Magoosh offers a great product at an affordable price. I knew virtually nothing about the GMAT or the GMAT material, and Magoosh's helpful videos showed me everything. Here is what I really liked about Magoosh:

Visual Dashboard:
This dashboard helped me really keep track of my progress, and allowed me to see all tools at once. Even though the dashboard is a small part of the Magoosh product, to me it was vitally important.

Video Tutorials:
Because I have not been in school for awhile, I really struggled with a lot of the GMAT material. However, Magoosh has extremely helpful videos that walk you through the test, testing strategies, sections, concepts, and practice questions. The tutorials were very short (allowing me to focus on what I needed and also feel like I was "progressing" quickly by watching six 5-minute videos, as opposed to one 30-minute video), and also very comfortable to listen to.

Question Bank:
Magoosh has A LOT of questions (over a 1,000) and they all have a written explanation and video explanation. This was critical in my learning HOW to solve questions. They also offer many different ways to practice, even simulating the "adaptive" nature of the GMAT (as you get questions correct, harder questions get asked).

Customer Service:
This was what made this company. I got great customer service, before and after my test. They offer a lot of great deals, and even send a friendly email right before the exam to encourage/help you.

Overall, I truly believe I couldn't achieve my 710 without Magoosh!

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I Started the preparations in mid May 2013 and completed OG in 2 weeks. I was mighty impressed with CR as the questions were not only good but also interesting, with every question giving a beautiful insight on its own. Quant was easy and verbal was selectively good (around 80% of the time). I bought an e-GMAT verbal live prep course in the last week of May.

While I was scanning for more information about GMAT on GMATClub forums in the months of April, I came across e-GMAT. I subscribed to one of their posts and this led me to accept the invitation for one of their free sessions. Since I couldn’t join the session I was pleasantly surprised to get a recording of their session the very next day. I went through the recording at my own ease and thought of joining e-GMAT. The reason why I ultimately chose e-GMAT over other courses was their relatively lower price and their innovative promotion as being the best course for non-natives.

The content is good and neatly organized. They are truly the messiahs for SC. The sessions with Shradha and Payal are just too good. And the best part - shoot a doubt and you get responded in less than 24 hours. The ‘Meaning’ approach in SC is as good as it can get. The approach helps you save a lot of precious time and energy.

The CR and RC sections are equally good but just that they are more helpful to improve accuracy than time. However, the exam demands saving precious time and that is something that the candidate needs to improve on his/her own. Practice can be a better tool here.

The ready summary with pdf for each chapter is a great tool to revise quickly. I used to read those pdfs when I was at work and thus kept in touch with the SC concepts which I was likely to forget otherwise. I took my GMAT and scored a sweet 720 (Q51V36).

An added advantage with e-GMAT course is that you get 800score and Grockit access free of cost. 800score tests are easy but they expect higher accuracy of you. The quant is of the same level as GMAT but Verbal is easy. The Grockit tests are nearest to the real GMAT. Initially, I hated them but by the end of my preperation I had changed my opinion of them. The Quant is a notch higher than the real thing and the verbal is a notch lower but still they are as close as you can get. Though their scoring is wrong and even a few of their questions are marked wrongly - which can be frustrating at times, they are a good practice because they give you the same feel of urgency that the GMAT delivers. Their user interface is very poor and they should change it immediately. The way the test answers are displayed without any time analysis doesn’t help a candidate’s cause.

Overall, I have recommended e-GMAT to a lot of my friends who are preparing for GMAT. The stepping stone is the free strategy session, after that its e-GMAT all the way.

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I will take my GMAT next month. Still I would like to put write about the e-GMAT course.
SC:
Based on posts in the various forums, I started preparing for SC with Manhattan SC book. While this book provided a good understanding of various error types tested in SC qs, it’s very dense. Moreover, my accuracy was not improving beyond 70% and even was decreasing below in time pressure. After strategy session “Master GMAT SC”, I enrolled in the verbal online course.
My take on this course
1. As per my opinion, the 3-step process of solving SC is the best process I have ever come across. Using this process, my accuracy has improved up to 90% in OG 12 qs. Honestly speaking, this process increased my confidence so much that I am actually addicted to the process
2. Emphasizing on meaning rather than too much theoretical grammar jargon is a real deal breaker. Example – e-GMAT uses simple terms like verb-ing modifier, verb-ed modifier in stead or gerund, participle.
3. Each concept is taught in a very logical way. Because of this, one can approach SC question in a same way as one does quant problem.
4. Audio-visual combination in e-learning really makes the learning enjoyable.

While each SC question OG VR2 was solved using a 3-step process, it also requests that you do the same for OG13. ( I am so addicted to this 3-step process!)
CR:
1. Argument structure and ‘pre-thinking’ assumption are a real deal breaker for any types of CR questions.
2. The course emphasizes the pre-thinking for most type of CR question.
RC:
1. Key reading strategy really helped me read the passage actively, improving my accuracy for RC questions
In summary, the best part of this course is that it makes the verbal preparation very logical rather than improving literary skill of English, making the verbal preparation very enjoyable and interesting. After one month of preparation, when my confidence was at rock bottom, it boosted my confidence. Now I think that like many other successful students, I can nail the verbal too. I am sure that my result on the real GMAT test will show soon.
If anyone is struggling with verbal, I would strongly recommend this course.

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I think Manhattan does a really nice job. The course material is essentially exhaustive, I don't think there was anything I would have expected to cover that we didn't at least touch on in live class and wasn't fully covered in the curriculum. The course can slow down a bit at times (partially as a result of adverse selection from the type of people who takes GMAT classes) but the teachers in general did a great job coaching everything through the topics.

One thing in particular I liked was the results-oriented approach. I personally tend to prefer the algebraic approach to problems, but they consistently pushed us to recognize when back-end tactics would be faster. I never fully mastered that skill set but it definitely helped with my timing.

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I signed up for e-GMAT SC online course after trying MGMAT SC and GMATPill. After spending US$350 on GMATPill 6 pill combo and getting frustrated with Zeke's approach to SC questions, I thought, "Why not try e-GMAT?" This was the best decision I made during my prep.

When I started e-GMAT SC, my SC accuracy was roughly around 50%. After finishing the module in 2 weeks, my accuracy rose to around 70%. This was enough to get my verbal from 33 on GMATPrep mocks to 36 on the real GMAT!

I'll not give 5 stars just due to the UGE (user generated exercise). Come on, reading several sentences about the cricket stuff (bats, etc) might be interesting for some cultures, but not for every non-native.

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Overall I'm satisfied, but I think trusting in Magoosh as your only source for prep is going to take you as far as the mid 600s.

The quant part was good, so was SC. Mike McGarry videos were awesome.

The videos are dynamic and engaging, but there could be some notes to make easier to review concepts later.
They really need to work on CR and RC videos and questions.

There is a new feature, the score predictor that works fine - although it needs some work to perfect it.
The question bank is good, though small. If you're serious, you'll finish all the questions fast.

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I selected e-GMATfor mainly two reasons. I was impressed by the way Mr. Sadana took the class in strat session 1 and I liked their audio video approach rather than reading from a book after a 10 hr workday (6 day week).
The reason I was able to make a good pace in e-GMAT was I neither read any other book nor I had any apprehensions of any other process. So I didn't need to unlearn anything. So it was easy for me to adopt their process since that is the only way known to me
Sentence Correction: Three step sentence correction approach: In the first SC session, Ms. Payal asks everyone in the class about the most important aspect in SC, and 8 out of 10 said – Grammar and I am sure that most of the guys reading this post thinks the same.
But with her logic that grammar is only a tool which is used to convey the meaning (purpose), made us understand that understanding the meaning of a sentence is more vital than knowing bunch of grammatical rules. I can say that this changed my approach towards SC questions. None of us here are grammarians and most of us don’t know all the rules of grammar. Even if you know all the rules of grammar, there can be two answer choices which are grammatically correct but only one will convey the intended meaning.
There is more than one instance where I was able to pick the correct choice concentrating on the meaning of the sentence when I was confused between two or three answer choices.
Critical reasoning: Pre – thinking has greatly improved my accuracy and test time in CR passages. Many of you who are familiar with the process may think it will take a lot of time or it is very difficult to pre think. But take it from me, once we internalize the process (it will take time to get used to it and sometimes, we forget to pre think but keep on trying and after some time you will start to pre think even with out realizing), it’s basically not selecting from the given choices because you already know the answer--you just need to search for the answer or something similar to that. Believe it or not guys, I was able to finish my verbal 15 mins before the scheduled time and I pre thought.

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I signed up for Magoosh since the price was right (relative to some books, which can end up being quite pricey). I ended up using it almost exclusively for the Quant section since I studied English in undergrad.

The quant practice is great, and I believe it helped me a lot more than the books for a couple reasons. First, you can set the questions to either adapt to your progress or to stay constant. I mostly stuck on either Hard or Very Hard since I didn't want to risk dropping down to some Medium questions, but others may find that adaptive practice is useful for them. Also, you can either review questions after each answer or do the questions in bunches (sorted by time, or by number of problems you want to do). Pretty useful.

I think the Quant questions have real quality. They were very similar to the ones I got on the actual GMAT in regards to how they were worded. That's good, compared to say the Manhattan GMAT, which has great practice tests but the quant wording is a bit over the top (makes you try harder, I guess, but not as close to the real thing as, for example, Magoosh).

There are also video explanations for each problem (which is nice, but after the first few dozen problems I would just glance over the written solutions and 'get' it). And then each problem links to a "related lesson" video, which is mostly how I went through the lesson concepts.

I didn't watch too many Verbal videos or use it much for practice. I will say, though, that their general strategy videos for each question type are useful (for example, how to approach sentence correction really helped).

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For $99, the Magoosh website is by far the best value out there. The instructors are very clear, the videos are great, and the website is designed very nicely. My only real issue with Magoosh is that sometimes it felt a bit unprofessional due to spelling and/or punctuation errors. This was rare, but very obvious when I found them. Overall though, I found the service to be very helpful for my needs in studying. Some people may prefer to spend more money on a classroom program and that would make sense to me, but as far as online-only classes go, Magoosh is king. Thanks Magoosh!

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Appearing for the fourth time wasn't easy. After the previous unsuccessful attempts, it was devastating, took a lot of courage and a lot of support from my husband and family. They believed in me and had the confidence that I could kill the beast (that's what the GMAT was for me).

I have done a Post-Graduation in Finance from India; worked with CRISIL (India's premier credit rating agency) and settled in USA after marriage. I was among the 3 candidates from 250 to be chosen for the job in CRISIL. Writing this not to boast but just to let know that an exam is not a replica of a person’s capabilities and how to handle rejection and stand up after breaking down completely.

The GMAT taught me that, never imagined would have to give a fourth attempt, when have excelled at everything else in life.

I know 610 isn’t as good as 700 but for me it is an achievement, the much needed success to get back the belief in myself.

I am writing this post for people who are strugglers like I am and are thinking what to do next, or what is it that they are not doing right. Why me? Trust me, I asked these questions to myself every time and finally I was able to answer them.

Let me start with my fourth attempt:

I appeared on 11th July, 2013. On the exam day, I was a nervous wreck and was scared to death. Just didn’t want history to repeat itself and there it was a blessed 610 - 40 in Quant and 34 in Verbal. Finally, the hard work paid off.

I was so happy to see a 34 in verbal as it was the section that gave me the wonderful 400s everytime. I thought I was good at English but the GMAT changed my perspective. Never was I able to get above 20. For the 34, I would really like to thank e-GMAT verbal prep and the downloads on GMAT Club. I took it 20 days before my exam, after I contacted Rajat, asked him what would be the best option and when my husband finally made the decision for me as I wasn't ready for taking up a new course just 20 days prior. But e-GMAT really helped me gain a lot of confidence in my weakest section.

For Details:

The course that they have is structured very well. It really makes you see details that you have not seen. It is truely said that what you see is what you remember better then what you read. e-GMAT follows this. I finished all the videos of SC, RC and CR within 13 days. They also have practice files (which were really helpful).

For SC: The SC videos are just too good. I was always good at SC but the e-GMAT videos helped me to understand the intricacies and gave a few shortcuts that really helped during the exam. For the first time I was able to look at the question, know what was wrong and mark the answer straight away. This saved a lot of time. It basically showed me how to find the mistakes and how to correct them without even looking at the choices. Something I was not able to do in my previous attempts.

For CR: I hated the inference and the assumption questions. Thank God I didn't get any on the exam day but e-GMAT made these very simple. I used to always get confused between two answers and invariably mark the wrong ones. I know many people face this, but the course I took thought me how to not choose the wrong answer and how one word in the choice can make it incorrect. e-Gmat has a process called pre thinking, I wasn't able to master it due to shortage of time but in some questions during the actual exam it really helped me to mark the answers as I could pre think them.

For RC: This was my biggest problem. But again the videos of e-Gmat helped me a lot. They taught me how to take notes, what kind of answers can be for the questions asked and again how to pay attention to each and every word in the choices. For example: if there is a passage on: cure of some diseases and in one of the answer choices they say cure of all diseases you eliminate that choice. It is very obvious that you would do that, but GMAT has a tendency to frame answer choices in a way that make you mark the wrong one. I did that and I am sure many would be able to relate to this.

Apart from the e-GMAT videos I also downloaded all the 700+ files from the GMAT Club free download areas. These also helped a lot in my practice, and helped me get better.

My three attempts; what went wrong:

My first attempt was on May 29, 2012. I was confident and thought I could get a 600 easily, but I ended up with a 480. I did not take any classes, just downloaded materials from websites and studied from Kaplan (which was not helpful at all). The first time material wasn’t right and I took it rather lightly.

The University I was applying to said it would give me a chance to appear again. On July 2, 2012 I retook the test and scored a mere 400. I was devastated and lost on the admissions. I decided that I was not going to try again, but being on an H4 visa and having no plans to go back to India did not leave me a choice but to reappear. Analyzing on why I scored 80 points lower, I realized that I was scared, under time pressure, and focused too much on marking the right answer rather than focusing on the questions and answer choices.

Third attempt: This time I went as far as going back to India taking classes and appearing there. But the classes I took concentrated more on quant then on verbal (which was my weakness, quant was never that much of a problem), they gave me a lot of tests which I started appearing for one week before the exam. My performance on the tests was average I scored a 600-640. Thinking that this time I would get a 600 I went for the GMAT on January 17, 2013. I was very nervous during the exam and was really scared for verbal...I ended up with a 490. I was in tears and lost all my confidence. I didn't know what had happened.

After coming back from India, now I had taken it on to myself. I had lost all my self respect. I told my husband that this time I am going to fight it and get over with it.

In my previous attempts I was scared, under pressure, lacked on confidence and was so focused on marking the right answers that it resulted in a bad performance. Also, the material for the first two attempts were not up to the mark. Studying smartly is very important.

When I went for the fourth attempt, although I was scared, I was confident and this time I took each question as it came being more focused and well versed with the basics and the intricacies, with smarter and better practice.

In the end I would just like to add that GMAT has thought me to be courageous, patient, handle rejection as well as pressure and strengthened my never-give-up attitude. Beating the GMAT is not very simple but it's not very difficult either--it just has to be done the right way. Also, I would like to thank e-GMAT and my family for standing by me through this one.

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