Magoosh - Integral Part of 560-730 Score Rise

Magoosh is a bang-for-your-buck winner in the world of GMAT prep. I used Magoosh in conjunction with MGMAT to score a 6/8/730 (44v 47q) on my GMAT. Magoosh was the foundation and MGMAT was the topping. I was highly verbal skewed at the beginning (never dipped below 87th percentile in any of my practices start to finish and scored 98th percentile on the real deal) so quant was where I needed help, and where Magoosh delivered.

I am 30 years old, and many of the topics on the GMAT, particularly quantitative, I have not seen or graced since high school. Magoosh is perfect for someone like me: a person who needs to refresh or relearn old material and to learn it right the first time. The instructional videos were the foundation for my preparation and during my 10 week study. I watched all the quant videos and about half the verbal. After that preparation I was consistently scoring in the 640-660 range on my practices.

The Magoosh Quant is what really stands out. MGMAT quant answers are often as difficult or more difficult than the actual problem to understand; its just a wall of text and numbers. Magoosh's video guide made the solution clear 99/100 (every now and again the narrator would skip a little too much in his coverage for me, but again my quant skills are probably below average for GMAT Club readers).

The Magoosh verbal is slightly below its quant in quality, but is still very good. My issue with verbal was that when the questions reached the "very hard" difficulty the rationale and reasoning behind the answers became a little dodgy, in my opinion sometimes substituting ambiguity for difficulty. Even still, I did half of all of the Magoosh practice problems and the effort showed in the results.

Magoosh's primary deficit, and in comparison to its cost the deficit is minor, is that it does not take the prospective taker to their 700+ score that we all aim for. As above, after doing all the magoosh lessons I was in the 650 range plus or minus. It was not until I dug well into MGMAT that my score got pushed to 690, then 710, then eventually 730 on the real test. MGMAT has the "holy sh*t that problem is hard" practice questions that prepare you for the hardest issues the GMAC can toss your way, while Magoosh's very top level questions were not always so precise.

Aside form top-notch review and foundational preparation on quant, the most valuable reward of using Magoosh was a fundamental change in thinking process. Watched the hundreds of videos actually trains you to THINK LIKE THE INSTRUCTOR. The narrators are great at explaining their logic, and after 300 videos you learn to channel them and actually find yourself thinking in their voices. Though it sounds a little creepy, it was immensely helpful for me bringing my quant up to the necessary level.

Overall I gave Magoosh 4/5 stars because in order to reach the 720+ score I demanded of myself, I believe MGMAT was a necessary addition to the Magoosh Curriculum. But it was Magoosh that not only supplied 80% of my study materials at only 22% of the total cost, but also gave me the foundational knowledge and confidence to take on MGMAT's rigorous problem set.

Without Magoosh my success would never have happened. I highly recommend the $100 internet access program to all GMAT takers.