I want to use this thread to periodically update on my test prep experience… here goes.
Week 1Kalpan Practice Test #1 – 35Q / 38V – 610
I took a practice test cold with no understanding of the concepts or question types. There were moments in the math section where I found the questions completely laughable as I had no fathomable way to begin answering the question.
My search began for a test prep program and I quickly burned through money blindly following the advice of friends. If you’ve read this far in, please do take advantage of every free or low-cost trial available before sinking hundreds of dollars into any one program.
Veritas Prep: BORING prep material and a very basic website. If you order the print version of the prep books, you’ll spend extra money ($40 for me) to receive a chill-inducing, HEAVY box of books that may discourage you based on how much time you have ahead of you on your GMAT prep journey.
The general “On Demand” videos and live online classes are engaging, but all of the other videos are shoddy. They are excellent for inducing sleep, however. No more ambien for me! I think if you actually complete all of the uninteresting books and do intense analytic self-tracking of your mistakes (“error logging” – my instructor sent the class a sad excel spreadsheet for this task, which can be done for you in some other programs) then you will have a good outcome. You have access to decent “skillbuilder” sections, lessons, practice problems, CAT tests and solution descriptions along with email support when you need further explanation. Do not be discouraged by the practice problems – you aren’t meant to get them all, or even most of them, right. They do not do a good job explaining this or guiding you on how much you need to get right to consider the section sufficiently covered.
Best Feature So Far: Support. I bought the video-on-demand package and when I had issues, they upgraded me to the much-more-expensive live virtual class for free. They care about doing a good job and the wealth of resources + their customer dedication shows that.
Biggest Opportunity So Far: Integrated user experience. All the great things about the program are all over the place. It’s frustrating for skillbuilder solutions, practice problems and ebooks to live in different places on the site.
Biggest Drawback So Far: Price. There is no self-guided option at a low price point. Expect spend at least $499, excluding special promotions like Black Friday.
The Economist/ExamPAL: Beware, an engaging presenter sells you on the program, but 95% of the video content is narrated by two blah offscreen voices. All of them are men – no diversity? The selling point of the program is that it uses artificial intelligence and machine learning (I guess) to serve up questions tailored to you. The problem with this method is that in the initial prep, there are a fixed number of questions (30) per topic per video, no automated error tracking to understand strengths and weaknesses, and even if you’re proactive enough to do your own error tracking, there is absolutely no way to tap into more questions on that same topic. Only until you’ve reached the end of the training material, which could take many weeks or months, will you be able to access “maintenance mode” to go through a lot of questions. You still have no choice on what these questions will be. Trust the AI will save me on the other side? Depending on the package you purchase or the number of “credits” you have / are willing to purchase, you can have a tutor analyze your performance to get feedback on your strengths and weaknesses.
Best Feature So Far: Tutor support on questions you don’t understand (but don’t ask them about a non-Economist/ExamPAL question, they will not help you.) This is not a unique feature, every program I have tried provides support on the questions they provide, but I honestly can’t think of another “best feature.” I am hoping it is a slow burn where the AI pays off after using it for a long time.
Biggest Opportunity So Far: Transparency. Why is this “intelligent” program showing me *this* question? I should have access to the rationale the AI is using to supply the question because that will in turn help me understand areas I need to work on. They already admit that their “expert assessment” of your performance uses computer-generated data; given the price, they should provide this information for free.
Biggest Drawback So Far: Price. There are many programs available that do not carry the “Economist” brand, but are able to offer solid material at a much lower price.
Magoosh: Unlike Veritas Prep and The Economist, I did not purchase
Magoosh; I learned by then that I should not get too excited and instead, leverage the free trials. I can only give the general impression that it seems reasonably good, especially for the price. I liked the flashcards, I did all the quant flashcards, but they are woefully inadequate if you’re actually trying to memorize everything you need to know or even 20% of what you need to know. It’s useful that it has an app when you’re on the go and have a moment, however at the time of writing this there is a global pandemic, so I’m not really going anywhere and hardly touched the app. I imagine it is indispensable for quick, but valuable incremental bursts of knowledge throughout the prep process. I have to admit that I wanted to comment more on
Magoosh so I just used a different email address to sign up for another trial. While it doesn’t boast the many thousands of questions some other programs I have (only 700, while Kaplan boasts 5,000+ for,
TargetTestPrep has 3,000+, etc.) there are question analytics and support when you don’t understand a question. I think this probably a pretty good program. If I didn’t feel bad about re-using trial time, I would probably try it out more so I could give a more informed opinion.
Best Feature So Far: Question-by-question analytics with the ability to take notes.
Biggest Opportunity So Far: Construct the Lessons tab in a way that is guided and meaningful. Lists of topics are just overwhelming.
Biggest Drawback So Far: Low number of practice questions. 700 is not a lot compared to the many thousand that others offer.
TargetTestPrep: (Quant focus, Verbal is in “pre-launch” with material only covering sentence correction and critical reasoning, with reading comprehension coming soon) While potentially exhausting, I find this program exhaustive so far: more thorough prep material, meaningful performance analytics and a gradual approach that suits my learning style. The prep material is broken down into more parts than the other programs and goes into more depth with each of those parts. They also frequently test for understanding during the prep material and then through a series of discrete easy / medium / hard question sets with achievable goals: 90%+ accuracy on the easy questions, 70%+ accuracy on the medium questions and 60%+ on the hard questions. You can of course aim higher if you want – everything is measured. The web design is superior to any prep program I have seen.
Best Feature So Far: Outrageously detailed analytics that put everything in perspective. I think this will be instrumental in improving.
Biggest Opportunity So Far: Create a mobile app to allow for practice on-the-go.
Biggest Drawback So Far: No videos for setting broader context on the exam. This can be effective for priming students. From what I can tell, the videos are dedicated to question solutions.
Please let me know if anything I've said is not correct! Looking forward to completing week 2.
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11 Oct 2020, 13:43
