Knewton online course. Review.

That's such a sick score. Congrats!

So, I guess you won't be getting any money back?
congratulations!

I guess I will be the only one that needs money back then. Congrats to all those who got great score.
I got 650 Q49 V30 which is about 10 points lower than my diagnostic score.
I had a little bit drama before the test. My test was scheduled at 12 noon. I went to the testing center. Since its after normal business hour, I need to punch in some code to call the center so that they can open the door and let me in the building. But I kept dialing and dialing, it is always busy. I almost got paniced. Then someone probably finished their test and came out the door so I got in. By the time I got in it's 12:15. I am not sure if this contributed a little bit to my score.

I messed up in math part. I have scored 51 in Q twice in the real exam before. I am not sure what happened yesterday. But even if I got 51 in Q, I think with 51Q and 30 V, I still can not get 700+ score.

Even though within knewton CATs, all others who got great scores were consistent in all their CAT scores. My scores fluctuated a lot.

I know my user name is nevergiveup. But I really don't know if I still want to keep trying. I lost my motivation. But look on the bright side, I might be the first one to provide information about how the money back process goes.

sorry to hear your experience
Don't rush with money return thing (not sure whether there is a specific timeframe you can do this). Take some time off and then start again - I am sure you can beat this beast. I scored V29 in my first attempt and eventually increased it to V40.
Which schools were you considering? I know that, for example, in the past LBS accepted students with V30.

Feel free to PM me if I can help anyhow.

I am so sorry to hear about what happened with your test. In fact, I had the same issue at my test center but fortunately the line was not engaged. I got a 720 on my Knewton CAT and I scored a 730. I would not have filed a request for money back but when I asked certain questions, for example, why is the CAT assigning 50 points even though there is no single error, I was not given straight forward answers. My exam date was nearing and the Quant on Knewton pales in comparison to GMATPrep and I wanted to talk with some one as I got really nervous and was wondering whether I am working on any thing useful. Nope! No calls were answered and then I get an email saying that We get 100's of emails. In one word, I was being a pest for them when I was explicit in my email that I would like to improve my self and possibly provide feedback to them as well so that they can listen to me and make up for any thing if they find my thoughts useful. The worst part is I did get all Q questions correct on 3rd CAT and got a 50. I was told that they corrected the issue and the same thing happens on CAT 5. That was it.

Now the good part. Dave Ingber, Brad, Cole Entress are pretty good. Especially Dave Ingber, He pretty much rocks! Now that you know that verbal is your problem work on it. If I were you, I would ask my verbal pretest/retest and the questions to be reset so that I can work on the concepts. Knewton's RC is pretty good and close to the actual GMAT, The actual GMAT RC was a little bit stressful to me because, I got all my RC between 8 and 31. It was like I was doing a RC exam. MGMAT RC's are way off! The concepts on SC and CR are the key. Their CR and SC questions are pretty much the same OG questions with words replaced. My answer to this question is they want to stick to the patterns GMAT uses. It is probably ok with CR but they have to get a little bit adventurous with SC as many questions will not be exactly the as the questions in OG. MGMAT does a good job at SC. Read the book 4th edition twice or thrice, if possible do SC Question bank and MGMAT CAT's to improve your concepts. How were you doing with the concepts pretest and retest? I think the concept pretest and retest is the greatest asset of knewton.

You are only 4 or 5 questions away from getting past 35-36 and if you get 50/51 in Quant you will get past 700.

Thanks icandy for the encouragement.
I need to take a break no doubt. Effie returned my email. She said since I have completed all the questions and exercises, I just need to email her my official GMAT score and she will process my refund. Or, another option is that I can get all my questions and CATs reset if I want to. How do you tackle RC questions? I think RC is my weakest area on verbal.

RC is by far the most tough part of the Verbal section for non native speakers and definitely comprehension with speed cannot be improved night over night. I will be posting my RC ground work in the other thread and If you want to get past 40 remember that one cannot manage to get by only with CR and SC expertise.

Effie is a nice person. Make a decision based on what is good for you.

Sorry about your experience and time. It must be tough, esp seeing all the 700+ scores.
Your verbal looks really low, though Q is consistent (not as much difference between 51 and 49). Does it make sense to re-do the verbal portion and perhaps get a healthy dose of gmat fiction?

P.S. Appreciate any info on the refund process . Thank you!

I'd like to add my own piece of feedback regarding Knewton. I did not buy the full course, but I enlisted for the free trial period. The first thing I liked about Knewton was their user-friendly site. I do believe that first impressions count and for me, it was a pretty good one. I also participated in two live classes and thought the instructors were fun, smart and had solid knowledge of the test.

However, there are a few things I will complain about. First off, their test. I took the free test something like one week before the real thing and was disappointed with the results: 710 (q43, v45). This score was just 10 points higher than my very first CAT (GMATprep 1, before I started researching the GMAT)! I'm pretty sure that three mistakes in verbal won't add up to a score of 45, but what the hell... It kind of took me by surprise, but I decided not to let it get to me. I am therefore inclined to subscribe to the general opinion that their algorithm needs work, but since I've only taken one test, I can't really say for sure. I understand the CEO is a former Kaplan employee and we all know that the free Kaplan test provides significantly lower scores than what you should expect...

But my biggest complaint is about the verbal questions. I don't know, but it just doesn't seem fair to me to blatantly rip off OG questions. The structure is absolutely the same, which is a big annoyance to people like me who obsess about CR. Let me give you an example: there's this one question in the OG 11 about Native American tribes; you'll see the exact same question, but with Native Americans replaced by Amazonians! It's just not fair, IMHO, and I'm actually curious whether they could be accused of copyright infringement.

Overall, I guess I would rate them positively, though, just because they're trying a new thing to the legions of online courses: the TA approach, the adaptive system... Maybe this all balances out the unimaginative question "design".

I asked the question on OG rip offs. I did not feel like I was learning any thing new. Much worse, the answer choice would also be the same. No scrambling of answer choices as well. How ever, their answer was that it reinforces concepts GMAT tests and wont stray into the extraneous, unnecessary world. It really does not convince me but hey If thats what the gurus think so be it. As far as the copy right infringement, they probably have already looked into it and it is very well possible that the copy right is only for the exact question and words replaced its not the same any more. I could be wrong.

I got 3 questions wrong in CAT 3 and CAT4 and the verbal scores are 34/32. As I said in another post and you/Aver said, these tests and their algorithms have serious issues. The retest/pretest and instructors are an asset.

While I did see some questions in the real GMAT that were somewhat similar to the ones in the OG, I never saw any "obviously copied" ones. This is why their arguments seems unreasonable to me. But hey, they do have to defend themselves...

I was much more satisfied by the (albeit extremely few) questions in the PowerScore CR Bible: it actually felt like quality, brain-building material as opposed to just re-workings of the same stuff. Besides, I tend to lose interest as soon as I feel that someone's not playing fair

I wish everyone out there will not need to go through the money back process from knewton. But in case you need, here is some info.

To qualify for the money back guarantee you need to have the following:
1. You have to have attended all the class sessions either the live one or the archive one.
2. You have to have completed all the pre-tests, re-tests, practice questions, and all five CATs, including the two practice essays.
3. You will need to provide un-opened (sealed) official GMAT score from GMAC to knewton staff.

If you decide to re-take the GMAT, you can study with knewton again and ask the staff to create a duplicate account for you so that you can go through all the questions again. If the second time around, you still did not achieve the 50 points increase you will still be able to qualify for the money back. I think this is good. I know in Kaplan the high score guarantee is good for only one time. If you use the high score guarantee to attend all the sessions again in Kaplan, the next time if you did not score well, you will not be qualify for the refund anymore.

At this point, I still have not make my decision whether I want to have money back or continue studying with knewton. I guess I am still in my mental break. I hope the information I provide will be able to help any future knewton students.

Thanks for the information, incase I screw up my first GMAT, then this would come in handy

Thanks

Hey everyone, (good to see you again Dana!)

I want to thank you for your conversation and reach out to answer a few of your questions. At Knewton, we actively seek out student feedback to help us build the best product and community possible.

We hold ourselves to the highest standards in the industry, which is why we’re the only company to hire the original architects of GMAT computer-adaptive testing. Our CATs are performing extremely well across all ability levels, with one exception: after analyzing our early data, we have discovered that our CATs are too easy for 700+ math scorers. We’re working very rapidly to resolve this issue and expect it to be fixed soon.

As for our questions, we explain to our students that the GMAT (or any standardized test) has the same underlying structure every time. One of the historical failings of the test prep industry has been unrealistic questions. Unrealistic questions are actually faster and easier to create, but result in poor test-day radar and lower scores. We are very careful to keep as close to the real test as possible (though perhaps in one or two cases the questions are too similar). We’re certain that ours is the right approach, which is why we back it up with the industry’s best money-back guarantee.

I hope that helps clear up some of the issues. Best wishes on your continued studies everyone!

Cheers,

Jose
Founder / CEO of Knewton

This is nice to hear from the CEO itself. Thanks for your inputs, it shows your quality and determination in learning and improving from critics.

Welcome to GMAT Club Jose.
Hope to see you here more often.

Best Regards,
BB