Hi guys!
First of all, I wish you best of luck for your prepping.
I am writing this review in order to share my personal experiences and thoughts on the GMAT.
I think that the first thing to do when starting to prep, is figuring out your strengths and weaknesses. Just take the Diagnostic test from the OG, and it will be clear. The next step, is to take care of where your preparation is lacking and enhance your strengths in order to maximize your score. When I started prepping it was clear that Quant needed some work, while Verbal needed just some fine tuning.
When I first started prepping, I went through the OG theory and official questions explanations but I couldn't get far with just that. It was too complicated, uselessly in my option. Some explanations just seemed weird and definitely unfriendly. Since I couldn't see myself improving much in that way, I went on the internet looking for help. But I had the same problem: theory and explanations just seems excessively complex and I was frustrated, didn't know what to do.
Even if I didn't actually consider it before, I started to look for a prep course. I guess I was looking for a different approach. I stumbled upon EMPOWER-Gmat for two reasons: reviews were great, it seemed that their approach was as simplistic as possible and it offered a free trial and had a very reasonable price.
Boy, was I lucky. The course is great. I've just completed it (doesn't take much) and practiced a lot with OG questions only. It's an online course with video lessons (both theory lessons, and answers explanations) The thing with them, is that they have an extremely simplistic approach: they only teach you what you will need in order to succeed at the GMAT, and they teach it very, very well. Their approach is as direct as possible. You won't be taught a formula you won't be asked on the GMAT (Think standard deviation formula: if you learned it, you can just as well forget it. The GMAT will never ask for it, but rather only for the "idea" of SD). If something could be solved with logic rather than mathematics, then this course will teach you how do that. The truth, as of my experience, with the GMAT is that there are no 800 level questions that you need to get correctly in order to score high: the GMAT rewards consistence. Be consistence with OG medium/hard questions and you will definitely be fine. That's what you will be told on this course: if a question is too hard, dump it and move on. And this is definitely the best possibile strategy for the GMAT. I've started to see myself improving a lot, and all of a sudden OG questions were kind of a breeze. I would still get one in five wrong, or something like that, but after some research about ESR analysis I realized that you are allowed A LOT of mistakes on the gmat (Think 7 mistakes for a Q50) and went for the test. It was a breeze.
Some final considerations. Always practice with OG questions, they are the only questions that are 100% real and likely similar to the ones you will find on test day. When you get them wrong, don't get stuck with the official explanation. Look them up on the internet and you will most likely find an easier solutions. If a topic or exercise is just too difficult, dump it, just make sure you don't make silly mistakes (which means getting comfortable with timing!) and you will hit a high score without problems. Don't overthink it.
First of all, I wish you best of luck for your prepping.
I am writing this review in order to share my personal experiences and thoughts on the GMAT.
I think that the first thing to do when starting to prep, is figuring out your strengths and weaknesses. Just take the Diagnostic test from the OG, and it will be clear. The next step, is to take care of where your preparation is lacking and enhance your strengths in order to maximize your score. When I started prepping it was clear that Quant needed some work, while Verbal needed just some fine tuning.
When I first started prepping, I went through the OG theory and official questions explanations but I couldn't get far with just that. It was too complicated, uselessly in my option. Some explanations just seemed weird and definitely unfriendly. Since I couldn't see myself improving much in that way, I went on the internet looking for help. But I had the same problem: theory and explanations just seems excessively complex and I was frustrated, didn't know what to do.
Even if I didn't actually consider it before, I started to look for a prep course. I guess I was looking for a different approach. I stumbled upon EMPOWER-Gmat for two reasons: reviews were great, it seemed that their approach was as simplistic as possible and it offered a free trial and had a very reasonable price.
Boy, was I lucky. The course is great. I've just completed it (doesn't take much) and practiced a lot with OG questions only. It's an online course with video lessons (both theory lessons, and answers explanations) The thing with them, is that they have an extremely simplistic approach: they only teach you what you will need in order to succeed at the GMAT, and they teach it very, very well. Their approach is as direct as possible. You won't be taught a formula you won't be asked on the GMAT (Think standard deviation formula: if you learned it, you can just as well forget it. The GMAT will never ask for it, but rather only for the "idea" of SD). If something could be solved with logic rather than mathematics, then this course will teach you how do that. The truth, as of my experience, with the GMAT is that there are no 800 level questions that you need to get correctly in order to score high: the GMAT rewards consistence. Be consistence with OG medium/hard questions and you will definitely be fine. That's what you will be told on this course: if a question is too hard, dump it and move on. And this is definitely the best possibile strategy for the GMAT. I've started to see myself improving a lot, and all of a sudden OG questions were kind of a breeze. I would still get one in five wrong, or something like that, but after some research about ESR analysis I realized that you are allowed A LOT of mistakes on the gmat (Think 7 mistakes for a Q50) and went for the test. It was a breeze.
Some final considerations. Always practice with OG questions, they are the only questions that are 100% real and likely similar to the ones you will find on test day. When you get them wrong, don't get stuck with the official explanation. Look them up on the internet and you will most likely find an easier solutions. If a topic or exercise is just too difficult, dump it, just make sure you don't make silly mistakes (which means getting comfortable with timing!) and you will hit a high score without problems. Don't overthink it.
