Manager
Joined: 08 Jun 2012
Posts: 106
Location: United States
Concentration: Marketing, Other
GMAT 1: 550 Q30 V36
GMAT 2: 660 Q41 V40
GMAT 3: 670 Q44 V38
GPA: 3.27
WE:Corporate Finance (Mutual Funds and Brokerage)
Taking Full Advantage Of Knewton OnDemand Course
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14 Aug 2012, 07:36
Hey Everyone.
I joined Knewton's ondemand course a little over a month ago and am really enjoying it. There is a TON of content - useful content. I'm going through every item I can possibly go through and keeping track in excel just to make sure I feel completely confident before moving on. If I read a concept and I fully understand the concept, it becomes green, if not? Yellow and I'll be back to go over it.
I originally took the GMAT in February of this year after about a month of studying and a Princeton Review online course that I really didn't feel helped me very much. I ended up with a 550 (30Q 36V). I've been doing a lot of self-studying. I have a ton of books but really wanted to try a course. I came across Knewton, loved the concept but really couldn't find any videos or information about specifics (like, what's the layout of a given class? what resources are at my disposal?). The site did a decent job of defining what I'd have access to but without any way of viewing it, it was tough to make that initial decision. So I went to the reviews. Knewton is incredibly well-reviewed and I figured, with the 50+ point guarantee, I had nothing to lose.
So, I took my diagnostic and got a 560 (37Q 31V- totally bombed the RC questions in verbal) and took off from there.
Just to give you an idea of the Knewton layout (this was one of my questions before purchasing) - you start out with the diagnostic, and have the option to view some "Basics" videos. Since I am taking advantage of everything offered in this program, I did watch the Math and Verbal basics and felt I picked up a few things from them and then moved on to the first actual session.
In most given sessions, there's "Core Work" which are pre-course assessments, the course videos themselves and post-course "homework", that are essential to your GMAT skill development (but also must be completed in order to qualify for the money back guarantee), along with that there's also "Extra Practice Homework" and "Extra Focus Lessons" which are both included but not part of the required work. They help you go in depth in topics you'd like to get more proficient at. Also, for each lesson, all of the concepts that are covered in that session are indexed and can be studied.
So, there's a given session.
Here's how I attack - I usually take the assessments one after the other. They're quick, usually. I usually don't get a chance to view the OnDemand videos until I'm home from work as they're about an hour long each and require undivided attention. If I get a break (or downtime) at work I'll go over the extra practice homework or I'll go over each concept and track my progress. I know that they keep track of your concept mastery (but this goes by how many questions you get right, so if you do a homework assignment and get one wrong, you'll have to go back and do the entire assignment again just to attain mastery on that specific topic, while I may do that at some point, my method for now is a better gauge of what concepts I have to keep re-reading).
So my question for you is- if you've taken this course before, what did you do to make sure you got the most out of it? I'm honestly not looking for a 50 point increase. That'd still put me below average for where I want to go, so I'm looking to get as much as I possibly can out of this program so that in October I'm taking the GMAT for the last time.
My next session is session 6 which will be my second practice GMAT. I'm not sure what to expect but I'm hoping for some kind of improvement as I've been working really hard at this stuff!