timetrader
I posted my Knewton CAT review on the Knewton course review thread (mentioned above) by mistake.
I'm pasting it here, and let gmatclub decide where it belongs.
.....
Before sharing my thoughts on Knewton, let me provide background on CATs I have taken.
In chronological order (set by the time I took the 1st CAT from each source):
1. Kaplan 2005 (soft)
2. Powerprep (soft)
3. GPrep (soft)
4. Princeton 2006 (soft)
5. Barrons 2007 (soft)
6. Arco 2006 (soft)
7. Crack the GMAT (soft)
8. Manhattan (online)
9. 800score (flash)
10. Knewton (online)
Crack the GMAT is the worse, and 800score and Knewton come right after.
But this is about Knewton. I just finished their free online CAT, and this is my brief review:
Quant
. Good questions, very real, covering all areas.
. Representative of the easiest GMAT questions. Did not encounter one challenging question.
. Did not seem to be adaptative, at all.
. Good as a summary of fields to master.
Verbal
. Same
. Found two unacceptable grammatical mistakes on 2 of the 4 reading comprehension sections.
Scoring algorithm
. The worst I have encountered together with 800score's.
. Quant: had 3 mistakes-> Q45
. Verbal: had 4 mistakes-> V37
. Although this may be partially explained by the lack of difficulty of the questions, it is still way off mark.
Others:
. Post-exam questions log/review is outstanding.
. As another poster mentioned, some questions seemed to be taken from OG with a few things changed here and there.
Now see how that compares to my GPrep stats:
1. Q49 with 10 mistakes; V46 with 3 mistakes. 760
2. Q49 with 9 mistakes; V42 with 7 mistakes. 750
3. Q49 with 8 mistakes; V47 with 4 mistakes. 770
It is not a question of higher or lower score. Knewton is simply off mark.
Bottom line: good only as a comprehensive summary of basic level questions to be done against the clock. Scoring should be ignored.