e-GMAT review | 705 GFE

Strengths:

- Great availability of resources
- Great mentor support
- Effective methodology (especially filling knowledge gaps at first and then practicing)

Would make the product better:

- More time-efficient options (esp. for people without much time to prepare)
- More clarity on how to follow the Study Plan
- More tips on Quant on alternative ways to face problems (e.g. choice elimination)

Methodology
- Simply put, the methodology consists of learning content for each sub-module (e.g. CR), practicing this content to reinforce learnings (called “Cementing”), and then practicing all parts of each module together (e.g. Verbal)
-In my opinion, this works quite well, especially in cases like mine where I had no idea what was tested on the GMAT. With this, I could fill all “knowledge gaps” I had on each topic and reinforce the new learnings before moving on to the next one
-As a con, this approach followed to the letter may not be the most time-efficient, so those with less time available probably would need to adapt it. Also, I would’ve liked more focus on tips for facing the test (e.g., solve some Quant questions by choice analysis or other shortcuts, practice on timing and skipping, etc.)
-For Verbal questions, learning was based on "Pre-thinking", which is basically doing specific reasoning (depending on the type of question) before reading and selecting choices. In my experience, these strategies were valuable in the first stage of learning, although in my particular case I had to adapt them quite a bit for the real exam: as in my case I have some difficulties with English, I needed more time to read and understand the texts, and if I developed the complete pre-thinking then I spent too much time per question; as I could not improve this much, I developed a "simplified" pre-thinking in which my focus was on understanding the logical thread of the arguments. Basically, I would recommend doing these pre-thinkings at the beginning to reinforce learning, but then practicing to find the optimal distribution of time between reading the text, pre-thinking and reading/analysis of alternatives
-The platform also teaches some reading strategies that can be helpful in Verbal, especially in RC. In my case, it was difficult to apply them all and always, but I think that having some in mind helps improve reading speed and comprehension (practice them is key)

Resources
- In my opinion, the strongest point of e-GMAT. You can find both the material to learn and a good set of questions to practice, as well as 5 mocks (I took 4/5, and I consider that they were of pretty good quality). In addition, together with the e-GMAT subscription you are entitled to a few months of GMAT Club quizzes, which I found to be an excellent complement
- As a con, I think sometimes questions are more “complex” than in the real exam (e.g., in Quant, some Hard questions are too long, while in the real exam I found hard questions to be “trickier” rather than longer). For this reason, in my case it was useful to complement the study with the GMAT Focus Edition Official Guide (you can find OG questions in GMAT Club too).

Support
- With your e-GMAT subscription you are assigned a mentor, and in my case, my mentor was of great help for my improvement since she helped me define concrete actions based on my results. I would recommend being proactive in seeking help from your mentor, given that I found the base resources (like the study plan) quite generic
- I would also like to mention that I was part of The Last Mile Program, which consists of having a more personalized plan and greater follow-up by your mentor. I consider both points to have been very important towards the end of my study since, as I mentioned before, my mentor was developing specific action plans based on how I was doing, and the continuous follow-up also forced me to be more consistent in my study

I hope this review is useful. Good luck in learning and preparing!!­