Manhattan CAT vs. GMATPrep

[mbaguy513]

Hi,

I have taken the Manhattan 9 week course and have taken 5 Manhattan CATs. My test is one week from today and I want to take one more CAT between now and my real test. Many folks have encouraged me to take one of the GMATPrep CATs since they are put out by GMAC for practice. However, I have heard that there are no answer explanations. So it seems like it wouldn't be as helpful as taking a Manhattan CAT with answer explanations.

How do Manhattan's CATs compare to GMATPrep and the real GMAT(harder/easier etc..)?

In your experience is it worth taking a GMATPrep CAT or am I better off just sticking with Manhattan?

Thanks in advance!

[StaceyKoprince]

You've hit on the good and the bad. GMATPrep is absolutely the closest thing to the real test - it's made by the same people, uses the same algorithm, and contains real, retired test questions. But, you're right, there are no answer explanations.

We do our best to make our test mimic the real thing, but it's still not as much like the real thing as GMATPrep is. Our tests, however, do have answer explanations.

So you're going to have to make a hard decision - is it more important to you at this point to get as realistic a test experience as possible? Or is it more important to you to have answer explanations to help you learn more stuff during that final week? I can't answer that question for you - there are good reasons to choose either one.

The one thing I will tell you is to take that last practice test ASAP. I tell my students not to take a practice test within a week of the real thing, ideally, and I absolutely forbid them to take it within 3 days (well, as much as I can forbid autonomous people who may or may not want to follow my advice... :) - but, really, don't do it within a few days. There's no time to learn from that experience, and you run the risk of either tiring yourself out or demoralizing yourself if you don't like your score or both... and, again, with no time to really do anything about it.