Additional CAT Exams

[jgranchi]

Please see questions below introductory info:

Additional CAT Exams
ManhattanGMAT, as a special courtesy to its prep program students, is offering a 20% discount off of 800score’s GMAT practice tests. These tests may be helpful to students who have prematurely run out of new ManhattanGMAT CAT tests and wish to complete more practice exams.
Question 1: Should these tests be taken other than MGMAT tests due to the pacemaker? What is the difference btwn MGAT and 800score's practice CATs?

Please note, however, that ManhattanGMAT cautions against relying on practice tests as your primary means of studying for the exam.
Question 2: Why is this cautioned? What should be the primary method?

[StaceyKoprince]

Question 1: Should these tests be taken other than MGMAT tests due to the pacemaker? What is the difference btwn MGAT and 800score's practice CATs?

I'm not sure what "the pacemaker" is - can you clarify? The MGMAT CATs are produced entirely by MGMAT. 800score's tests are not produced by MGMAT in any way; we just made a deal to get our students a discount in case they wanted to use 800score's tests. :)

Question 2: Why is this cautioned? What should be the primary method?

Taking a practice test helps you to:
(1) practice pacing strategies
(2) build stamina
(3) gather data on strengths and weaknesses

Merely taking a practice test, however, doesn't do a whole lot to help you improve. Rather, the data on strengths and weaknesses allows you to develop a study plan, and executing on that study plan could take 1-3 weeks. It's not really beneficial to take another practice test until you have thoroughly worked through whatever problem areas you identified based on the previous practice exam.

[jgranchi]

But if you review the questions, aren't you learning? Do you think it is best to practice OG questions then?

[StaceyKoprince]

Yes, you learn from reviewing the problems. The amount you learn depends upon the depth of review you are doing. Reading / understanding the explanation is only the first (of many) steps. :)

For instance, can you answer these questions about all of the problems you do (including the ones you get right):

Was I able to CATEGORIZE this question by topic and subtopic? By process / technique?
Did I make a CONNECTION to previous experience? Or did I have to do it all from scratch?
Did I COMPREHEND the symbols, text, questions, statements, and answer choices?
Did I understand the CONTENT being tested?
Did I choose the best APPROACH?
Did I have the SKILLS to follow through?
Am I comfortable with OTHER STRATEGIES that would have worked, at least partially? How should I have made an educated guess?
Do I understand every TRAP & TRICK that the writer built into the question, including wrong answers?
Have I MASTERED this problem? Could I explain every aspect, fully, to someone else?
How will I RECOGNIZE similar problems in the future?

If I made a mistake:
- WHY did I make the mistake (as explicitly as possible)?
- What habit(s) do I need to break and what habit(s) do I need to instill in order to minimize the chances of making the same kind of mistake in future?
- If verbal, why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible) Why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay - what was my error in thinking that they were wrong? (it's a good idea to do this exercise even if you got the question right - pick the wrong answer you think is most tempting and go through the exercise.)

- if you spent too much time, why? specifically, which part of the problem and what caused you to spend the extra time? did that extra time help? did that extra time hurt on a later problem? (if you spent more than 30sec over, the answer is yes, even if you got this problem right) how did that extra time hurt? specifically, where did you then not have enough time?

- if you spent too little time, why? were you rushing b/c you were behind? why were you behind; on which ones did you spend too much time? or did you think the problem was easy and you didn't need that much time? how often did you make mistakes on those "easy" problems on which you felt you didn't need full time? (On problems like that, you should make almost no mistakes - 95%+ accuracy. So if it's anything lower than that, you're hurting yourself by choosing to go fast when you think a problem is really easy.)

Get the idea? :)

[duxbury001]

any others? no problem. found them!

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi - not sure I understand your question / comment. Can you clarify (if you did have a question)? :)