Anyone who has studied for a standardized test knows how crucial practice material is for a decent score. Learning the concepts is the easy part for most people. It’s the practice that takes most of the time.
GRE, like any other test, is all about the practice questions and full-length mock tests. This is why you hear so much about high-quality practice tests and questions. Traditionally, it is believed that the company responsible for a particular test has the most credible practice material. This is also true for GRE as ETS, the makers of GRE, are known for their official practice tests.
However, at a certain point in your preparation, you will run out of official material, and if you want to continue practicing, you will have to go with a third-party option.
This is where a company like Kaplan comes in. Although not an official GRE partner, Kaplan is revered as one the best test-prep companies out there when it comes to GRE.
Kaplan publishes both books and online courses that have plenty of practice questions and mock tests in them. Today, I’ll be exploring whether Kaplan’s practice questions are up to the mark or not.
How do I get Kaplan’s GRE practice tests?
One way to get Kaplan’s GRE practice tests is to buy Kaplan’s premier GRE prep book called GRE Prep Plus. You can also get a bundle of three books called GRE complete. The bundle comprises dedicated Verbal and Math books as well as an introductory book.
However, do note that the practice tests do not come in written form. Instead, you get access to Kaplan’s online platform, where you can solve the test in the same manner as a real GRE.
If you’d rather skip the books altogether and get straight to the practice tests, that’s possible too. Kaplan has an extensive catalog of different GRE online plans. Three of these plans are solely dedicated to practicing questions and tests:
The first option gives you access to 4 full-length adaptive computer tests. You can use these tests for up to 6 months from the time of purchase. Moreover, at the end of a test, you will receive a complete analysis of your performance along with detailed explanations of the questions you got wrong.
The second option doesn’t include any full-length tests. However, if your goal is to practice, you will have 2500+ questions to go through. Kaplan is known for its professional web-interface. Using the website is a breeze, and questions are fully customizable.
You can customize the quizzes by length, topic, or subtopic. Say you only want to practice geometry questions. You can do that by selecting the relevant parameters in the menu. Your subscription lasts six months, and you will receive detailed feedback on your performance after each session.
The third option is the combination of the first two. You get four full-length practice tests and access to 2500+ practice questions. You also receive all the other features that come with the previous two options.
How good are Kaplan’s Practice tests?
One of the first things you’d notice when taking Kaplan’s practice GRE tests is how GRE-like the interface is. Kaplan has designed its practice test interface to match that of the actual GRE, which is definitely a plus point.
Moreover, same as the actual GRE, Kaplan’s GRE tests are section-adaptive. GRE modifies the difficulty of a preceding section based on your performance in a previous section. For example, if you performed poorly on the first section, the second section would be easier and vice versa.
As far as the question quality is concerned, it’s very tricky to evaluate each question of a course due to the volume. Generally, however, I have found that Kaplan’s practice tests, especially Quant, are a bit harder than the actual GRE.
However, do note that harder questions don’t mean the questions are low quality. It simply means that your score on a Kaplan GRE practice test would be a few points lower than the actual GRE.
Kaplan has done a remarkable job of replicating real GRE questions for the most part. It can be pretty challenging to strike a balance between difficulty and GRE-like questions. Real GRE questions are known for their subtleties and nuances that nudge the test-taker in the right direction. However, these clues are not always apparent, and only a skilled test-taker can spot them.
Kaplan, in my experience, comes very close to replicating what I mentioned above. The verbal section questions are especially highly authentic, and you can’t go wrong with Kaplan’s practice tests.
Only in the quant section, I felt like the questions were more demanding than the real deal. Moreover, this is a sentiment shared by many other test-takers as well. If you frequent GRE forums like r/GRE, you will come across many posts stating that their actual GRE score was higher than Kaplan’s.
After completing a practice test, you receive a detailed report of your performance, knows as “Smart Report”. Your “Smart Report” will contain a complete breakdown of your performance by timing, difficulty, and some other metrics. This is a beneficial resource as it will tell you what areas you need to concentrate more on.
In short, Kaplan’s practice tests are only second to ETS’s official practice tests, in my opinion. The web-interface is identical to the actual GRE, which familiarizes you with GRE beforehand. The practice questions are high-quality, but the Quant questions tend to be a little more challenging than the real GRE. If you score lower on your Kaplan practice tests than, say, Powerprep II, don’t panic because it is normal.