Joseph Martin Reviews

Joe Martin is an incredible GMAT tutor. I worked with Joe for several private tutoring sessions. First off, Joe is incredibly skilled and intuitive with respect to the GMAT. He shows his students powerful tricks and strategies for approaching questions. He makes sure to reinforce where these strategies can be applied, which allows for broad improvement in scores. This also allows his students to grow and develop their skills generally. Joe also pushes his students hard to learn and develop their skills, which is much needed given how people can plateau on the GMAT. He is perceptive and can see when a student cannot follow along on a technique, and he then is able to pull out an alternate strategy for a problem. Joe is also a fun tutor to work with, and cares a tremendous amount about the success of the people he works with. Given the intensity of prepping for the GMAT, this makes the whole experience more positive and fun. I would highly recommend working with Joe and prepping for the GMAT (or another) test with him. It is a very positive experience, and if one puts in the work to study and prepare, working with Joe can yield very positive results.

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The course moves at a very fast pace, so be prepared to put in many hours of additional work outside of the lectures. My instructor was Joe Martin and he was fantastic. He was very engaging and seemed to truly care about the success of his students. I would say this course is perfect for anybody who is striving for a top score. While I was only scoring around 650 on the Manhattan GMAT practice exams, I managed to get a 730 on the actual exam on my first try. So don’t let the practice exams get you too nervous! They are far more challenging than the actual exam. The course also has a seemingly never-ending amount of resources for students to utilize, so you’ll always have material to practice with. I highly recommend using their Navigator online tracking tool, it is very helpful in tracking your progress. I also found the mobile app to be helpful. While it is not ideal for very tough problems, it is a good way to practice basic concepts while on the go. Overall I would highly recommend both this course and my instructor.

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this is a brutally honest review of MGMAT Interact, which is basically the 9 week course, and the tutoring sessions offered.

1. I looked at all the interact and attended one trial course. IF YOU ARE SCORING ANYWHERE NEAR 650, I WOULD SAY THE COURSE IS TOO EASY.

2. private tutoring helped a lot. the instructors are obviously knowledgable about the materials. They can help you improve on your areas of weakness, but even then it isnt guaranteed. All test have a very high level of luck. The instructors are also very responsive, ready to answer any questions and provide you with great explanations. The one big con is the price. given that the gmat requires a lot of luck, you have to ask yourself if the price is worth the gamble. But if price isnt a issue, definitely worth taking tutoring courses.

3. the six MGMAT CAT exams...... i hated them . on 2 gmat prep exams, i scored 720. my real score was 720, and 690 before then. out of i think 4 MGMAT exams, I DIDNT SCORE ABOVE 660 ON ONE EXAM. i even scored a 610 on one.... in my opinion the questions are 1. too difficult 2. not accurate reflections of the real test. the MGMAT test actually negatively impacted my mental state, so i decided i wouldnt even review my error log for those test.

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I took the 9 week course which was offered on site at my workplace. My first practice CAT I got a 650 on, with no prior experience. The class gave me a study plan and motivated me to study and devote time to the GMAT. The class material was concise and very useful. Joe, my instructor, was passionate about teaching, and made the dry subject matter interesting and fun. The homework was time consuming, but it was designed to be so in order to get you in the rhythm of studying and to teach you all the relevant concepts. Joe strongly encouraged participation in class, and pushed us to set up study groups, which helped you become even more invested in the journey. After the class ended, there was still an abundance of free resources available from Manhattan Prep, from post course/exam tutoring sessions to the online Interact courses. I felt like Manhattan Prep was there with me every step of the way. I would recommend it for anyone who wants a structured plan to study for the GMAT while having some fun along the way.

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In my opinion, the course is not necessary to supplement the books. If you're pretty competent in math and verbal, the books itself were good enough. I didn't gain much additional help from attending the course because you end up being part of a larger group and the skill level varies widely, especially for those that require more basic brush up after more than 5 years post-college. I finished all 10 books before the course started and it was good at my own pace. The course is good to provide structure if you don't have the self-motivation or willpower to stay on a strict regimen. Otherwise, my instructor was Joe Martin and he was very energetic even during a weekday evening session and he explained what we should prioritize if we asked questions about things that had a 1% chance of showing up. That helped because I was going to take the test within a couple of months and I wasn't looking to learn every nitty gritty detail but just what I needed to get above 700. The first time I took it, I got a 700 (Q48/V38)... second time was 720 (Q49/V39). I didn't practice as much as I wanted to between the second and first time because work got in the way, but I did do a post-GMAT Manhattan Prep consultation and the consultant gave me a few tips that must've helped push me to my threshold of acceptable. Overall, the course helps give structure but the books provided 80% of what I needed to know along with the OG books.

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The 9 week class is a very very good class. It is a great way to get started studying. You cover all of the basics and really entrench yourself in the studying process. The structure provided by the class set me up to continue studying for the test 5+ weeks after the class ended as you get in the happen of studying a certain amount everyday/several times a week.

One thing I will say is that when I did take the 2 free GMAT prep tests and then the actual GMAT (in addition to the 6 Manhattan practices), I did notice a pretty big difference between the two (Manhattan vs. Gmat prep).

Manhattan Quant is much more difficult and calculation driven than Gmat prep and actual gmat. This is a good thing. If you can get to a point where you are doing well on your manhattan quant sections, you will be fine on the gmat, because I found it much theory based (number properties etc.) than the manhattan tests.

On the Manhattan Verbals, I was having no problems at all (44-45s on all practices) as I got into Gmat prep and the actual gmat, my verbal score dropped 2-4 points. I'm not sure of the reason why. I did notice that some of the critical reasoning questions are structured differently in the GMAT prep/GMAT tests than in Manhattan. I think that the Manhattan tests were much more blatant about what kind of CR question you were tackling.

Ultimately between my first Manhattan practice and my last GMAT prep practice i had a 140 point difference. On test day, I screwed up verbal and ended up with a 80 point improvement.

scores:
manhattan 1: 630
manhattan 2: 690
manhattan 3: 750 (don't have breakouts now, but was getting significantly higher on verbal than math on all of these tests. Got 2 45V and 1 44).
manhattan 4: 700
manhattan 5: 720
manhattan 6: 740
gmat prep 1: 720
gmat prep 2: 750 (50Q, 42V)
Actual Gmat: 710 (46Q, 40V)
*Update Gmat 2: 730 (46Q, 44V)

(i have the breakouts of the other tests at home and can update them later)

Overall, I think Manhattan is a great course and will prepare you for the gmat, specifically the quant section.

Update: I retook the GMAT a month later and improved my verbal 4 points to get the 730 i was looking for.

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Manhattan GMAT is not for the faint of heart. The syllabus reads like a text book, as do the actual guides. But, if you are willing to put in the effort, and do the assigned homework consistently, this course will pay off big time.

Beyond the quality of the content and materials, my instructor was very easy going and actually found a way to make a 3-hour, after-work course fun and interesting. Instead of focusing on tips and tricks, he taught us the underlying math and verbal concepts, which, paired with hundreds of Official Guide practice problems and drill sets, made taking the actual exam feel easy.

Manhattan GMAT also provides some amazing online tools, the best of which is OG Archer. The tool allows you to input your answers from Official Guide problems, and then see your aggregated progress and performance, broken down by problem type and subject area. This tool made it easy to stay on top of the homework and see progress throughout the course. During self-review in the last few weeks before the actual exam, the OG Archer reports were critical to reviewing only what I needed to. Also, the free one-on-one session was helpful in overcoming some difficult concepts.

Manhattan GMAT is not the easiest course, nor is it the cheapest. But if you are looking to break 700 or even 750, and are willing to put in the hard work and time, this is the course for you.

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In researching GMAT courses to take, I read many reviews and talked to a few people. Most people said Manhattan GMAT was the best, and the reviews were certainly excellent. I signed up, hoping it was worth the price.

It was. MGMAT's 9-week live course isn't cheap, but it is excellent. I highly recommend it if you are serious about getting a top score (I got a 740). The written strategy guides are good, the OG Archer is a must-have resource (the other online resources are pretty good, too), and my instructor was excellent. He was funny, enthusiastic, very smart, and very able to break down complex problems into bite sized chunks.

Ultimately, your score really depends on the work you put into studying for the test. With discipline, focus, and a few months of your life dedicated to studying, you can do very well on the GMAT. But having a top notch instructor and a solid curriculum really help too. If you're serious about getting an excellent score, I highly recommend Manhattan GMAT.

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