I signed up e-GMAT Verbal Live Prep in June 2013. The main reason that I chose it was because of very positive reviews. "Best course for non-native speakers", "Huge improvement in verbal scores" etc. These advertisements and reviews really attracted my attention. I'm a non-native English speaker and I want to improve my verbal score. So I decided to buy the course. Having tried the course, taken the GMAT and later tried another source (MGMAT Verbal Prep Set), I feel I have to offer another side of story amid so many positive reviews here. Let's talk about the Pros and Cons:

Pros:
1. Provides a very well structured study plan with concepts and quizzes for each section. (This may be useful for anyone who lacks discipline)
2. Comes with free mock exams that can generate performance analytical reports. (However, the timer doesn't work well, leading to wrong timings of your response time)
3. The e-GMAT time was kind enough to extend my course when I couldn't finish it in time. (The login was valid for about 6 months and they extended it for 2 months)

Cons:
1. Repetition in both contents and methods. I completed the whole course and took notes diligently. At the end I found some similar notes appeared multiple times--some contents were repeated here and there. The few e-GMAT methods used to solve Verbal questions were heavily repeated.

2. Methods don't work. In theory they sound good. But after studying the course for 8 months, I found these methods very time consuming and mentally draining in practice. They just don't work well in mock/real GMAT exams.

3. The course is very inflexible. This inflexibility, coupled with the fact that the course is extremely content heavy, makes it very time consuming to finish the whole course. It took me 8 months to finish (I work full time). I can't control my pace. Some contents are easy for me and repeated too much. The repetition plus sheer volume of contents buries the important areas which I may be weak at. It feels as if you read a whole library of books within 8 months. At the end, your mind goes blank. Maybe you remember a little here and there but nothing stands out. ROI is just so low: you spent so much time reaping so little improvement in your verbal skills.

4. The online lectures are a COMPLETE waste of time (and money). This was very obvious. In a 2 hour lecture, the instructors would spend the first ~30 minutes advertising their course. Because there are many attendees, the instructor can sometimes spend half an hour just to explain one question and answer all the questions. I may have just one doubt on a question and managed to get a few minutes of the instructor's time to answer it. Often, I'm still confused after he/she answers it. Then the rest of the time was wasted on listening to him/her explaining things that I have already known. After 1 or 2 lectures, I decided to just watch the recording and found myself frequently fast-forward the videos. In a 2 hour lecture, maybe only 15 minutes was useful.

In mock exams, I could score between 690 and 730. After 6 months of running the e-GMAT marathon, my course was going to expire. e-GMAT team was kind enough to extend it by another 2 moths. I finally made my first attempt at GMAT and only scored 700 (Q50, V33, AWA 5.5, IR 8). It was a huge disappointment. e-GMAT team's kindness to extend my course may have only backfired: I felt I wasted another 2 months on a course with near zero ROI. I spent so much time (8 months) on e-GMAT yet I didn't feel my verbal improved at all.

After that I decided to try MGMAT Verbal Prep set. I had very good discipline and took just 1.5 months to finish the whole set. Took GMAT again and scored 760 (Q51, V41, AWA 6.0, IR 8). I was even surprised by myself that I could improve so much with MGMAT. I also have to credit MGMAT for its Quant. My quant was pretty solid and I didn't spend too much time on it. However, the "Advanced GMAT Quant" by MGMAT was really good on methods & tricks for the more difficult quant questions. That did help keep my quant score high.

So in summary I feel e-GMAT is a course that costs an enormous amount of time to complete and only gives you negative to marginal positive improvements on your verbal score.

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I have written my GMAT twice (over 3 year period) with great scores in Quants section but mediocre score in verbal both the times. So I decided to go through formal training to improve my verbal section score for my final GMAT attempt. I attended the free session provided by all the major test prep companies but none of their classes went beyond the split strategy (already described in official guide) for sentence correction. Since I did not see a science or algorithm behind the approach, I did not enroll in those courses.

Then I came across eGMAT course in gmat club promotional emails and reluctantly I opted to take their SC1 Approach to Sentence Correction class. The section started off as usual with 4 questions being presented and time given to solve each. Then they introduced the "eGMAT method" for solving SC questions. Initially I did not believe in the method as it sounded time-consuming but later realized the science behind their approach. As I started practicing their method, I have noticed by accuracy improve.

I had to stop my preparations for personal reasons but have would definitely go back to g-GMAT for my verbal preparation. I have not yet checked out their RC and CR sections but I am hoping for a great class their too.

The few live classes I attended have given me the feel of active class room stuff and I would strongly recommend anyone (especially non-native English speakers) with the live prep course. All other GMAT courses in US seem to be Quants centric which is the reason I like eGMAT.

The price is competitive and there is no reason to skip this course. Try a demo class (offered free) and see for yourself. Once I complete my training and do my GMAT, I will post with my scores as testimony.

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I have given my exam on 27th June 2014. I was able to score the magic number of 700. Credit goes to the awesome course created by e-GMAT. In all my earlier attempts (4) I never crossed 30 in VA. When I took e-GMAT course, it improved my confidence level in VA section.

If I look back and see what was different this time from my earlier attempts, I see it was the confidence level. I have an issue of anxiety and nervousness in the exam. If I am not able to answer one question in exam, nervousness starts building up. This was the factor that was taking toll in earlier attempts. Simple concepts in e-GMAT course, such as Understanding the meaning in SC, finding out of scope answers in RC and CR, were key for boosting the confidence.

I did not even complete the OG this time, not even MGMAT guides. The only source of VA preparation was e-GMAT course.

Once again I am very thankful to the e-GMAT team for creating such a helpful course , especially for the non-natives.

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My dream of going to a top B school started some 4yrs back. I bought OG 12 and few other books for my preparation initially. But I left my preparation in between.

Before EGMAT I followed few books and I clearly missed important things during the prep and my approach towards SC was so different that I used to hit around 50% questions right.Since a score of 700 on GMAT is so common now. I felt like I should beat the GMAT and I joined EGMAT Live Prep in Jan 2014 after scrutinizing the reviews in GMAT Club.
Now I feel Its my Best Buy.

I feel that e-gmat is more detailed in teaching both SC and CR & You get to know the nuances to beat the GMAT verbal. It teaches you the application with no grammar jargon s

The SC live sessions are unbeatable. After each live session I felt more and more confident and comfortable with the application.In Short SC live session is the best in the market for Non Natives like me.

Session on "Prethinking" in CR and "how to takle with Large complex passages" in RC are eye openers.

Integrated reasoning is too good. You just need to complete EGMAT course work with no extra effort.

The main advantages of EGMAT
1) Exceptional Instructors - They are just a mail away and they are best in what they do.After Shradda's SC live sessions.. SC is a cake walk.. Thanks Shradda.
2)Online Course work- Highly interactive,assessment at every level of preperation and can be taken at any point of time.


Few recommendations/requests
1) EGMAT should start Quants too.
2) CR & RC OG verbal explanation videos inclusion would be of great help.

I am taking the GMAT next month and I will get back with the score.

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I would recommend E-gmat to students who speak English as their second language. The course material seems to be designed from the ground up to cover all the basics that would be required to achieve a good score in GMAT.
The provided course material is very rich in content and easy to understand. The instructors are pretty knowledgeable and help you with your queries. The online assignments available on e-GMAT are a great tool to monitor your own progress. The good thing about the course is that it also allows you to use a grockit for practice. I have personally seen a lot of improvement in my sentence correction abilities by using the e-GMAT method and techniques. Before taking this course I would directly jump on to the answers after reviewing the question for a while but now I am spending much more time analyzing the question for its meaning first by breaking it down into appropriate components.
I haven’t taken the GMAT yet as I have a few sections that I need to go over, but I am sure e-GMAThas made a tremendous difference in my preparation for the GMAT.

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Hi All,

I personally like the e- GMAT course structure and the way it is organized. It has a right blend of required concepts and practice material for GMAT preparation.

Moreover, it doesn't leave any stones unturned in covering GMAT verbal topics. At first I thought reading comprehension and IR are the topics which no one can teach but to my contrary the course has such a beautiful strategies for all the section which when practiced diligently I am sure there is no way that one would not get his/her dream score in verbal.

Furthermore, I guess there is no better course structured for non-natives than e-GMAT as It helps right from the beginning i.e. with the level one is comfortable with and take him/her further.

The Application files, Verbal workshop and Interactive live sessions helps in aiding one to clarify doubts if any and to add to that the faculties proven track record helps in pin pointing the pain area or the common pit falls which when known helps one to rectify mistakes which might have occurred.

So overall I think its a beautiful course aimed at helping non natives and it does justice to all its claim.

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I would like to share my experience being an E-Gmat Verbal Live Prep Student,

I personally feel that the E-GMAT process, which is to be followed for all the three sections (SC,CR & RC), is a very effective tool. Once I reached a level of V36 it really helped me a lot.

At times I used to skip the process as it consumed a lot of time and I'm was not able to finish the exam on time, but skipping the process really hampered my accuracy and it seemed very difficult to score above V30.

Then I gave more emphasis on the process of not thinking about time, there by building confidence in improving the accuracy. While following the process, most of the time I didn't feel that I was attempting a 700 level question and it just happened automatically. This was one of the magical moments.


Attending the live prep classes really helped me to clear all my basic doubt. In SC, understanding an intended meaning is one of the aspects which helped me a lot to face 700 level question. In CR, pre thinking part was really amazing to crack the less than 2min.

Lastly, strategy workshop, especially second one, Where they teach about smart skipping technique and know your strength and weakness. All these things really gave me a smooth ride till 41 questions.

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I have gone through a few books and online classes before turning up to E-GMAT and finally I found what I was looking for - A Framework to approach, think, and tackle each question effectively. Especially it has boosted my confidence with RC and shaped my thinking and in turns accuracy with CR. The course is very effective and time bound with loads of practice questions and explanations. The support from e-GMAT is also very prompt. I'm yet to take my GMAT test but feeling a lot of confidence and hoping for the best outcome.

Thanks to e-GMAT Team for helping me prepare for my GMAT!!

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I’d like to thank Rajat for creating this course, especially tailored for non-natives. Although it has just been a couple of months since I registered for the course I have started seeing improvements already. I’m planning to take the GMAT in 3 months, and I have high hopes of scoring well on it. I would suggest taking both Verbal Live Prep (VPL) and Verbal Online course. Both these courses addresses all key points needed to improve GMAT score. It's Verbal made easy, I hope they come up with a complete GMAT package. E-gmat introduced me to powerful tools such as “Meaning Approach” and “Pre-thinking”. These concepts made solving SC and CR questions easy and fun activity.
I hope everyone, me included, finds success in GMAT with E-gmat.

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As I had consistently been a top scorer in English, both at school and university, I always thought that I had a good command over the language & was very confident. My confidence was clearly shaken when I took the GMAT for the first time and scored way below my expectations. Around the same time I heard about e-GMAT and how they focused only on Verbal for non-natives unlike most test prep companies. I attended a few trial sessions and loved the methodology that they employed to not only ensure that you learn the concepts fast but also to recall & use it when the time comes. I bought the Verbal Live Prep program and was offered access to a few other question pools too.
They are crisp & clear in communication and one can attend many sessions as they wish to, to get the concepts right. The faculty is available offline too and often just an email away. Most importantly they know and address the most common problems that all non-natives face while attacking Verbal.
Due to a hectic work commitment, I had to take a break in my preparation. When I told them about this, they offered to extend my program too.
If you are a non-native and wish to ace the Verbal, this is definitely the place to be in.

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