I gave the first focus test and scored 47-51 with 80% confidence level. I correctly hit 18/24 (although 4 of them were silly mistake, but still a wrong answer :evil: )

The questions were tough. I did not see any goemetry questions but too many word problems.

Thanks, guys! Keep the good feedback coming!

I will tell you this. I never felt "pushed" during the math gmatprep section, like I do when I am taking an mgmat math section. However, the focus felt much more challenging, and in many ways made me feel a like i was taking an mgmat math section (I always feel time pressed and anxious during MGMAT math...:(. I took two thusfar 1st: 43-49 and the second 45-49. Felt much more confident in the second. I had 12 mistakes in the first, and about 7 in the second.

I really think it is a great test. It really pushed me. I think, if you can afford it, its a great tool.

12 wrong out of 24 and can still get 43-49?

This tells the importance of time to complete all Q's and without getting hung over on one Q.

my limited experience with gmat focus includes the following points, which are general enough that i won't be treading on any intellectual-property toes:
* the problems range from easy to extremely difficult; most are of above-average difficulty.
* of the gmat focus problems i've seen so far, there have definitely been a couple that will require WAY more than two minutes, even for relatively high-level test takers. if these problems are at all a bellwether of future changes in the gmat, then time management is about to become an ever bigger issue than it already is: many of these problems are serious time sinks.
* certain topic areas that are scarce in o.g. and gmatprep problems have appeared on gmatfocus with considerably greater frequency, and vice versa. again, this may be a harbinger of changes to come in the format of the actual test.
* i noticed a tendency toward data sufficiency problems requiring a quick procession through numerous possibilities / cases, and away from abstract / conceptually oriented data sufficiency problems.

This GMAT focus is way overpriced for what it is. And it wasn't obvious what I was paying for, until I actually purchased 3 tests.

Firstly, it is ONLY Math part. No verbal questions. It wasn't obvious at all. It was only later that I`ve found that they mention it somewhere.

Secondly, 3 test bundle consists of 3 tests with 24 ! questions each. So, it is definitely not the full test.

Finally, you`ll start seeing same questions when you`ll be doing your SECOND test.

I've done 2 tests and have one left. The website is saying that I can start the test ONCE. While they were claiming that I can do test unlimited number of times.
Lets see what would happen when I'll finish my last test.
I must say that the questions are quite good and diffucult enough. But I dont see any reason to buy THIS practice for 75$. Use GMATPrep, books. I found 800gmat pacer to be a much better value for money. Since I am going to finance 70% of my MBA out of my savings, I don't think that gmat focus was a good investment.

Just took the test and I agree with Dan. Questions were above average and the wording of some of them, especially in Data Sufficiency, was misealidng to an extent that I am still cofused about a couple of hard ones.

The difficulty level jumps pretty drastically from one question to the other and, again, I agree with Dan who said that some questions require more than 2 minutes. I scored 31-39 but was expecting something in the low 40's given my MGMAT tests and the real Exam I already took.

Overall is a good tool as the break-down of right and wrong in DS And PS was similar to my previous test. I really hope I can retake the test once again as 25 bucks is a robbery for a single test.

Ciao!

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Keep it coming.

Rey

I have used gmatfocus with 4 students, and I see no change in difficulty level- no question requires more than 2 minutes for top scorers (50 or 51Q). The lack of geometry questions is striking, however. The explanations do not always feature the most time-effective way to approach the questions.

Keep in mind that gmatfocus is a diagnostic that is based largely on questions that have been floating around the Internet for a couple of years now. It features retired questions and is thus probably NOT meant to foreshadow changes. I did the GMAT both one month ago and two years ago, and the difficulty level has NOT changed at the highest level. As GMAT scores are valid for 5 years, it would be hard for GMAC to introduce changes in focus/difficulty without undermining B-schools ability to compare scores that are nearly 5 years apart.

Kevin Armstrong
Madrid, Spain

Yep, Kevin's right. Any changes they do introduce have to occur VERY gradually over time. And the questions in GMAT Focus are all simply recently "retired" questions, not necessarily harbingers of changes to come.

Vlad - if you're having any issues with what the advertising said vs. what the software actually gives you, please do contact GMAC. It may take a while to get a reply, but they should get back to you.

I guys,


I just took the test and I can confirm that you ARE ALLOWED TO TAKE THE TEST ONLY ONCE! I sent an email to GMAC as their
advertisment is misleading. I would use this source ONLY if you ran out of all possible resources!

Ruben

Thanks for this, Ruben. Buyer beware!

I've take Focus, MGMAT CAT, Kaplan's (Free) CAT, the free Official GMAT CAT, and 1 paper test and here's how I would rank them in order of most difficult to least difficult.

Focus (by far)
MGMAT
Official GMAT CAT free software
Free online Kaplan CAT (distant 4th)
Official Paper Test


The focus questions are without a doubt more challenging than anything I've seen - I agree that there was virtually no geometry and too many word problems, which results in a shortage of time. My sense is they're just harder because the $/question is fairly steep so
(1) they wanted to throw in something 'worth while'
(2) people that would actually pay for that a quant only section either (a) are weak at quant (in which case they're in for a self esteem beat-down), but more so (b) are shooting for the highest score possible which sounds like most of you all

That said I (probably foolishly) took all 4 practice tests within ~ a few weeks and had roughly the same quant raw ~45ish - the total scores were literally the same 690, with the exception of the Official Paper Tests which was non-meaningfully higher.

That said - even though the scores were exactly the same, and the raw scores were close, there was an enormous discrepancy in the # of questions i missed to get the same score.

Ex. on Kaplan's Free online test I missed 5 quant questions and 7 or 8 verbal and scored in the 94% and 95% (why this results in a 91% 690 i have no clue), but on MGMAT missed almost half on the math and ~40% on the verbal for a 690.

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


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.

* while it's true that many gmat focus questions simply follow in the footsteps of og11, there are some questions featuring innovative and unusual new approaches to old topics (especially in probability and statistics).

overall, i think that you should check out gmat focus as a possible bellwether of current and future changes to the topics emphasized by the test - _IF_ you have already completed an exhaustive study of the problems in the og11 and quant supplement. if you haven't, then your time (and money - gmatfocus isn't cheap) would be much better spent there first.