GMAT vs. GRE Q's for Stacey Koprince

[nick.a]

Hello Stacey,
I took your GRE vs GMAT workshop last week and it was very helpful. Thank you!
Per your suggestion in your blog post, I took both practice tests. My percentile rankings were 15 percentile points higher on the GRE, in both quant and verbal. I didn't study for either but I did review the questions types beforehand.

I was leaning towards taking the GMAT but I wasn't expecting such a big difference on the practice test scores. I'd say I am still leaning towards the GMAT because I am more familiar with it. I took a Manhattan GMAT prep course and the actual exam, twice, but that was about three years ago. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think another "pro" for taking the GMAT would be NOT having to study vocabulary. Wouldn't that leave me more time to focus on quant, which is definitely my weaker section?

All the programs I am considering applying to accept the GRE and GMAT but one school lists a minimum score requirement for verbal and math on the GRE and doesn't list any minimum for GMAT scores. So, is that a good enough reason to take the GMAT over the GRE?

Also, for what it's worth, my first GMAT practice test from three years ago was significantly higher on verbal than the one I just took. My quant was about the same.

-Nick

[StaceyKoprince]

Glad you liked the workshop!

Hmm. If you are more familiar with the GMAT, yet your GRE scores were higher on both Q and V, then that would generally make me lean more towards the GRE. You're not as familiar with it, yet still did better! Talk to me about that "significantly higher" verbal on the old GMAT, though. Just how much higher are we talking?

One possible thing: the GMAT tends to have worse timing penalties / pressures. Check your timing / scoring. Were you running out of time and rushing to guess at the end of either section? Did you have a larger proportion of wrong answers towards the end? The GMAT is a "where you end is what you get" test, so if you mess up the timing and get a lot wrong towards the end, it kills your score. But that's something you can fix - it's not an underlying knowledge / content / skill issue.

You'll have to study vocab for GRE or grammar for GMAT - those will probably take you about the same amount of time. So I don't think there's a "pro" there for the GMAT. (Unless you're already a grammar ace. But if you were, then the GRE score wouldn't have been 15 percentile points higher...right?)

And, no, the minimum requirement thing isn't really an issue. You're presumably looking to beat any minimum requirements.