, 74, 81, 89, 107, 117, 148, 163

  • GMAT Quantitative Review DS: #11, 33, 122

  • GMAT Quantitative Review PS: #142, 146, 147

I'm sure that I haven't caught everything, but this should be enough to convince you that GMAT Focus probably isn't worth $25 per test.