When it comes to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this weekly blog series, Manhattan GMAT’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.
And on we go—this is the fifth entry in what began as a three-part series on the GMAT’s new Integrated Reasoning (IR) section. I can’t help it—they keep releasing new and important info—so we’ll just keep going until either we get sick of the topic or GMAC stops giving us new things to discuss.
GMATPrep 2.0 has been out for nearly a month now, and we’ve got some important details to share. First, if you haven’t heard already, the new software is Mac compatible (finally!). Second, I got a bit of a nasty surprise when I took my second GMATPrep—the IR questions were exactly the same ones I saw on the first test!
So here’s our first big tip for you: Save 12 official IR questions for your second GMATPrep: one Multi-Source Reasoning with three questions, and three each of the other three types. (Note: this is not the exact guaranteed mix on the real test, but it’s one of the possible mixes.) You can get these questions from within the practice section of the GMATPrep software or from the OG13 IR question bank.
You can also just skip the IR section on the second test, but the problem is that this might give you an artificial advantage on the quant and verbal portions (because you won’t be as mentally fatigued as you’d normally be). As such, we strongly recommend that you save 12 questions to make the second GMATPrep experience as much like the real test as possible.
An “updates available” feature is built into GMATPrep 2.0. If you see that icon pop up, click on it. Eventually, I’m sure they’ll add a second “real” IR section to the test, so you want to get that update when it’s available!
Finally, a little OG news. The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 13th edition, (OG13) has a code for an online question bank consisting of 50 IR questions. Your access is good for six months from the date of activation, so don’t activate the set until you’re ready to do your first OG IR problem.
Also, if you’ve already bought OG12 but are planning to take the new test, good news: you can purchase access to just the online IR question bank for $10. This option will be available until June 5; after that, the 50-question IR bank will be available only with the purchase of OG13.
