Practicing Sets of GMAT Problems: Mimic the Real Test (Part 2 of 3)
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Last time, we talked about all of the basics of creating practice problem sets. Today, we’re going to talk about how to create larger sets that really mimic the GMAT testing experience. (If you haven’t read the first part yet, do start there.)
What are my goals for these larger sets of GMAT problems?
When you’ve made it through your primary review of all study materials (all question types and content areas), you’re ready to start doing larger problem sets: 8, 12, 16. (I’ll tell you later why these are all multiples of 4.)
Your goal is two-fold:
—Test (and continue to build) your skills on all this stuff you’ve been studying.
—Practice your overall business-decision-making skills (in other words, practice under conditions that mimic the real GMAT as closely as possible).
So, first, these sets should mix everything up: every question type (for that section of the test) and every content area. That’s how the real test is.
Next, on the real test, you never know what’s coming next—and you want these sets to work the same way. In other words, you’re going to start including at least some randomly-chosen questions in every set.
The good news: You can just flip the pages in your Official Guide (OG) and pick random problems. You can also now use either the online OG access* or the GMATPrep© software* to set up random question sets.
Sometimes, you will want to include some specifically-chosen problems. That’s fine—but follow a couple of ground rules:
(1) At least half of the problems in the set should still be randomly chosen (that is, you don’t have any idea what this problem might be testing). Bonus: Not only does this mimic test conditions, but it also allows you to figure out what you might be forgetting and need to review!
(2) Any that you do choose specifically should be mixed in with the rest. Don’t put them all at the beginning or in a clump—because then you know what you’re getting.
I wouldn’t go beyond 16 in one set unless you are able to do adaptive practice. If you’re going to do that many, then you want to do so under real testing conditions—and that means doing adaptive sets of GMAT problems. (Plus, you’re using up a huge number of practice problems to create a non-adaptive set yourself, and you’re getting so mentally fatigued that you’re not learning as well as you want to when you study. That’s fine when you actually want to take a practice test—because then you want to mimic the fatigue-inducing conditions of the real test, too. But not when you’re practicing and iterating in an attempt to lift your skills.)
As of this writing, the only non-full-CAT adaptive practice sets are from the official test-maker’s GMAT Focus product. This product is Quant-only, FYI. There are, of course, many adaptive full practice tests available from various companies—but for practice sets, GMAT Focus is it.
How much time should I take to complete the set?
Once you’ve put your set together, you’ll need to calculate how much time to give yourself. (Note: I didn’t talk about this for the smaller sets because I don’t want you to be super stressed about timing when you first start out. Once you get a few weeks into your studies, though, use the below timing guidelines for all problem sets, even small ones.)
Quant is easy: multiply the number of questions by 2. For instance, if you have 3 questions, you have 6 minutes to complete the set.
Verbal is harder. For each Sentence Correction (SC), give yourself 1 minute and 20 seconds. For each Critical Reasoning (CR), you get 2 minutes.
For Reading Comprehension (RC), give yourself an average of about 2.5 minutes to read (feel free to add or subtract 30 seconds if you think you’re a slower or faster reader, respectively). Then add 1 minute and 30 seconds for each RC problem you do. Select only 3 or 4 problems—no more (most OG passages have more than 4 problems, but the real test gives you only 3 or 4 per passage).
For your Verbal problem set, add up the individual times and now you know how long to give yourself to do that set.
Here’s a summary of those guidelines:
One last tip: For RC questions that I pull from my OG, I usually do the passage twice. The first time, I do only the odd-numbered problems. The second time, a month or two later, I do the even-numbered problems. (Feel free to swap the order of odd and even!) Each passage can do double-duty, as long as I wait long enough between to (mostly) forget what was happening in the passage.
Ready? Set? Go!
Start your timer and dive in! Pretend it’s a real testing situation. You have to finish by the time you run out of time. Cut yourself off and guess when you hit a problem that’s too hard to do in a reasonable timeframe.
This next part might go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: On the real test, you have to pick an answer for the current question before you can see the next one, so hold yourself to that standard on practice sets, too. Also, you’re not allowed to go back—so don’t do that when practicing, either.
Above all, do NOT tell yourself, “Oh, I’m studying, so I really want to try each problem to the best of my ability, no matter how long it takes.” If you do that, you will build very bad habits for this test! Your main goal is to study how to take the GMAT— and the GMAT is never going to give you enough time to do a problem “no matter how long it takes.”
In fact, the test writers expect you NOT to be able to answer everything. They want to know whether you can properly assess a situation, identify bad opportunities (questions that are too hard or will take too long to do), and appropriately cut yourself off and move on to another opportunity. After all, good business people do that every day.
If you think you need more help on learning to do the above (we call it Maximizing your ROI on the GMAT)—then there you go. Follow that link. ☺
I did the set. Now, should I make another?
Not quite yet. You have one more job, first: learning from the questions that you just did. Join us next time and we’ll talk about how! ?
*The Official Guide for GMAT® Review comes with online access (at gmat.wiley.com) to all of the problems printed in the book, along with 50 Integrated Reasoning problems. The website allows you to create random problem sets with certain parameters (question type, number of questions, and difficulty buckets).
You can (and should!) also download the free GMATPrep software made available by the official test-makers (at mba.com); it comes with two free practice tests and 90 free practice questions. You have to “buy” it in the store, but the cost is $0. You can also buy an add-on pack of about 400 questions for $30 (as of the time of this writing).
Got it? Read on for the third and final part of this series!
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Stacey Koprince is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California. Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests. Check out Stacey’s upcoming GMAT courses here.