EGMAT Verbal Live Prep

I am Priya Brata Sen. I am currently a graduate student at Minnesota State University. I am from Bangladesh. Today, I am going to share my GMAT experience so far. In 2013, I finished my undergraduate program with an Accounting degree. At that time, I enrolled in that same university back in Bangladesh. I along with my some friends started thinking about pursuing higher studies in the USA. We started preparing for GMAT and enrolled in a GMAT coaching.
When I was in the coaching, I found that my quant skill was reasonably good, but my verbal skill was not up to the mark. I talk to my instructors. The only advice I got every time from everywhere is the more you practice, the better your skill will be. Currently, I totally disagree with that. Practice is important, but without knowing the proper approach, only practice doesn’t make enough difference. At that time, the only book used to learn the concepts was the Manhattan GMAT. For the SC, I found that this book is more about a grammar book then a GMAT book. I thought SC is all about grammar, a misconception that cost me a lot. In Case of CR, I was totally clue less. I have no idea how I should approach the questions. Most importantly, I used to get almost 90% assumption questions wrong. Now, I know that if you don't have a good understanding on assumption, you cannot do well on evaluate, strengthen and weaken type questions. Finally, in case of RC, I was told that English is not our first language, and that is why we always struggle in this part. Basically, there is nothing to do with RC. So, you can understand where I was in terms of my preparation. I was trying heart and soul and doing hundreds of questions, but I was in the same position. As time passed, I was frustrated gradually. I took my first mock ended up with a V15, Q47. V15 didn't change in the next few attempts. So, Getting a V20 was a dream for me.
At this time, I saw a free Assumption Webinar conducted by EGMAT. I registered in that program as I had a major lacking in Assumption questions. That Webinar changed my conception about GMAT CR. We spent three hours to learn how to tackle assumption questions, and the pre-thinking and negation test were like magic to me. I was amazed by that webinar. At that time, I understood if I get any help in my GMAT preparation, it will be from EGMAT only. Due to some financial issues, I couldn't purchase the course but I went through all of their free files and Webinars. These helped me to improve my GMAT score. I used to get V27-V28 at that time. So, I set for the test. Although it was not great enough but I got my score which I needed to get admission in Master of Accounting program at my current university.
As I am in the graduate program, still I am not done with my GMAT. I want to get into a good PhD program as I want to build my career in teaching profession. The issue is now with GMAT again. I have a Bachelor and MBA degree, major in Accounting and I am currently also a Master of Accounting student. However, PhD programs still want high GMAT score as very few universities provide PhD program in Accounting. Therefore, I have bought the Live Prep course of EGMAT because I believe that if someone can help me to reach to my dream score, it is only EGMAT. After going on with EGMAT, I have improved a lot and at the same time I have understood that I had a lot of misconception previously regarding the verbal part. I am going to explain one by one.
In SC part, I understood from the course that understanding the intended meaning is the main issue in SC problems. Previously, I thought it is a test of grammar, but actually the amount of grammar needed for SC is very low in amount. The three step process of EGMAT helps me to understand the given sentence by breaking it in separate clauses and to logically answer the question. I believe this the best way to approach the SC problems. This takes sometimes to get habituated with, but it works best once someone is habituated with the process.
The next part is the CR part, as I told earlier, the CR part of the course brought a huge difference for me. Before that I didn’t know how to approach the problems but now I know how to approach different types CR problems. The negation test for assumption questions, variance analysis for evaluation question, approaches related to cause and effect type questions and bold face questions are helping me to improve my skill. Without these, it would not be possible for me to improve my skill just by reading the CR books available in market.
Finally, the biggest thing is the RC part. The most impressive thing about this part of the course is understanding the passage and making summary of the passage. This approach specifically increased my accuracy level for “main idea” question type. Beside this, EGMAT helps me to learn how to get immersed into the passage. Previously, I got lost when I used to read a long and difficult passage. The course is also helping me to improve my ability in “Inference” type and “Descriptive” questions.
Finally, I want to talk about the “Scholaranium”, where one can test his or her skill level by taking exams. To me, “Scholaranium” is important because the questions included in the system are GMAT like questions. After my first GMAT attempt, I understood that non-GMAT like questions can decline my ability. Therefore, it is highly important to work with GMAT like questions. “Scholaranium” represents very much the GMAT like questions, and the ability scoring is very close to the scoring of GMAT prep, which is the official software. Moreover, The Live perp course helps me to understand the application of the related concepts through the online live classes. Anyone can raise any types of questions. The instructors are very much approachable. I believe the live session is more productive because it helps to know how to approach and apply the relevant concepts depicted in the concept file. The audio visual concept files and the live class make the learning more enjoyable and understandable.
In conclusion, I am going to sit for the test again on December and I am thankful to EGMAT for everything. At least, now I can approach questions with more confidence. In my first attempt, I had no clue what I was doing and why I was selecting an answer in the verbal part. Now, I have better understanding and more confidence when I approach a GMAT question. From my experience, I believe that only practicing more and more questions is not going to help. The most important thing is to know that what things are necessary to do well in the test and how to approach specific types of questions. EGMAT usually tells this course is developed for the Non-native people. However, from my experience, I can suggest that it can be helpful for the native people also because still when I bring some SC or RC questions to my friends who are from the USA, they have no idea what is happening in those questions. Moreover, they also agree with me that the approaches are very much logical when I show them the approaches which I use to answer questions. So, even it is important for everyone to know what is tested in GMAT and how to prepare to tackle GMAT questions. It is not about native or non-native. Nowadays, The Live Prep course becomes more effective after introducing new system where one can practice problems in the application file, and the system shows the ability score of the person on that specific issue. As a result, now it is possible to understand more accurately what the ability level is. I highly recommend EGMAT Verbal Live prep who are searching for a live course to ace GMAT.