eGMAT Verbal Live Prep: Best Features Added

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