E-GMAT : Course That Transformed My Success

Strengths:

Product UI
Course Content
Scholaranium
Strategy and Mentorship

Would make the product better:

Quant Lessons
Option to schedule 1 or 2 ,1-1 with Instructor/experts

I decided to go with e-gmat course based on the GMAT forum reviews and my experience using the free trial . I’ve studied using the e-gmat online course for almost 16 months and hence this review will be as detailed as possible outlining the advantages , mistakes to avoid, and how to effectively use this course.

I started with a free consultation call with e-gmat to understand how to use this course and to get a study plan. I like how the mentor was detailed in his approach and was focused on explaining , not selling. I took a free trial and was impressed with the platform UI and resources available.

Platform review : The UI is extremely easy to use with a good structure to it . The split of Verbal and Quant, further sub section splits, study planner, scholaranium with both e-gmat and OG question bank in one place, bookmark and notes section, accuracy metrics etc - each of these things were really helpful for me in planning my time, revising concepts and improving on weak topics .
I’ve used Study planner every day to input the hours I was putting in and the planner accordingly adjusts the expected time of course completion .
I would bookmark the questions which I wanted to review once and would use the notes tab to input my though process, improvement areas and approach issues . The questions where you’ve put notes will move to separate tab which can be used for your final review list in last days.

Course Content Review:
Verbal :
SC - The meaning based approach is the only way to ace 700+ level questions . The questions in the official exam move away from basic grammatical errors as you level up , and even if there are some grammatical errors it would be very difficult to identify them. I was extremely weak in SC initially, getting only 50-60% accuracy even in medium questions , but with lot of effort , cementing the process, following the e-gmat approach - my accuracy went to 80% in Hard questions .
The process to solve a question is extremely standardised, if you do the Course (practice files and application files ) as suggested it will become second nature .

CR - The Prethinking framework is useful for Medium level questions. I personally, wasn’t able to benefit much from it in Hard level . 
But what would help definitely is the framework , the mapping and visualisation habit of premise and understanding of the question statement .
The framework to make a falsification scenario, the swing test for evaluate questions, the table mapping in boldface questions were extremely useful.

RC - I am not an avid reader and I would average 6-7 mins reading time in long passages initially . With some of the concept files like Master Comprehension and Keyword importance taught by Harsha I was able to achieve high accuracy in RC and reduce time to 4-5 mins.

Quant : If you’re aiming for 48+ in Quant , there is very little chance to do it with just OG questions . I was consistently getting Q50-51 in official mocks and almost 90% accuracy in OG questions , but the official GMAT test was far from them .
The e-gmat course is extremely detailed, the foundation and approach is strengthened in the course and then by practicing Hard e-gmat questions from Scholaranium I was able to achieve Q49 . Probably , would’ve managed a Q50 if I didn’t get 4 Set theory questions :/

Strategy and Mentorship :
Dhruv Joshi, e-gmat mentor, has been instrumental in motivating me, providing study plan and helping me achieve 730 . He was a constant help and support for a period of 1.5 years . I would often have good accuracy but troubled time management. This is where Dhruv helped me understand how skill is function of both time and accuracy , in identifying timing issues, reducing TAKT time, and employing skipping strategy where required . He was able to provide me realistic and effective study plans based on my improvement areas and availability.

Few Important tips :
Do not break the structure of the course - Trust the process and, accuracy and timing will get better with time . A big reason I was having inconsistent accuracy , extreme anxiety and low scores in my first attempt was me not following the exact structure .

Use mocks when required - E-gmat gives 5 mocks, which Imo are bit less . The quality of these mocks is at par with official exam , hence plan these mocks when there is a notable improvement in preparation. Use custom quizzes to improve the Test readiness , which can replace need of mocks to some extent .

Be in touch with mentor : Be in constant touch of your assigned mentor. Even a chit chat on prep issues, exam anxiety, day to day tips from mentor can act as a stress reliever .


Small platform suggestion for e-gmat : I would solve, say, 100 questions total in SC, and when I would take a custom 20 question quiz of attempted questions some of the questions would come multiple times and some not that often . So if there is a counter at backend to count the number of times a question has come in quiz , it will make sure the questions appear uniformly . This will make sure during revisions we see all questions.