I scored V38. During the test, I felt that my performance on SC isn't as good as I hoped.

I reflected on where I went wrong. I used to primarily look for grammatical errors and not meaning errors. And that strategy resulted in a lower accuracy when answering questions. (70-75%).

I realized that I needed a mindset change of not jumping the gun and start looking for errors, rather understand the meaning of the original sentence before attempting to eliminate incorrect responses.

Through all the online sessions, e-GMAT did a great job of highlighting the need to understand the meaning of sentences.

I really liked the split technique of breaking complex sentences into clauses. e-GMAT's step-by-step process of eliminating incorrect answers is the best aspect of their offering. It helped me standardize my approach while answering each & every question.

Verbal Scholarinium is a great tool that helped me test my learning and track my response time.

If you are a non-native and struggling with SC questions, e-GMAT's SC offering should be your first choice.

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I have been using Magoosh for about 6 months now and I find the videos very informative. I think Mike is a great teacher who really knows how to explain new concepts in a slow way so students won't get lost. The quantitative section is pretty good but the best section was the very detailed sentence correction. Lots of videos with lots of explanations and helpful hints and tricks on how to approach SC problems. I actually learned the most from watching the SC videos although SC was already my strongest part of the GMAT.
One of the biggest assets from Magoosh were the thousands of questions one could sort by topic and difficulty level. I really liked having this kind of flexibility. The interface of the platform was super easy to use.
Sometimes it seemed like Kevin or the other guy (can't remember the name) sort of rushed through the video explanation... especially for CR and RC. The explanations often sounded like this: "Well, it's not A nor C, and it's definitely not D so when we look at B and E we have to pick B because that's just the right answer." :)

Magoosh was my first online course I worked through in addition to OG, and Manhattan strategy guides and I would definitely recommend the course to anyone who is just starting out. You get more than enough for your money!

Another big plus I want to point out is the EXCELLENT customer service of Magoosh. They rock! They really try hard to provide a satisfying answer to your questions and send additional material that may help you. Customer service is GREAT!

The downside of it all is that my score improved by only 20 points. I did pick up a few points in quant but nothing in verbal.
I have now decided to give another company a try and see how their on-demand course works and then compare the results to what I got with Magoosh.

In summary, I was actually pretty satisfied with the Magoosh course and I still use their question banks for practice. They really have hundreds or even close to 1000 practice questions.

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e-GMAT Verbal Online is a must to grasp the fundamentals of GMAT verbal. The course is very well structured and appropriately detailed. The post assessment quizzes are very good and the experts are very prompt in relying to question related queries. One can have his/her own approach to question solving but the concepts learned from this course will help in cracking all kinds of questions. GMAT is all about decision making and fundamentals rather than number of questions practiced. So If one wants to improve on verbal by internalizing the concepts then e-GMAT is the best course out there.

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I came to know about eGmat through one of my friend, an ex-student of eGmat, who scored 700+ on “D day”. Convinced with his feedback about the course, I decided to enrol into the program and, trust me, I never regretted my decision.
Strong determination and learnings from the course have helped me to move my verbal score from 19 to 32 on the test day.

To keep it short, I will share a few key notes:

1. Well-structured and researched course that helps you to understand key concepts via short videos. Provides quizzes at the end of each chapter to test your understanding of the concept . You can further enrich your learnings though diagnostic test in a timed environment. (I have recently tried verbal scholaranium and really liked quality of the questions. It’s close to patterns followed in past Official questions. Planning to complete it by month end.)

2. Focus is upon imbibing the concept of pre-thinking and understanding the meaning before approaching a problem. It took me some time to develop the habit but if you want to avoid silly mistakes and save time, then this would work like a charm.

3. Webinar are engaging and you should attend them as many time as possible. Every time you will discover something new. Mentors guide you to put your learnings from the course into practice and solve official questions by using eGmat approach.

4. Excellent platform to interact and learn from the mentors, who have already championed the game and know the rules. It would be tough to mention all the names but few names that I would like to mention are “Neeti”, “Payal” and “Chiranjeev”. I thank all of them for their patience and guidance during the initials days of enrolment and helping me to get my basics right.

In short, if you are a non-native speaker then eGmat is the place for you to ace verbal section. You can never go wrong with it.

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Let me start with how my approach was towards SC questions in GMAT. Whenever i read an SC question I would jump directly to the options and choose the one that sounded right. But later on i realized except for a few blatantly framed wrong sentences all the remaining options sounded right. This is where e-Gmat helped me. Little did I know that there was a technique behind solving SC questions. The technique of breaking down sentences to easily comprehend what the sentence meant was plain amazing. The technique is also useful in reading comprehension passages if at all there were any long sentences.The critical Reasoning section also deserves a special mention. The flow diagram used to understand how the premise is related to the conclusion is definitely an eye-opener.The content (SC,RC &CR) is represented in a pictorial format.With this strategy the learning is easier and enjoyable too. The whole team works amazingly together. They conduct seminars regularly . Simply put, as a non native english speaker the technique one learns in e-Gmat is very helpful not only for Gmat but also for life.

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I would like to share my experience with eGMAT verbal live prep course. First, a brief about myself. I am a working professional with a normal job. I end up spending 11 -12 hours out of my house on a normal working day. I normally study 1 hour in the morning and about 1-2 hours in the evening. Thus, I end up doing most of my preparation on the weekend.
English is not a native language for me and I consider myself decently good in quant section. I had realized early on that verbal may be a challenge for me. I attended the free strategy session and decided to focus on quant and hone my skills. I took eGMAT free Quant quiz and could attempt only 17/20 questions but could get 16 on them correct. I tried SC and got only 30%. I evaluated a few other courses and read many reviews online and decided to join eGMAT verbal live.
Now, I spent a lot of time on SC. I found the course very good. All sections detailed concepts from scratch. I followed the routine diligently taking up all sessions, and attempting quizzes before live sessions. And I thought I got a hang of it. I took an ability quiz and got 47%. I got a shock. I sought help from eGMAT guys and they helped me realize my weak areas (although I think the process and response time could have been faster). I worked on weak areas, revised the course once again and most importantly practiced the entire OG again focussing on my weak areas. This time I got 78%. Oops, I missed the 80% mark by 2%.
I have covered CR and RC section as well and scored 67% and 70% in first go itself. I am listing the best features that help me.
1. Small section quizzes. These small feedbacks really help you see your weak areas. At first, I took note of the low scores, read the section again and moved on. But only after completing SC course I could realize that a weak area in the foundation could pull down all related areas.
2. Ability Quiz- The question bank is good with detailed explanations and discussion on most common errors made in the peer group. I have learnt a lot from these.
3. Live sessions- It’s a class room experience online. I like the interface and the way sessions are conducted. Now, you cannot expect to get 100% out of every second. But I would say I really need to interact live with people and see how I perform in a peer group. That keeps me motivated.
Overall, I would recommend eGMAT verbal live to anyone looking to augment their preparation in verbal.
I am in final stages on my preparation and would be focussing on weak areas of Verbal, getting back into practice on quant. I have also marked some days for IR and AWA. I have scheduled my test next month and hoping for the best.

I hope my experience would be useful.
Akhil

eGMAT Verbal Live Prep- Best Features Reviewed

This is an extension of the review of eGMAT Verbal Live Prep that I had written 3 months ago when I was still preparing for the GMAT. Now that I have taken the GMAT and Scored 740 (Q51, V39), I would like to review the best features of the course and how it helped me to improve from V35 to V39 (first attempt to second attempt).

Link to earlier review --> http://gmatclub.com/reviews/comments/e-gmat-verbal-live-prep-345350838
Link to my GMAT experience --> http://gmatclub.com/forum/from-650-to-740-what-made-the-difference-220133.html#p1696011

Let me come straight to the point, the best features
1. Depth of SC course content- SC being my weakest area, I read many reviews and posts on how to improve on SC. After my first attempt, I knew that I need help to improve beyond a certain point. eGMAT Verbal Live prep did just that. I have spent majority of my course time (almost 4 months on SC). I had to go through the content multiple times to digest some concepts.

2. Focussed study and Focussed testing- This is another area on which the eGMAT course does an excellent job. Every course has individual tests and practice quizzes. You score is reflective of your understanding. I realized the importance of this aspect after I finished all the content once and tried a scholaranium test. I scored only 47% :(. Although, this was an improvement from earlier score of 30%, this was a huge disappointment. After identifying the weak areas, I had to go through the complete course once more and multiple times through the weak areas to get a score of 80% on scholaranium.

3. Internal Forums- I have always appreciated the discussion on GMATClub on different questions and get insight into nuances involved. You get a breadth of knowledge and different opinions and perspectives to the same problem. However, they are sometimes more confusing due to conflictual information available as people debate over a certain question. Internal forums play a vital role in providing detailed and focussed solutions. Many times, I could just search a question and get answer to a doubt since it had already been discussed.

4. Focus on self-study- While this is true for all courses that you would take in life, this is especially true for the GMAT. It is a test YOUR ABILITY, and you can gain only little if you depend on somebody’s effort to teach you content. eGMAT instructors have always stressed on completing all modules and individual quizzes before the live interaction. Believe me, you don’t need more contact time. But its important the you are prepared to extract the most out of the live session.

5. Pre-thinking, the most helpful tool- If I have to tell the one most important technique learnt, it is pre-thinking. Although, I learnt it in CR after SC, I later applied it in RC and SC as well. The basic concept revolves around your ability to understand the question, identify the error (logical gap, assumption, error in SC, etc) and correct the error without looking at the answer choices. It may seem to be a difficult task, but that’s the way to go. Think about it, if you cant identify the error, how could you correct the same. The answer choices are designed to be confusing. Imagine what happens if you jump to answer choices with partial understanding. You could attend one of the free sessions on Pre-thinking by eGMAT.

6. Reading Strategies and Width of Practice passages on RC- Another weak area is RC passages from social sciences. While my accuracy was 80-90% on technology and life science essays, it was less than 50% on passages from social sciences. On certain difficult passages, I could get only 1 out of 4 correct, this too without timing myself. Reading Strategies learnt helped me a lot in two aspects. First, I could read and understand passages from different areas without the need of any background, even to understand the meaning of an alien term. Second, not to get stuck on details and focus on the bigger picture (the main point).

7. Scholaranium- This is an amazing platform that focusses on testing ability rather than accuracy. It tracks you performance and has multiple useful features such as sections quizzes and you could also customize a quiz to your needs. This allows you to work on you weak areas and test your improvement.

8. Expert Support- Last but not the least, there were multiple times in my long association with eGMAT when I needed advice on how to proceed with my preparation. Apart from all technical help, experts at eGMAT have given good support when I needed the most. Specifically, for somebody who took a long time to improve on SC, they have continuously tried to assess objectively and weak areas and helped me improve.

I hope this review would help people struggling with verbal.
Akhil

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I am an engineering graduate with decent quant skills. I have given GMAT once and scored 47 on quant. This has made me realise that quant cant be taken for granted. I was on a search for a quant course that would guarantee a jump and zeroed in on egmat after going through their verbal section.

the concepts are explained in a simple and efficient manner the tricks to solving the questions are something to learn. Overall the material is good with sufficient questions of varied difficulty to test your mettle. After going through the weak areas i have managed to score a consistent 50 in the mocks i am yet to give my GMAT.

I would recommend anyone to attend this course and bet that they should be able to score at their 90th percentile.

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As a non-native English speaker, I found it hard to crack the verbal section.

My accuracy was around 40% and even after going through the course content of various institutes I wasn't able to improve my accuracy.

That's when I came to know about e-GMAT. After few weeks of studying this course, I could see a significant improvement in my understanding of concepts and accuracy.

The way e-GMAT explains the concepts is engrossing and interactive and it makes solving questions pretty simple. The concepts are explained in a fairly easy manner and one can apply the same method in all types of questions whether simple or difficult. The basic approach in solving SC QUESTIONS remains the same.

Once I completed the concepts and exercises in the course, I stared solving problems from OG and I could achieve an accuracy level of 80 - 90% every time. I have recommended e-GMAT course to couple of my friends and would not hesitate to recommend this product to anyone who is struggling with verbal.

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Initially, I was apprehensive selecting an online course which did not involve a live tutor. However, I am pleasantly surprised with how e-GMAT has mastered the art of improving one's verbal ability, all through a well-designed course.

The course content was clear and well-presented. My progress through the course was monitored, and the course ensured that I move to an advanced(Complex) topics only after I have mastered the basic ones.

The method of teaching as well as the simplicity with which difficult topics are explained helps students master them with ease. Of the lot, my best pick, would be the SC course. I tops my list of things I suggest any fellow GMAT takers as a guaranteed way to improve his or her ability.

One of the highlights of the course is the vast and resourceful scholaranium tool which requires you to solve questions and tracks your verbal ability real-time. It helps the test taker identify the weak areas, focus and improve on them.

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I had been always Q49+ from the start of the preparation.

I got only less than V25 till my first attempt, which was disappointing.

Post my first attempt i started with E-gmat verbal online. It was very comprehensive study tool and i recommend it to all non-native speakers(For the reasons given below).

Scholaranium is a tool which is unique and has been developed by E-gmat for testing any candidates true skill level.

Now, i am able to solve SC questions very fast with good accuracy.

Coming to CR the concept of prethinking is very unique of eGMAT. Prethinking not only helps you in reducing your solving time but also greatly improves your accuracy.

Overall, this is a must course for all non-native speakers and where verbal seems to be the only hurdle for conquering GMAT.

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