ManhattanGMAT opinion on http://www.gmatfocus.com/?

[StaceyKoprince]

I don't know exactly how any other test prep company's algorithm was written, of course, but I can tell you that you will be getting a lot more than 5 questions per section wrong on the real test (with the possible exception of an 800 scorer).

Also, I was interested to read a comment above about the dearth of geometry on GMAT Focus. A couple of students who've taken the official test in the past couple of weeks have told me they had very little geometry on the official test (2-3 questions). Wonder if that's a coincidence or a trend...

[Want2Move2Cali]

I also agree with - dhoomketu - a lot of the MGMAT Quant questions do have too many words which (1) eats up time and (2) are generally distracting and takes away from what the question is testing.

[Stacks1]

I just got smoked on the $25 GMAT Focus diagnostic test. I didn't even get to finish the last 8 questions! If the real exam is anything like this I'm in huge trouble.

It was full of the type of data sufficiency problems where you can spend 10 minutes plugging in different numbers to test the stems and still answer incorrectly. You know the ones I'm talking about. When you go through your MGMAT exam and see the explanation is an entire page full of work.

I'd say the level of intelligence required for this test was high because I usually score in the 90th percentile on MGMAT exams and am not sure what happened here. I got a scaled score range between 39-47 from what they tell me and got the last 7 answers wrong.

There is something off about the entire GMAT Focus operation. Aside from taking payment via PayPal and having a rinky-dink website, I'm pretty sure that the people who made these questions aren't native English speakers. One of my questions said , "On Saturday Malachi went camping....what is the probability that he will return home at the end of the day on the following Monday?" I was super angry to find out that their explanation assumed "the following Monday" meant two days after the Saturday he went camping.

The bottom line is that this test SUCKS. If you want to have your confidence rocked and waste your money, then take it. What also sucks about this test is that the explanations they give are super technical and very few people can execute that caliber of logic in the alloted time. While MGMAT gives you intuitive explanations and two minute solutions to problems, these clowns do the opposite.

[StaceyKoprince]

GMAT Focus questions are retired actual GMAT questions - the real thing, just like GMATPrep. And, yes, "the following" anything generally means the next one to come... which would be two days later, in this case. :)

If you don't balance your timing correctly, you will have trouble on the real test as well. No matter how good you get, you are just going to be given even harder questions that you can't do. If you don't let some of those go, the same thing will happen - you'll run out of time, you'll get a string of questions wrong in a row at the end, and your score will tank. Spend 2 minutes. Pick something. Move on. Ideally, if you don't know what you're doing after 1 min, spend the second minute eliminating wrong answers before you have to pick. Then move on. If you don't do this, you will likely have a repeat of your experience on GMAT Focus - be glad that happened in practice so you can make adjustments before the real thing!

[Guest]

How about this one?

I solved a crazy long problem with a quadratic and an absolute value and got the solutions:

x= -2 x = -1 for one equation and x = -3 x = -2 for the other equation. (These we also given in the explanation)

The question asks "What is the product of all the solutions of (insert massive quadratic and absolute value eq. here)?"

I chose 12 which is (-2 x -1 x -3 x -2) and the correct answer was actually -6 which is (-3 x -2 x -1).

How can we know that when they ask for "all" they mean only the unique solutions? Its so frustrating to get a problem like that wrong after making it to the finish line.

It would even be more clear if they wrote "What is the product of the solutions of..." because at least I would think not to repeat numbers, but in this case they put the word "all", an inclusive word, to distort exactly what they're asking for.

[Guest]

I guess it makes sense why they retired that question and can't understand why they brushed the dust off of it for this new program.

[Guest]

I also just finished my first GMAT Focus test, and it is actually the first timed computer test I've taken in about a year. 44-49 range with 80% confidence interval, and exactly got half the problems correct. I took the real test last August and got a 43 on Quant. The maximum quant score I got before that real test was 42 (usually ranged 38-42).

I was pretty freaked out when I started the test because I'm not used to looking at the monitor, and the questions seemed more complicated than I expected.

[Agree]

I agree some of the focus questions are borderline sketchy. Also I noticed that pretty much all the questions i faced were 700-800 level question even though i'm not that high of a scorer. i.e. i don't feel like it is a true CAT.

for focus, do we know that the questions were used on the real GMAT AND counted toward scores as opposed to those that were merely 'experimental' questions?

and why on earth don't they come up with a Verbal Focus? This seems hmmmmm biased (potentially towards R.O.W.) . If you compare % of questions correct to get high a certain percentile right in quant v. verbal, people are probably missing a lot more verbal than they are Quant

[StaceyKoprince]

The questions were real GMAT questions that counted. The experimental questions either get turned into real ones (if they're good enough) or discarded (if they're not).

They are still working on a verbal GMAT Focus - they haven't said when it will be released, but they have said it will be released someday!

[Halo3]

In my opinion the Math MGMAT CAT's are way harder than gmatfocus. Last week I got a 44M 44V on the MGMAT CAT for a 720 - Real talk though, on both the Math and Verbal i felt i was getting brutalized. A 44 raw on the math is the highest out of the 3 MGMAT tests i've gotten so far (42,43 were the other scores) + it's not even a true 44 since i saw 1 or 2 questions on the free MGMAT CAT. Yesterday I took my second focus test and was pleasantly surprised to see a 44-49 range.

Conceptually, focus is more difficult, but the questions are ~150 words shorter and from an execution perspective (ie making careless errors) focus is by far easier + most importantly, the questions are 'cleaner' and VIC choices are more logical and limited - if you feel me. MGMAT has excellent concept prep in the 8 books so i'm fine with conceptually tough questions. So it's sort of like facing a pitcher with a legit curve ball, but you know when the curve ball is coming.

On the other hand, I feel like I have to 'do work' on absolutely every correct answer on MGMAT and I'll often get caught up on a non-core part of the question bc of a mis-step that has nothing to do w the quant skill being tested OR just skip really long questions if I know I got the a few in a row correct knowing I'm just going to get it wrong

that said I welcome harder questions from test prep - better harder now than harder on test day

honestly if I had received a MGMAT CAT questions and FOCUS questions in the same format (without having taken MGMAT CAT's), I would swear the Focus questions were written by Manhattan bc, the 8 books teach virtually the same concepts -


PS how i can consistently score in the 90+ percentile verbal with such horrid blog grammar- I don't know, just thankful

[Guest]

Hi all,

I am trying to understand what to make of the range and confidence interval of results of the GMATFocus diagnostic exam. I was placed in the 47-51 range with an 80% confidence interval. While 51 is great, 47 could mean a sub-700 score for me given my verbal level is. Do they given more granular ranges or higher confidence intervals (e.g. 50-51 ? with 95% confidence?)

How are others who have taken the GMATFocus exam interpreting the results.

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

They haven't released such data, unfortunately, and I doubt they have it. The real test has a standard error of 30 points, and I don't think GMAT Focus would have a smaller standard error. (Admittedly, I'm not a statistician - I suppose there are technically ways to do so if they include only the questions for which they have the best confidence levels - but my guess is that GMAT Focus probably mimics the real test in terms of expected error.)

It's disappointing, I know - but the true answer is that even the real test has a pretty wide standard error. It isn't anywhere near as precise as people assume something like it would be.

[Ak]

GMATFcous is interesting. I have been averaging about 45-49 in MGMAT test. I took the GMAT Focus 1 & scored 40-46. I got only 11 questions right out of 25. Nevertheless all the questions were in the range of 700-800. Timing is a huge factor here. I always attack questions with the assumption that I have 120 Seconds more before I move onto the next question however in GMATFocus we need to answer 25 questions in 45 mins. With those extra 5 mins I am sure I could have improved my scores.

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for your input - keep it coming, guys!

[Guest]

i agree with most of what you've said, but not necessarily with the following:

-Questions in GMAT focus are of same difficulty and style as OG11, which is what everyone is looking for.

in what i've seen of gmat focus, the 'style' (as in focus and content area, not writing style) has, at times, diverged markedly from that of the official guide questions.
for instance:
(in general enough terms not to be violating copyright - please don't ask for specifics, thank you)

* gmat focus features data sufficiency questions whose answer is 'DEFINITIVE NO': i.e., a 'no' answer that is Sufficient.
the fact that 'no' and 'yes' are both SUFFICIENT is probably not news to anyone who reads this board, but, surprisingly, neither og11 nor the green quant supplement contains a SINGLE QUESTION to which the answer is 'definitive no = sufficient'.
we at mgmat were therefore in doubt as to whether the gmat even considered 'definitive no' to be sufficient at all, but gmat focus has settled that question in the affirmative.

I have seen a Gmatprep question where a 'DEFINITIVE NO' was Sufficient.