Hi Fellow Test-takers,

Hope your preparations are going good. I just wanted to update you on how my GMAT journey has been. So, the milestone 700 has been in my target list from 2016, right when I got my first job. To give a background, I am a finance guy with 4 years of Work experience based out of Bangalore aged about 24.

Attempt1 :

Well, I did not research a lot about the exam and how I should prepare for it. Meanwhile, my work kept me busy and in the process the professional exams intrigued me and enrolled for a couple -CIPM and CFA. After finishing those, my focus got shifted to GMAT after gaining 2 years of work experience. So one of my friends who also struggled as I suggested that Princeton Review Private tutoring is good. So, me and him enrolled for the course. Well, it did not work for me as they have a very simple mindset and assumed everyone knows basics about the exam and the syllabus.

After giving a couple of mocks I realized something's wrong in my preparation. So went to GMAT club read a couple of reviews and purchased E-GMAT verbal course in 2019. I went through the complete course couple of times and took the Exam in Aug 2019 only to find out that my preparation was not good enough to beat the 700 score though my performance in Scholaranium was good. So I ordered the ESR and asked for Rajat's opinion. He said I should give it a try again.

Sources: PR Material, E-GMAT Verbal Course, GMAT Club Tests, MGMAT for Quant.
Score: 600 (Q48 V25)

Attempt2: (2020 - 2021)

This time I decided that I will not spend a lot of money on Prep and hence completely relied on GMAT Club, Free webinars from various Test Prep Companies and GMAT Club points to buy Veritas Tests and GMAT Tests.

So before starting my prep, I looked at my ESR and reflected on how I prepared myself in the past for the exam. I realized that I considered GMAT to be of the same type as those professional exams that I took and I prepared in the same way. So, I realized that I need to approach it differently by going about practicing questions gave an official mock and my Quant score is still at 48 but my verbal score was 30. I started preparing in August 2020 focusing completely on Verbal SC and RC. I made sure that I do a couple of passages from GMAT club daily irrespective and trust me, it just increases your comprehension speed for SC and CR as well. After a month into my preparation I got CORONA and luckily recovered from it.

Post which, I started my preparation in February 2021 again, using MGMAT Quant and Verbal books, RON Videos, OGs for practice. I gave a mock sometime at the end of February and realized I could only get my score to 650. My major issues are with CR.

E-GMAT's Entry into My Prep again:

I attended E-GMATs Quant Workshop during the beginning of March, post which I got a link for a free strategy call with one of their experts -Vaibhav, who showed me a profile of one their students in Scholaranium. I realized that there is a sequence to follow for improvements in each of the verbal and Quant sections. I saw a gradual progress in each of the sections using what they call Cementing Quizzes. He suggested me to take a Sigma X mock and shared the link for the test. In-fact he even followed me up to check whether I have taken the test. So, I gave it on a Sunday and got 660 with a very low CR score. I went through my performance using the analytics of Sigma X mocks. I think they gave me a pretty accurate representation of my performance in each of the sub sections. And then I had a call with Vaibhav again and we analyzed my score in Sigma X mock and he offered me a one month course.

After a lot of speculation I decided to take up the course and pushed my exam by a month to April 22 2021. So, the first thing Vaibhav asked me to do was to drop an email to E-GMAT's support team for the plan and to decide how I should prepare. I tell you they are very prompt and they analyzed my performance again in Sigma -X mock and my ESR and they assigned me a mentor DJ (name sounds fancy I know) who forwarded me something called E-GMAT's bible for preparing GMAT. It was pretty elaborate: mentioned when I should take Quizzes to cement my methods, what are the target scores I should aim for in each of the Quizzes and what I should do in case I did not get the target scores. I decided to follow it blindly and also built a study plan using the E_GMAT's platform.

Verbal Prep:

I am not promoting or anything, I think everybody who's been through E-GMAT's verbal course would tell that the course's Master comprehension and SC module are really good. After going through the course I can see my scores improved in SC and RC tremendously but I still had trouble with CR. Here I reached out again and he gave me a plan as to how I should revise and take quizzes for CR. Believe me it worked.

QUANT Prep:

To be very frank I liked their Quant course better than their verbal. It implemented something called XPert architecture in which every sub concept in Quant starts with a Diagnostic quiz including Medium and Hard questions and suggests you which sections you can skip and which you cannot based on your performance. I realized that I had gaps in Word Problems and Geometry and frankly I liked how Shwetha ma'am used real world explanations in Geometry. One small thing I didn't like about Quant questions in E-GMAT is that they are pretty dense and the actual GMAT questions are not that dense and focus more on logic and E-GMAT's solutions are more process oriented. There are gaps in the course, which you can cover from GMAT Club Quant book.

Overall:

I did not get sufficient time to go through official questions this time but I was sure that E-GMAT scholranium questions covered all the topics. What I liked about Sigma-X mocks is that for every test you take, an additional 200 questions get added to your Scholaranium. By today, I have about 1000 questions in Quant and 1000 questions in Verbal and I finished four of Sigma X mocks in which I score, 660, 680, 750 and 700. The forum moderators are also prompt in answering the queries and it did cover all my doubts.

Score: 690 (Q49 , V36)
Sources: E-GMAT's GMAT Online Course, GMAT Club Quant Workbook and the material in the below link:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/ultimate-gmat-quantitative-megathread-244512.html#p1886497 - QUANT Guide by GMAT Club

Mocks: Sigma X mocks (660, 680, 750, 700), Veritas Prep (700, 710, 720) Mocks, Official Mock tests 5 & 6 (710, 720), GMAT Club tests (Q48~50).

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After a dismal attempt 1, I took the eGMAT course.

I started with the verbal course. I did every video in the course.
Out of the three sections, the content on SC worked the most for me. The meaning based approach helped me improve considerably on SC.

For CR, Practicing from eGMAT Scholaranium helped me improve considerably on CR.

Once I completed the course, eGMAT chalked out the number of quizzies that I need to give before I move to the next stage in the preparation - this really helped me as it ensured that I only move on once I am thorough with a section.

For Quant, eGMAT has revamped its quant section. I had given the previous quant course, this once is more robust. I was able to drastically improve in number properties after the new course.

After finishing both the sections, I worked with DJ on how I can prepare towards the final leg of writing the exam. He helped me with a step-by-step guide.

In addition, he would also help with the quizzies, the accuracy I should attain etc. This I thought was imperative to score well on the mocks. Once I started giving the mocks, DJ after each mock would send a video with an analysis of the mock along with the next steps to improve.

Additionally, as and when I plateaued in a section, I received the inputs from the experts on how I can mitigate and improve. That again worked really well for me.

I plan to continue to leverage Scholaranium and build quizzies to improve for my next attempt.

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I believe the e-GMAT verbal course is very well suited to someone who is unclear on the strategy for verbal preparation. While doing your research online, you may come across a lot of resources to study from. You tend to get confused, but this course is well structured in terms of concepts and practice questions for each of the sections under the verbal umbrella. This course provides a systematic approach to solving the question; this approach helps one spot the correct answer than coming to the answer by eliminating the incorrect ones. The approaches not only improve the accuracy but also helps in time management as GMAT often puts similar options to confuse the candidate which will consume a lot of time in answer by elimination approach.

In addition, what stood out for me was the constant support from the e-GMAT team. Their online support via email is great. The team is quite responsive and ready to help you as you proceed with the preparation. They will solve simplest of doubts and answer your questions thoroughly.


In all, I would say if you are indeed looking forward to improving your verbal and are a little clueless or lost on how to, the e-GMAT verbal online course can help you do wonders.

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Today I received my GMAT score: 700/800, a 140 point increase achieved in little more than three months!! I couldn’t be more happy, but at the same time more grateful to the e-GMAT team.

Their support throughout my learning journey was immense. The strategy team is always (ALWAYS = 7/7) there to support you and provide corrective measures to your learning plan. The software itself, provides the ultimate in class teaching and mentor simulation. They prepare you for this ability test by indeed teaching those required abilities by means of diagnostic quizzes, concept files teaching the core concept skills, followed by practice quizzes to apply those concepts and eventually solve GMAT level 700+ questions. This method, they apply for all Verbal and Quant. Their Quant just got updated to Quant 2.0. I got to know e-GMAT as the best way to optimise your Verbal skills; today I equally value their Verbal and Quant course. Both allowed me to excel!

In the last two weeks, I got additional coaching from DJ (Dhananjay Lowe). After my first GMAT attempt in March, he reached out to me to join the Last Mile Program. He provided me with a hyper-specific plan to boost my score and get that 700 score. E-GMAT allowed me to significantly increase my score, the mentorship by DJ gave this extra boost to excel truly.

What I really liked about e-gmat, is their data-oriented approach. Thanks to the data they collect and share with their students, there should be no surprises during your GMAT exam. Their know-how allows them and yourself to estimate your ability and therefore reflect an estimate of your score. The mock prep tests by e-GMAT (Sigma-X Mocks) also provided an accurate estimate of my score.

In short: I would have NEVER achieved this 140 point increase without the e-GMAT software, their strategy team, and DJ. First, I bought official prep content by GMAC, but soon I realised I needed more. E-GMAT was exactly what I needed. Although no one would officially recommend studying for GRE using GMAT tools, I also took GRE between my two GMAT attempts and got a score of 322 on this exam.

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I utilized e-GMAT for my first attempt and scored a 650 with 3-4 months of preparations.

I found the course beneficial on two major fronts -

1. Filtered study material - e-GMAT's prep material is refined to what you'll actually need for the test. Unlike the books, this course is straightforward and teaches only what is required and in an efficient manner.

2. Engaging - with all the analytics, prep videos, and routine targets, I found this product very engaging and keeps you on a defined timeline.

The SC course is hands down one of the best course out there. It teaches you the right error types and optimum process to boil it down to the right answer.

In CR, the pre-thinking approach is efficient and certainly helps when one is encountered a hard level CR question.

Scholaranium is a great question bank with exceptional capabilities. It's inbuilt analytics shows you exactly at which point you are faltering and which topics needs the most attention.

Sigma-X Mocks are one of the best mock tests out there in the market. The analytics is great and the definite time limit pushes one to replicate actual test conditions.

Finally the support is "Extraordinary" - answers to your queries are prompt and experts go above and beyond to help you succeed. I had calls with Payal, Rajat, and Shaarang for my re-takes and everyone was very supportive and gave me the required feedback based on my previous tests and eGMAT data.

After my first attempt, I gave couple more attempts but couldn't improve my score past 660. Though my quant was constant at 49, my verbal was fluctuating. I finally took help from a private GMAT tutor to help me increase my verbal score and was able to score a 700.

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I stumbled upon e-GMAT after taking my first attempt of the real GMAT exam and scoring poorly. I knew I had to dive deeper into concepts in CR and SC specifically and also improve my concepts in Quant to reduce "silly mistakes". After comparing a lot of courses, I finally decided to give e-GMAT a shot because of how well their material was presented and the effort they had put into their course videos and mock exams (which I got to experience first hand during the 7 day trial period). The emphasis on collecting meaningful data from the quiz and exam performances and the elaborate reviews which followed were what instilled confidence in me that I had chosen the correct course to help prepare me for the GMAT.

A few aspects of the course which I specifically liked and used were:

1. The verbal course: I think its the most exhaustive verbal course I have come across. The deep dive into the concepts of SC especially helped me tackle the harder questions which I previously had to guess my way through.

2. CR - I understood that the different types of CR questions warranted a different way of thinking. The key learning of coming up with assumptions after reading the passage before looking at answer choices was a great tip which eventually saved me a lot of time during those questions.

3. RC - I was relatively comfortable with RC because I enjoy reading hence I never had too much trouble here. However, the amount of passages in the course helped to sharpen my skills in reading passages of various topics/subjects quickly and to grasp the main point of the passages.

4. The entire quant course was really helpful. If you're rusty with certain topics, definitely go through the quant course.

5. The part of the course which helpedme the most was the Scholaranium. It's basically a huge database of questions which help to "solidify" the concepts of both Quant and Verbal and the question bank is almost endless. This is what stood out to me and helped me the most.

6.The sigmaX Mocks: The difficulty of these mocks is just right. A good feature of these mocks is the absence of a pause button, forcing you to prepare yourself to sit for a 3 hour exam with the same mindset as you would during the real thing. As mentioned above, the review at the end of the exam shows you exactly where you struggled, which type of questions took you the most time to solve and also which concepts you need to brush up on. I found this data very helpful because it saved a lot of time during the review and I was able to spend more time on working on those concepts.

Lastly, the support e-GMAT provided was the best! Hats off to experienced coaches like Dhananjay and the others who replied to my endless emails about questions and concepts and even helped review my exams telling me which areas to focus on.

Overall, I am very happy that I chose e-GMAT. I cannot talk about every online course out there but I would recommend this course to every single person who wants to succeed at the GMAT and start their MBA journey on a positive note.

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I started my GMAT prep in Jan’21 and after reading through a couple of articles figured that 3 months should be the ideal time. I started with the official guides and Manhattan strategy books. Although these helped me understand the concepts, I realized that my improvement was limited and I did not have the right approach to confidently eliminate wrong options. At this point, I started looking at the various prep courses available online.

After attending a free 1:1 session, I decided to join e-GMAT course in Feb/M. They provided me with a personalized study plan taking into consideration my current strengths and weaknesses. This made sure that I was not wasting time on topics that I was decently good at and instead devoted that time to areas where I could make significant improvement.

SC – My accuracy was comparatively higher so I was not required to do this course entirely. However their meaning based approach (although it sounds like the most logical thing) really helps eliminate options that might be grammatically correct

CR & RC – I did both these courses and the eGMAT approach helped me reduce the time I spent on these questions and also improve accuracy

Mock Tests – I gave 4 official mock tests which helped me evaluate my performance at different stages of my preparation. They are probably the best estimates of the actual score. However, the official mocks do not provide a detailed analysis of your performance on each section and the time taken per question. In this regard, I really liked the SigmaX mock from eGMAT because they provide multiple statistics to gauge your performance.

Since I have been working fulltime since the past 4 years, I did not know many people around me who had attempted the GMAT recently and could advise me on my preparation. eGMAT not only provided the online course and mock tests, but also provided continual guidance on my performance. Their strategy consultant DJ worked with me during the last 2 weeks before my exam and provided a day to day plan for the final leg of preparation. He also provided detailed analysis of my mocks, error logs and tips to improve my accuracy.

Test Day – I scheduled my exam at 7am in a nearby center. I was comfortable testing at this time and had given all my mocks at the same time. I started with the verbal section and found it to be a bit harder than the mocks. During the break, I was expecting the test center setup to be similar to the GRE exam which I had given a couple of years earlier. However due to the pandemic and our county restrictions, we were asked to go outside the building to have water or snacks during the breaks. Because of this, I misjudged the break time and arrived late after my first break. I ended up losing 3.5 minutes in the quant section and this led to panic which definitely affected my performance. During the 2nd break, I made sure that I arrive early however by now I was aware that my performance so far was not upto my expectation.

Final Score – I received a score of 700 (Q48 V38). Although not a bad score, it was definitely below my target score of 740+. I was consistently scoring Q50 on my mocks so I think Q48 was definitely a true reflection of my ability.

Next Steps – I am planning to reappear for the exam in 4 weeks. I am hoping to not mess up quant as I did last time. Also, I think there is scope for improvement in my verbal ability and so I am focusing most of my efforts there. Hopefully I will have better news the next time I post an exam review. Fingers crossed 

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While I was able to crack the 650+ range with ease after my first attempt and a few months of practice, I soon came to the realisation that I need that extra push to break that 700 barrier. Here is where E-GMAT helped me the most. The tips and tricks along with the details notes provided by the company significantly enhanced my answering capacity and pattern recognising ability. The videos and the mini tests after each topic are a must if you are looking to cross your high target score. I was especially pleased with the Sigma X mocks as well because of 2 reasons: 1) It is extremely close to the actual test (considering the test is given in the real conditions) so one can gauge their score on the test day via these mocks. 2) The detailed analysis which provides the way the questions adapted to my answering provided me with extremely useful insights and helped figure out a strategy and time myself. The customer support of Egmat was great as well.

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My GMAT journey started in the Spring of 2020. Like most other GMAT candidates, I started by studying from books by a big brand test prep company and the Official Guides. I familiarized myself with all the stuff that is tested on the GMAT and studied for three months, thinking that was enough time. I took a few mock tests in that period, but my score was never consistent. My best score was 670(Q48, V34), but I was never able to get that score again and was never able to break the threshold. After three months of prep, I took a break from the GMAT. Demoralized and frustrated, I thought that the GMAT wasn’t for me.
Months passed, but I was not happy with myself. I always thought to myself “What if I was just following the wrong strategy until now?” Finally, at the beginning of 2020, I committed to preparing for the GMAT again but decided to change my approach this time. After a lot of research, I decided to sign up for the e-GMAT verbal course. I heard about the company several times on the GMAT Club forum, and watched some of their live sessions on YouTube, but I finally decided to give them a try. After spending a little over two months on the e-GMAT course, I can definitely see the improvement in my verbal score. I was able to go from low 30’s to high 30’s and even a 40 one time on the mocks. Below are some of the reasons why the e-GMAT verbal course stood out to me:
For SC, the e-GMAT meaning based approach is a game changer. I had gotten decent at eliminating wrong answers by noticing splits in the answer choices, but sometimes ended up with two answers to choose from and ended up guessing between those two. The verbs module was the most helpful and the content was delivered in a way that made it easy to visualize the timeline of events happening in a sentence.
For CR, the structure-based approach helped me break down the passage and understand it better. I had studied the negation technique for solving assumption questions earlier but was never quite able to apply that well in an argument. The e-GMAT approach to pre-thinking falsification questions helped me apply the negation technique in a better way, and this approach helped me improve my CR accuracy.
The RC section of verbal has been the trickiest for me. It’s something that you can’t guess on entirely and it can be the most time-consuming portion of the verbal section. I am not a fast reader and don’t comprehend well what I read. My biggest fear in the verbal section is getting two RC passages back-to-back, and then getting derailed for the rest of the test. The submersion technique taught by e-GMAT helped me get involved in the passage and this definitely helped me do better on RC.
I found the e-GMAT’s scholaranium to be a great source for verbal questions. After exhausting the OG, I didn’t have a good repository of questions to practice from, but I was surprised by the level of questions that scholaranium has. The analytics provided by the e-GMAT tool is also great. It really helps you analyze your weak areas and helps measure accuracy. Also, the kind of support provided by the e-GMAT team is great. Though I didn’t ask a lot of questions on the forum, as the thread below each question had detailed discussions between students, who had similar doubts, and the mentors, the few times that I did ask a question, I got a prompt response from Kanupriya.
Looking back, I think the e-GMAT verbal course added the most value to my GMAT prep journey. I would highly recommend it.

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In a nutshell, E gmat is definitely worth every penny invested.
I chose it after going through several reviews on gmat club and going through their videos on youtube. The platform is really well designed and organized. There are numerous modules which covers every aspect tested on the gmat.

I was particularly weak in CR and my initial ability was in the 40th percentile. At the end of my prep, i was at the 85th percentile. The SC course is really comprehensive and beautifully planned out. It can help improve anybodys ability tremendously if the instructions and methodology taught is religiously followed. Overall, the Verbal module was incredible and is a huge strength on the platform.

The new Quant 2.0 is amazing and really clean. It teaches the necessary skills required to tackle pretty much any kind of question tested on the gmat. I have used both the previous version and the new one and there is a significant difference in terms of the approach for the exam. The modules are systematic and the questions are of all difficulties to give you a flavor of what the exam will feel like.

Scholaranium is an absolutely amazing tool and question bank that gives you pin point details about the ability in various topics and subtopics and helps identify weak spots and rectify them. The attention to detail and the world class quality o fthe questions really gives you a good feel of the type of questions youd see in the exam. If leveraged right, this can save a ton of time during prep.

The sigma mocks are by far the closest mocks apart from the official mocks that i have written which resembles the actual gmat exam. The insights that the sigma mocks offer are so so valuable. Even the official mocks dont give this much data about timings and weaknesses. It is an absolute necessity to gauge progress from time to time and validate your ability.

Lastly, the mentorship program that I was invited to be a part of was the icing on the cake. DJ has been a fantastic mentor and has guided me throughout the process. His key insights into my progress from time to time gave me a clear direction to move in. It adds a lot of value to the preparation. Making a structured plan and identifying my weaknesses. Video analyses of the performance of my mock gave me a new perspective of my performance and what I needed to do to overcome those minor challenges.

I highly recommend EGMAT to anyone who is serious about their MBA and who really want to achieve a high score. It is worth the money.

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