| All Reviews > e-GMAT Reviews |
REVIEWER IDENTITY VERIFIED by score report [?]
My experience with GMAT like many others has been rewarding in more ways than through just hitting my target score, and humbling too. So for all those retakers out there, hang in there and keep at it.
Initial Prep and first attempt
Like many other people, i started my prep with an outddated set of Manhattan PDFs - both for quant and verbal. While these helped lay decent foundations to build on, they never gave me an honest chance at hitting my minimum desired score of 730. After a couple of months of prep with a performance of 690-700 in my official mocks - i was sorely disappointed as the screen flashed an abysmal 640 (Q47, V31). Frustrated but determined to keep at it, I began assessing my next steps.
E-gmat Verbal Online - A meticulous and structured approach to Verbal Prep
Honestly speaking, I had trust issues with all the online courses out there - sometimes it's hard to separate the hardcore marketing campaigns from the genuine value for courses out there competing with one another. But after much deliberation and thorough evaluation of reviews, I decided to take the decision to purchase the E-gmat verbal online course,which eventually proved insturmental in hitting that V40. To begin with ESR revealed my sentence correction to be at a decent V37, while my RC and CR were at a terrible V29.
CR - Laying the foundations
The E-gmat CR course is in my humble opinion an absolute gem. Sure, it definitely takes time and effort to gain mastery, but it's worth it if you're focusing on a seriously big jump in CR. The course has a style that suited my method of study - It was heavily visual, interactive throughout and provided an almost annoying number of feedback touchpoints - as i discovered through the course, this works in the long run to really ingrain and retain the fundamentals. The pre and post quizzes provide an excellent mechanism to nail down which areas you're lacking in at the time. The way the course is structured helps gradually pick up the fundamentals module by module (e.g. Inference first to lay down the ground rules which are applicable to future modules as well, an incremental learning system). And last and far from being the least - the focus on the pre-thinking approach helps overcome the biases and subsequent traps that spring up on reading answer choices right after the stimulus. Call it what you want, but ingraining the process of spending a moment on the core of the argument is invaluable, it makes navigating the answer choices a breeze for a lot of questions that may have stumped you peviously.
SC - Plugging the gaps
While SC was something that I pretty much ironed out through assessment of my error log, E-gmat helped plug a few fundamental issues when faced with roadblocks. The summaries at the end of modules helped retain key pointers that added more structure to my repertoire and crucially increased my confidence to hit v40.
RC - A surprising find
I did not really focus on my RC techniques in my second attempt - beyond regularly practising official passages. More on the surprise later.
My second attempt
As the test date neared, my official mocks fluctuated from 700 to 720. While a neutral 690 flashed on the screen, the marked improvement proved that I'd done something right, though clearly it wasn't enough yet. My verbal improved from V31 to V37, which was what i was hitting in my mocks in verbal. The ESR revealed a improvement in accuracy, but serious time management issues were my undoing.
Prep for My third attempt
I settled in for what i told myself would be my final attempt - I did not even book my date this time! I reviewed the CR courses once more, revised my SC cheat sheet every 4-5 days and double clicked on RC so to speak.
I realized that the pre-thinking approach in the CR modules had slowly been impacting my RC performance positively, over time. The fundmanetals of reading and pre-thinking applied to both CR and RC - while this was great, I still had to tackle my time management issues. At this point, I simplified my strategy for the same - 15-15-15-20 (For each set of 9 Q), this rough strategy meant I had enough time to make up for any lag in my time management, and to account for harder questions slowing me towards the middle of the spectrum. Now here's where E-gmat saved the day for me - their scholaranium allows you to take verbal ability quizzes.
Scholaranium
They're a simulation of the verbal section, a sectional test, and what stands out is the quality of their questions - they're as close as they come to the real GMAT verbal questions, even if they may feel a little different. What i found was that my Verbal Ability quiz results (percentile scores) were pretty much within 1-2 points of the my official mock scores (which i had exhuasted by time, but a retake of an old mock whose questions I'd entirely forgotten proved this.) I was consistently hitting the V42 level on the ability quiz while managing my time well, and this gave me immense confidence to walk in and just give it my best shot on the final day.
Test Day
As you've read elsewhere, regular meditation and exercise helps stay focused with your eyes on the prize. So a good routine (and peaceful sleep) and no distractions from the same on the d-day proved invaluable to my test score. I felt I'd messed up my quant a little, but had no time to dwell on the same. Hitting the reset button in my head, I attacked the verbal section with an almost arrogant air, letting go of questions when required and guessing smartly when possible. When the score flashed a 730 (Q49 V40), I was elated, though slightly disappointed with my quant score. Nevertheless, it was an exercise in grit, letting go of arrogance to take help through an online course and trusting myself to deliver on the final day.
Value for Rekaters
The highlight for retakers is that E-gmat allows you to extend your course for a flat, affordable fee that makes renewing your course a no-brainer.
Final Thoughts
All said and done, the only thing that really matters on test day is the question in front of you and an awareness of the time remaining in each section - this greatly simplifies the mental complexity and stress that accompanies most exam takers on D-day.
Hope this long read has helped, good luck!
Before I started using the E-gmat's verbal live prep course, I had used Magoosh premium subscription, manhattan verbal guides, and the Powerscore CR bible for my verbal preparation, so basically, I had a fair idea of the content tested in the verbal section.
I was scoring in the low 30(s) on the official mock tests. However, I was almost never confident about my answers in SC, I was stuck between 2 choices for almost 40% of 600 level questions questions and almost all 700 questions, and I was usually lost during the RC section.
For someone who had basic knowledge about the content but who struggled to apply those concepts, my set of pros and cons for the course are as follows:-
PROS:-
1. E-gmat has absolutely nailed the idea of what GMAT wants to test. The meaning based approach in every element of the test is what one needs to perform better on the test and E-gmat's course is built on that idea. After taking the course, I started primarily focusing on taking my time and comprehending the information that was presented to me and I can't stress on how important that is, especially on the harder questions.
2. The structured approach by E-gmat for every section provides you with a toolkit to attack any type of question with confidence. It is very essential to have a strategy for individual question types to avoid last-minute hiccups, to be confident about your preparation, and to save some precious time.
3. The course is very comprehensive. I have never seen a course that is nearly as comprehensive as E-gmat when it comes to SC. They have dealt with almost everything that can be tested.
4. Brilliant instructors who know how to impart their knowledge to you.
5. The course is optimized for non-natives and it is very helpful to build your verbal (and English in some cases) knowledge for the GMAT and the world beyond that.
6. Seamless live classes which were very interactive.
7. In the course, there was a section about how to read stuff on the GMAT. It can be a game changer was those who need to channelize their brain for the GMAT and leave behind some counterproductive reading habits. For instance, as someone who has only taken Indian competitive exam, I was highly motivated to skim through the RC passages and finish reading them as soon as possible. E-gmat certainly helped me to break this habit and to read the GMAT way.
8. The scholaranium has some great GMAT-like questions to practice.
9. Value for money.
10. E-gmat provides you with amazing, personalized strategy to prepare for the test and to approach the test on the D-day.
CONS:-
1. As someone who was already scoring in the 30s, who had basic idea of the content, and who had solved and deeply analysed some 150 questions in the verbal official guides, I don't think the live sessions added much value to me. The idea was to do some questions live using the E-gmat approach and to build the discussion on them. However, in all the sessions, I thought that the fact that I already registered while going through the online course or had practiced while solving a scolaranium question was reinstated. If you resonate with my type of profile, I highly recommend that you go for the online verbal course rather than the live prep course. However, if you are struggling with the foundational knowledge, you should go for the latter.
2. As per my experience, the query resolution system on the E-gmat forum is not very robust. I would give a shoutout to Magoosh here for almost always resolving my question with a very comprehensive solution within 24 hours. I don't know if it happened just with me but the queries I wrote on e-gmat forum were solved in a week or more, and once, a query was resolved after a month.
Verdict: I think the pros of the course far-outweigh the cons and I don't regret my investment in the course at all. If you are thinking about the current verbal score I hold, it is solely because of how I deviated from the devised strategy on the test-day because of test anxiety and not at all because of anything provided by E-gmat.
I've purchased verbal course, hence my review is only related to verbal. Before joining this course, I had attempted GMAT prep mock and studied from manhattan books, gmatclub and daagh explanation. hence my verbal score was okay. However, after working for 2-3 months, I took another mock and my prep mock score went down by 5 points, I thought there must be some issue. I attempted different mock, my score was same.
Sentence correction looked okay at starting, but it's too lengthy and meaning based approach takes lot of time even though you practiced a lot.
I talked to my friend, he had similar experience. I've started using manhattan books, and gmat ninja's videos to graps basics again.
I wouldn't recommend this course. Looks like I wasted my precious 2-3 months. Because of this time waste, I have to postpone my GMAT date, hence I am reporting GMAT prep score. and I am writing this review since I've completed the course, so I eligible.
If like me, you are troubled by the idea of where to start and how to go about things, I would recommend taking a look at e-gmat and their personal planner. After going through a lot of free trials (you can browse gmatclub and you will find at least 6-7)
I opted for e-GMAT primarily for the following reasons.
1. The personal planner. I input my starting score, it asked my target score, how many hours I can spare and when I planned on taking the test and out came this timetable that was perfect for me, a 3-4 month calendar with a daily breakdown of modules
2. The course structure was systematic and aligned with the schedule; I no longer needed to think what to do; it was all planned and laid out.
3. The approach, test yourself without any concept, go through the concept with solved
examples, test your improvement, rinse, and repeat.
4. The cost. One of the more economical options with similar reviews as others
Quantitative: Simple yet elegant.
The e-GMAT modules are very intuitive and the structure of the course is perfect to get you up and running from scratch.
There are no short cuts here, at least in the beginning, but you can take solace in the fact that if you do walk the road, it leads to the same destination. The only thing you need to do for Quant is to go through the entire syllabus, focus on the fundamental concepts, and practice away to kingdom come.
My rhythm was to follow e-GMAT down to the letter, I crossed every t and dotted every i it did not matter if I was good at something already if the course needed me to do something I did it. Test before concept, learn the concept, practice on e-GMAT questions, practice on OG questions, next
topic, rinse, repeat.
After completing a module (say Number properties), I would go to Scholarium (don't try topronounce this, I gave up) and attempt the questions there, failed miserably in the beginning, but moved on to the next module. When I completed all the modules, I took a book and made my notes
for each chapter with all the essential formulae, information, and possible tricks/methods.
Verbal: Focus on the meaning and don't chase tricks
Initially, I was not comfortable with the e-GMAT SC but that was because I was not patient and was looking to rush ahead. I had to go back to e-GMAT, and I changed my approach. I was going to go through the concepts alone and not solve questions. I focused on the meaning now rather than trying to find a trick to solve the question.
Even though my CR and RC were strong I still completed all the modules in e-GMAT, and it took me a total of 30 days to complete Verbal. Like Quant, I made my notes. Although not as polished as Quant, these were lifesavers.
Verbal SC, forget the tricks initially, focus on understanding the meaning. Once you understand
the meaning, you can go back and now compartmentalize it into methods (maybe). Rely heavily on
gmatclub forums for the official questions, some amazing community answers that can help you
reinforce your concepts or even help you discover new ways of solving SC questions.
Overall, I would definitely recommend the course because it provides you with the tools to lay a very solid foundation. How high you build on top of-course depends on you.
E-GMAT worked beautifully for me. I had no test taking background, but it did not take me long to get really good at SC, CR and RC using the E-GMAT modules. In my experience, I did much better when I meticulously followed the course structure; If you have the time, don't cut corners, I saw that a negligence towards the RC section of the course instantly resulted on a poor performance on test day. My second attempt was a direct result of practicing E-GMAT RC and using scholaranium to perfect ability.
The ability quizzes are great in terms of their measurement of section- based readiness. Take them routinely, especially if you haven't touched a topic for a while. Unfortunately for me, they introduced the Official Guide Scholaranium just as I took my attempts. This also seems super interesting, purely because OG explanations can be really bad sometimes, and applying the E-GMAT framework to most question types makes for a more structured approach to the solution, had it been present when I first started out, I definitely would’ve made it my only directory.
As I was pretty used to feeling verbal questions out by ear, my basics were very muddy. This course really helped me strengthen my fundamentals and introduced methods of action that consistently provided better results. It also helped immensely with critical reasoning and reading comprehension with appropriate strategies. Due to their emphasis on reaching the correct answer as opposed to the fast answer, you are almost guaranteed to improve your accuracy. Although e-GMAT advocates learning questions thoroughly even if you learn only some questions, eGMAT does have a huge number of practice questions which you can practice on to improve your takt time. Having a repository of knowledge was also good for revision and referencing strategy. Although this is an honest review, for transparency's sake I'll have to let you know that e-GMAT has offered me an mba applications guide book in return for a review,
After doing lots of research, i opted for e-gmat because of online course structure that I can complete along with my work schedule. e-gmat structure helps in time management as it's very much handy and you can utilize your travel time or even the break time in office.
Since we have very limited set of official material available for GMAT, we all need additional quality questions to practice.
E-GMAT provides the best tool available as Scholoranium which help us preparing for the 'D-day'.It provides you the right analysis about your weak areas and also detailed explanation of each and every question. Even you can raise your query and the expert team gets back with the answer within same or next day.
As per my experience, analyzing your mistakes and not repeating them again is more important than blindly solving thousands of questions. E-Gmat works best in all aspects.
During my GMAT preparations, I have learned that there is not one course that suits everyone and so I have to say, unfortunately that e-gmat did not work for me at all. I have only purchased the verbal part, as I used MathRevolution for quant. The curriculum is well structured and the platform is for most of it parts very user friendly (I think some content has been updated while some part are still using an old style which is less interactive and visually appealing). What I struggled the most with it is basically the e-gmat verbal approach that just did not stick with me. It is quite theoretical and provides a grammatical reasoning for most of the questions. It is also quite extensive as it requires to follow a long list of potential errors to check. So if you are that kind of person that tackles the verbal section with a grammar book than this course might be the right fit. As i mentioned in my GMAT debrief, a good way to understand whether this is the right course for you is to check the expert solutions / replies on the gmat forum. If you like the way the e-gmat expert explain / tackle a question, then go for the course.
Worth to mention, they have a very solid question bank called scholarium and I think the mock tests are really good.
Pro:
- comprehensive course
- solid question bank with a lot of analysis functionality
- good value for money
Contra:
- An approach that does not resonate with me
- Partially old looking course materials
Once I started my preparation, I gave free official GMAT mocks and got scores 620 & 640. I was disappointed with the results and found that verbal section was weak. During the course of my GMAT preparation, I joined GMATclub.com and came to know about Game of Timers competition. I was lucky enough to get e-GMAT online course as a prize. I was pleasantly surprised with the professionalism of Mr Rajat Sadana & Mrs Payal Tandon and the depth of contents of the course. I am a non-native English speaker, therefore preparation for verbal section was specially tough for me. The course included platinum level scholaranium and Sigma-x mocks. I gave my first mock and got 670 (Q45,V36). There was detailed analysis of mock provided which clearly demonstrated that I need to focus on verbal section. Sentence correction and reading comprehension were weak areas for me. So I started preparing them with e-GMAT. The master comprehension course and meaning based approach to solving sentence correction questions and detailed analysis of reading comprehension question types really helped me. Pre-thinking approach in critical reasoning was also helpful. I got 690 (Q50, V34) in my first GMAT attempt on 4.1.2020. But I could not study complete verbal section till GMAT date. So I kept on studying the course which helped me improve substantially in verbal section. My latest score on GMATclub tests was 780 (Q51,V45).
I recommend e-GMAT online course to those who want to improve their verbal score. I am thankful to GMATclub and e-GMAT for helping me during my GMAT preparation!
Basically the verbal section saved my GMAT, their systematic approach is great for non-native speaker like myself. Their detailed approach breaks down verbal to parts like SV, nouns, verbs, connectors. This approach is essential for your success. They also provides tons of practice so you can solidify your approach. Additionally their approach on CR is revolutionary, it not only saves time but also lets you focus on the task. After solidifying your approach, you can then work on your timing and accuracy. They have another systematic approach to let you be critical about your ability and how to improve further. Their responses are swift and professional. Everything is logical and systematic, almost like mathematics. I strongly recommend for non-native speaker like myself.
Dear cantaffordname,
We are truly sorry that you didn't make the expected improvements using the e-GMAT Verbal Online course. Our strategy team has conducted a thorough review of your course history and we see immediate areas for improvements - for instance, we see several concept and application gaps due to the manner in which the course was completed. Our dedicated strategy team would love to work with you to help build a solid foundation and achieve your target score on the GMAT. Further, we would also like to offer a free 1 month extension so you can hit the ground running right away. Please reach us at support@e-gmat.com and we will get our team involved to help you improve!
Best,
e-GMAT