I was comfortable about taking GMAT with my own preparation since I had always scored better on standardized tests in the past. My previous scores on GRE (90+ percentile on Verbal), and higher scores on TOEFL and IELTS had made me complicit that I would score well on GMAT Verbal too.

However, I was in for an unpleasant shock. After doing what I considered enough preparation for Verbal, I managed to score paltry 640 (Q46, V33) in my first GMAT.

Although dismayed at the outcome, I convinced myself that I was rusty after being out of school for more than a decade. So I decided to give it another shot with lot more preparation than before. Again, I was adamant not to enroll in any external prep course, although I decided to add more practice and mock tests in my preparation- this time especially for Verbal section. I had noticed I struggled with Combitronics and CR in my prep as well as in real test. Hence I also purchased Manhatten Advanced Quant Book and Critical Reasoning Bible (David Killoran) after reading few great reviews.

After taking enough time (6 more months at self paced studying), I took GMAT a second time. This time I fared only marginally better (Q48,V35) totaling to 670. There was no doubt in my mind now - if I wanted to break into 700s, I needed a drastic change in the manner in which I was approaching questions. My Verbal section score essentially remained flat despite special efforts on my part. I had seen promos of eGMAT and therefore decided to give it a try – as a last resort of sorts.

Few things struck me immediately about eGMAT Verbal Live Prep:-

(1) The presentation format (audio+video) accounted for a much immersed and enjoyable learning experience. The organization of the course is also excellent – starting with basic building blocks in each of the 3 Verbal sections – SC, CR and RC, and then providing enough practice to master the approach and building finer skills.

(2) The 6 Live sessions on weekends are a great way to cement the approach to solve problems and identify mistakes in your approach as you dissect a problem from every possible angle – working along with the instructor and rest of the class. Many times I thought I had the assumptions identified correctly in CR problem, only to find out 2 minutes later that I was not probing with the right questions to begin with. I would give credit to eGMAT instructors Shraddha (for SC) and Payal (for CR) as they make the topics appear easy and interesting.

(3) Lastly, I want to give kudos to eGMAT for their 2 Strategy sessions. I ordered an Enhanced Score report of my last GMAT after hearing about it in the session and it allowed me to identify and scrutinize problem areas in far more granular detail than before. The other information shared in those sessions (on computer adaptive questions and scoring algorithm) are good too. Scholaranium platform is of particular help since it allows you to practice timing and analyze patterns in your practice.

My mock test scores have been V38+ after going thru the course – at times crossing V40. Encouraged by this fact, I am daring to attempt GMAT again in a month’s time. I know eGMAT guarantees 4 point improvement, however, based on the quality of course material and the very reasonable cost, I think it is a wise investment in any case – especially if you have tried improving on your own and are struck at a particular score.

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- Great video lessons for a non-native beginner to build the concepts from scratch
- Focus on the right set of logics to be used in verbal section – logic vs. grammar rules
- Regular quizzes during videos help to build the concept taught
- Workshops help you figure out the high level test taking strategy
- All teachers are reachable for support anytime
- In case something goes wrong, egmat supports an extension to the course

I was able to take my GMAT score from 640 (Q49V27) to 730 (Q50V39) in 1.5 months. I would highly recommend this course to all non-native specially from India.

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Quant has always been my strength and was quite confident. But when I started with OG questions,I realised that it isn’t that simple and straight forward. e-GMAT outlines how to apply the concepts clearly

The Quant course offered by eGMAT covers every aspect and goes into detail of every topic that is tested on GMAT Quant.

I would definitely recommend e-GMAT to everyone

1. Clear Step by Step approach for every type of question presented in GMAT
2. Excellent explanation of official GMAT questions.
3. Access to written articles on subjects discussed during Live prep
3.Pre and Post assessment quizzes for self-analysis
4. Scholaranium to keep a check on improvement

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The Quant course offered by eGMAT is very comprehensive and holistic in nature.The concepts are taught in a very simplistic manner and ehe quizzes are very helpful to understand how the concepts are tested.

The best part of the program is the Quant Scholaranium. It has question ranging from easy to hard topic and one can easily refresh the entire course through them.Further ,it helps one to understand one's strength and weakness.

I would be taking my GMAT again and hopefully these concepts learned from e-gmat will help improving my score and I will touch the magical figure of 51

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E-GMAT verbal life is good but don't forget to put your efforts in doing the homework! The setup of the live class is convenient because they are all in the weekend. However, you need to sacrifice a lot of weekend time and rest time to devote your all into studying for the gmat. Egmat has good resources such as recorded videos of lectures, online lectures, and lots of practice questions for you to get familiar to the subject. The video can be long but if you pay attention and have done the homework before attending the live class, you will get a lot out of it. Remember though, do your homework for the old subject and more homework for the upcoming new subject. That's the only way that you can improve your performance.

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I came to know about eGmat through one of my friend, an ex-student of eGmat, who scored 700+ on “D day”. Convinced with his feedback about the course, I decided to enrol into the program and, trust me, I never regretted my decision.
Strong determination and learnings from the course have helped me to move my verbal score from 19 to 32 on the test day.

To keep it short, I will share a few key notes:

1. Well-structured and researched course that helps you to understand key concepts via short videos. Provides quizzes at the end of each chapter to test your understanding of the concept . You can further enrich your learnings though diagnostic test in a timed environment. (I have recently tried verbal scholaranium and really liked quality of the questions. It’s close to patterns followed in past Official questions. Planning to complete it by month end.)

2. Focus is upon imbibing the concept of pre-thinking and understanding the meaning before approaching a problem. It took me some time to develop the habit but if you want to avoid silly mistakes and save time, then this would work like a charm.

3. Webinar are engaging and you should attend them as many time as possible. Every time you will discover something new. Mentors guide you to put your learnings from the course into practice and solve official questions by using eGmat approach.

4. Excellent platform to interact and learn from the mentors, who have already championed the game and know the rules. It would be tough to mention all the names but few names that I would like to mention are “Neeti”, “Payal” and “Chiranjeev”. I thank all of them for their patience and guidance during the initials days of enrolment and helping me to get my basics right.

In short, if you are a non-native speaker then eGmat is the place for you to ace verbal section. You can never go wrong with it.

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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

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I am an engineering graduate with decent quant skills. I have given GMAT once and scored 47 on quant. This has made me realise that quant cant be taken for granted. I was on a search for a quant course that would guarantee a jump and zeroed in on egmat after going through their verbal section.

the concepts are explained in a simple and efficient manner the tricks to solving the questions are something to learn. Overall the material is good with sufficient questions of varied difficulty to test your mettle. After going through the weak areas i have managed to score a consistent 50 in the mocks i am yet to give my GMAT.

I would recommend anyone to attend this course and bet that they should be able to score at their 90th percentile.

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I think that one of the key secrets to achieve 700+ score on the GMAT for people who doesn’t have the natural ability for standardized tests is perseverance.
I have been studying for a while, most of the time with OG and with resources from big brands. I took classes, and private tutoring, but the improvements were not there. It was until I hear about E-Gmat that my scores start improving. I was first skeptical, so I decided to take the free video sessions for SC, and after that I understood that E-Gmat method was ideal for me. I first subscribed to the Verbal Live Prep and got access to Live Sessions for each of the sections, and a huge number of explanatory videos that where very helpful to improve my comprehension and abilities of specific topics. After understanding that my issue was not the time given for each question, but my gaps in the approach and concepts, I finally untapped my potential on the Verbal section, improving on my mock tests from an original V24 to V40.
For the Quant section, since I am an engineer, I decided not to follow their method, and stuck on self-practice of problems on the OG.
After a bunch of mock tests from different resources, I got to the point of getting the 700+ results I was expecting. So I decided to present the GMAT at the end of 2015. I was very confident of getting a high score, but unfortunately my quant skills abandoned me that day, and even though my verbal results were very strong, I did not get the 700+ result I was expecting.
Therefore after a break of studying, I decided to try again, but this time I got the subscription to the Quant sessions on E-gmat during this 2nd quarter of 2016. I am planning to take the exam in two months, I am confident that now that I am using the same resources for my Verbal and Quant, I will achieve my target score.
I found the e-gmat method as the most logical and easy to follow when compared to other big brands. Additionally, I like that it has a very well re-designed and interactive webpage that allows you to easily keep track of your progress, and keep engaged and motivated to continue studying. Finally, its content is very complete, explanations to OG questions are very detail, instructors are very responsive to student questions, and customer service makes you feel as special and unique as you can be.

Due to this, in my opinion E-gmat is a great resource and might be enough to get well prepared for the GMAT

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SC has been a problem for me. E-GMAT approach to logic is sound for not only the test prep but also for day to day usage. I had already referred few other recommended sources but they really did not help me in improving my SC accuracy rate significantly. I found many reviews for e-gmat's SC course that convinced me to sign up for the course.The most important thing about e-gmat is that: they claim their course is designed for non-natives. This fact drew my attention. I finally took the e-gmat Verbal Live Pre course. The interface is very clean; topics are well arranged. The interface tracks your progress. The explanation to each question is explained very methodologically. I really appreciate their efforts in building this excellent platform.

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