Empowergmat vs Magoosh ?

Rich,

Thanks for the response. below are my answers to your questions above:

1) My Goal score is 750+
2) I plane to sit for the GMAT on 06/20/2017
3) I am applying to school this September.
4) Currently Stanford, Berkley, Harvard, Upenn, Booth and LBS

Hi tanatsa,

From your posts, it's not clear whether you've done any serious studying for the GMAT yet or not. If you're just beginning your studies, then it would be a good idea to take a FULL-LENGTH practice CAT Test; you can download 2 for free from www.mba.com (and they come with some additional practice materials). If you want to do a little studying first, so that you can familiarize yourself with the basic content and question types, then that's okay - but you shouldn't wait too long to take that initial CAT. That score will give us a good sense of your natural strengths and weaknesses and will help provide a basis for comparison as you continue to study. A FULL CAT takes about 4 hours to complete, so make sure that you've set aside enough time to take it in one sitting. Once you have those scores, you should report back here and we can come up with a study plan.

A 750 score is about the 99th percentile, meaning that 99% of Test Takers never score that high (regardless of how many times they take the GMAT). Thankfully, no Business School actually requires a score that high, so you have to be mindful that the score that you 'want' and the score that you 'need' are likely different things. Scoring at a high level requires that you learn all of the necessary content and that you learn to approach prompts in an efficient fashion. You've given yourself 3 months to study - which is good - but training for the GMAT isn't as much an itemized 'checklist' as it is learning the necessary content and Tactics and then training to think critically so that you can efficiently work through each prompt that you face. It's important to keep that in mind regardless of how you choose to approach this process.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Rich,

Thanks for the quick response. I took a practice exam already and I'm now looking more into material to assist me to train to get to a 750 score. My initial score was 540 , Quant: 31 and Verbal: 34. I got this score by taking it cold turkey without any prior studying. In rushed through my initial test and made a couple avoidable errors in Quant, and that being said I believe I can really boost both my quant and verbal scores if I have an online self study program to assist me. My starting point seems really low but I know I can definitely crack 750.

Please don't get me wrong, but there are no specific materials/courses in the market that can guarantee a 750 score. In other words, do not proceed your GMAT plan with the assumption that if I study X material, then I will score 750. Even after solving numerous LSAT CR questions, my percentile in CR section was only 75. Those same LSAT CR materials may have also helped others to score 90 percentile in CR - what may work for me, may not work for you. So throughout your GMAT study schedule, be flexible with your resources, and its associated strategy.
Moving on, all courses, considering you are looking for an online course, start with basic content and strategies, and higher level problems rely on "those". You need to learn them in Quant more than in verbal as 34 in Verbal is impressive without any prior studying. As its bit easy to improve in Quant than verbal, 750 may well be an achievable target for you.

Good luck !!

Hi Tanatsa

I have used both EMPOERgmat and Magoosh (The trial version) and specifically tried the sentence correction in both and I can tell you, you can’t really go wrong. Both are fantastic courses with user friendly interface. In order to make an informed decision I would highly encourage you to go to their websites and try on their free trial and decide for yourself which one do you like better. Further I see you are a new member here at GMATCLUB and when you sign up at GMATCLUB you get a free 3 days access to EMPOERgmat course. In fact it is the only way to get the deal which is very kool.

Further I would highly encourage you to consider e-gmat verbal online or the e-gmat verbal live course. They are both amazing courses. They offer almost 25% of their courses for free so you can try out their free trial to decide which one you want to go for. Plus the e-gmat Scholaranium which is included in both the courses is one of the best verbal practice tools in the market.

Its true no specific materials/courses in the market can get you a 750, however some courses are structured better to at least give you an edge in covering all your bases. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. I need to concentrate on bringing my Quant scores up which I believe is doable. Just want to ensure I pick a study arsenal that gets me to zone in on key important points and strategies. I'm looking to also get my verbal score up a bit higher than where I am. I'm using the Manhattan GMAT books for the quant basic content, I signed up for a trial of Empowergmat and I'll see how that goes. I still have my eyes set on 750 and will work as hard as I can to achieve close to or better than that. If you have any suggestions with regards to which courses to refer to for quant I would greatly appreciate that. Thanks !

You guys are very helpful here and I appreciate your feedback. What is your take on the verbal portion for e-gmat in comparison to EMPOWERgmat and Magoosh. What materials did you end up using to study for your GMAT and why ?

Hi tanatsa,

To start, a 540 is a solid initial CAT score (the average score on the Official GMAT hovers around 540-550 most years). Raising that score to a 750+ will likely take longer than 3 months though. In simple terms, to hit that level, you cannot have any major 'weak spots' and you can't make silly/little mistakes. You don't have to get every questions correct, but you have to nail all of the 'gettable' questions. You should keep those ideas in mind every time you review your CATs. If, after reviewing a question, you think to yourself "I should have gotten that one correct....", then that's an issue/error/mistake that you'll have to train hard to keep from happening again.

If you have any additional questions, then you can feel free to contact me directly.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hi Tanatsa,

Well honestly I feel the verbal portion of egmat is one of the best in the business. I think it has an extremely friendly user interface and covers all the concepts in verbal really well. It works best for SC however even CR and RC concepts are covered really well. However I felt it was a bit expensive for $199. I loved EMPOWERgmat as well especially given the price. I cannot comment on Magoosh as I did not use it soo extensively (only the trial version).

For SC I used the Manhattan SC guide and egmat SC course. For CR I would highly recommend Powerscore CR Bible. It is unbelievable.

However for all the other topics, I personally used Manhattan GMAT guides and absolutely loved them. All the concepts are explained really well and I believe the guides coupled with OG is all you need to ace the GMAT. If however you are not very happy with the guides and are looking to improve in verbal I would recommend go for egmat verbal online. You won’t regret it.

Hope this helps.

Yes, may be around 40's. But for that you don't need to get into verbal specific course because your initial score is already 34. Go for any course that is well balanced between Verbal and Quant, or more quant heavy.

I meant higher and not hire With that kind of spelling I'm in trouble

I watched a few lessons from eGMAT and I loved what I saw. I paid for Empowergmat 3 month study schedule, I like the quant however I like the quant from Math revolution better as it is better laid out and seems to have tricks to tackle even the most difficult problems. I watched a few video's from Empowergmat on SC and I think those were just ok. I'm thinking of utilizing my Manhattan GMAT guides and Math Revolution for my quant and eGmat for verbal. I'm not sure whether keeping Empowergmat will be beneficial. I just want to have a study arsenal that I am totally confident and happy with and put my head down and get on the grind. Oh and by the way I have the 2016 OG and not the 2017, would it make sense to get the 2017 or the 2016 should suffice?

Hi tanatsa,

One of the great aspects to the GMAT is that there are a variety of different ways that you can prepare for it. However, you cannot 'grind' your way to the type of score that you're after, so it's important that you consider the general 'attitude' that you have towards the training process. While I think that you were probably speaking metaphorically, you can't "put your head down" and just work through lots of practice questions and hope that that will get you to your goal. At various points in the process, review and analysis will be essential to your improvement. If you're not considering every aspect of how you're training (including how you're getting questions correct), then there will be a limit to how high you can score. This is all meant to say that a certain degree of flexibility is required - you have to be able to make adjustments to your plans (and how you "see" the GMAT) to reach your peak.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hi tanatsa,

I am happy you tried the e-gmat course and liked it. I think its a good plan to focus on Manhattan GMAT guides coupled with Math Revolution and e-gmat courses if you have liked their individual courses. Further I do not think you need the OG17 guide if you already have the OG16. Most of the questions are the same with just few additional questions. You can easily find the new questions on this beautiful site. Here are a few documents for your perusal.

Hope this helps. All the best.

Thanks for the feedback Rich. I really am getting myself into a mindset to train and not necessarily grind through the material. Just want to make sure my base and understanding of core concepts is solid. The quant section of Empowergmat is really good and I like how everything is broken down. Test it method is phenomenal. The verbal section so far is not up to par with the Quant, I might be wrong on this since I am still in the initial stages of SC. I'll give an update once I take my next CAT about 2/3 weeks from now. That should be a good gauge of how I am grasping concepts so far.