GMAT Question Pack 1 Review

The GMAT question pack 1 is bar-none the best value in GMAT preparation (besides the two free GMAT prep tests). Wherever you are in your prep or whatever your GMAT goal you could probably benefit from this bank of questions. Read on for further analysis and more importantly some suggestions on how to use this product in your GMAT preparation.

GMAT Question Pack 1 Quant:

Including the free question pack questions, QP1 has 230 Official GMAT quant questions organized by question type (DS/PS) and order of difficulty (easy/medium/hard). Happy to report that over a third of the questions are in the difficult category and that this category is properly labeled – the questions are quite tricky. There are a few different ways to use the Quant from question pack 1 but here is how I tend to use the bank in GMAT tutoring:

1. Use the easy/medium from the beginning of prep to provide timed, mixed sets in a format somewhat similar to real exam. This way you learn to deal with working on the computer, with a software interface, and in a timed environment from the beginning of your preparation. Sets of 15-20 questions make sense here.
2. In the middle of your prep switch the difficulty to medium/hard to provide more of a challenge as you gain new skills. Sets of 15-20 questions also make sense here.
3. At the end of your prep do only the hard sets. You will have seen some of the questions from previous sets but this will provide an excellent and challenging review. For these sets you have enough questions to do two 37 question quant sections (20 PS/17DS since there are fewer DS questions in question pack 1). Warning: if you are scoring below 44 on Quant stick with a mix Medium/Hard as the hard set will be demoralizing and just not representative of the mix that you are going to see on your actual exam.

With these sets always do mixed problem solving and data sufficiency so you get used to bouncing back and forth between the question types. In the beginning of your preparation I would consider doing one of these sets a week along with targeted work from the GMAT Official Guide 2016 or Quant/Verbal reviews.

GMAT Question Pack 1 Verbal:

Including the free question pack questions, QP1 has 225 Official GMAT verbal questions. Unfortunately only 60 of those 225 are tough questions. How to use these verbal questions:

1. Blast the easy ones early on in your preparation. These are good skill builders and can help you get acquainted with the question types.
2. Save medium ones for when you actually have a strategy for the verbal question types. These are excellent questions on which to refine your skills.
3. The hard ones (the few that are there) are great for some challenging computer based verbal the last week before your real GMAT.

GMAT Question Pack 1 BUGS!

There are two major issues with QP1: Reading Comprehension questions are not grouped. What does that mean? Well – you might read a long passage but only get one question. Notice in the picture how question one and two are from different passages. You would never see this on a real test. To avoid this issue: when doing reading comprehension always select all difficulty levels and do the questions “in sequence”. Do not mix RC work with CR/SC work.

Occasionally the software deactivates itself. In those cases you might lose all of your data. Always take screenshots of any questions that you want to review. This will also allow you to keep all of your error log in one folder rather than having it spread out over a bunch of different softwares and questions banks.

GMAT Question Pack 1: Conclusion

Question pack 1 is a fantastic value. It has a ton of great practice for all levels of GMAT study-ers and provides an interface that approximates what you will see on the real GMAT. Not only is it great for general mixed sets in the beginning of preparation but adds on some pseudo CAT-like practice tests for the last couple of weeks before the big day. The Question Pack is on the must buy list for any GMAT tutoring students and should be so for any person who wants the best possible GMAT resources available.