GMATPREP SC vs MGMAT SC vs OG SC

[Cobra]

Hi,

I have taken a couple of GMATPrep tests so far and have found that the way SC questions are framed and trigger your mind to look for errors is totally different.

For example. MGMAT SC's are super rule based and it's fairly easy to identify the correct answer once you are able to pinpoint the errors in the original sentence
The same goes with OG SC as well.

There is one clear answer that solves all the errors present in the original sentence.
On the contrary, I had a totally different feel while working through GMATPrep SC questions.
The correct answers were pretty ambiguous and did not fall into the " Rule based " methodology.

It'll be nice to know what other test preparators feel.

Any feedback from Stacey or Ron is highly appreciated.

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

I haven't noticed that kind of a difference myself on GMATPrep vs OG (though I agree that our own can sometimes "telegraph" the right answer - we need to do a better job of disguising things sometimes).

OG and GMATPrep are from the same source, so there shouldn't be a huge difference (and, in fact, some OG questions are also included in GMATPrep, so there's direct overlap!).

GMATPrep, though, is adaptive, and OG is not. My guess is that you were scoring fairly well on the verbal? Which means you were mostly seeing trickier questions. In terms of the entire pool of OG questions, many won't have that ambiguous feel because there's a range of low to high (in terms of difficulty level). But GMATPrep clusters right around whatever you can do, so if you're scoring well, you'll pretty much only see the harder, more tricky / ambiguous questions.

Try taking a look at the highest-numbered questions in OG and see if you notice more difficulty / ambiguity there.

[Cobra]

MGMAT Staff,

Took my second GmatPrep last night and scored 680. Even though I am not terribly unhappy with my overall score ( 50Q,31V), I am not at all happy with my verbal performance.

Made 6 mistakes in the first 7 questions. Got a CR as my 1st Q, errored on it and the algorithm gave me a Bold-Faced CR as my second question. Errored on that as well :(
Makes me wonder about the Adaptive strategy.
Made a total of 11 mistakes in Verbal and ended up with 31.

CR 3 mistakes
SC 4 mistakes
RC 4 mistakes

Have gone through OG and MGMAT Verbal books... Have my GMAT this Saturday
Any last minute suggestions.....


Stacey,

SC looked much better this time on GPrep 2. Had some formulaic SC types.

[StaceyKoprince]

A string of questions wrong in a row can be pretty damaging to your score. That's the worst thing - not one question wrong here or there (even if it's an easy question), but a string in a row, because it puts your score way down and then you have to battle back up again. It sounds like that may have happened to you on this last practice test.

It may be that you had a string of bad luck, or it may be that you just had a slow start to the test. Do a couple of VERY easy verbal questions before the test starts (super easy and don't check the answers - don't even bring them with you) and then again on the break before the verbal section. You're not trying to study here or anything - you're just trying to warm your brain up before the test starts, rather than during the section itself. (And I said not to check the answers b/c the idea is that you don't want to psych yourself out by getting something wrong right before the test starts. And if you don't check the answers, you won't know if you make a careless mistake.)

Also, did you eat something on your breaks? Get up and walk around? Stretch? Make sure you've got good energy the entire time you're in there; flagging energy can make careless mistakes more likely, which can lead to strings of wrong answers.