@Anthony:Love the way you write a long email in response, but I fear that I would have to side with Maria's apprehensions
I don't really want to disclose the name of the center because, personally I really do not want anyone's careers to get jeopardized in the process or to think somehow that somebody leaked something to the HQ, but if you take a look at the PR's progress in other countries than it would be safe to say that it doesn't come 'near' to any of those offered by the likes of GMAT.
I took a course from PR and the instructor was none other than the head of the region.What he did initially was to give a diagnostic test which people had to finish in about 20 mins each, with a lot more questions.As could have been guessed, major class got poor scores of around 400's.Then, he went on to lecture that how important GMAT is for our future and how PR will uplift it from these scores to some 100 points or more.I was stupid not to test myself beforehand on GMATprep to check where I was in actuality.
Anyways, not only the class had some people who were half interested, but the instructor himself had a lackluster side to teaching saying that he had been pulled out from the administration process to teach in place of someone else (although he had some 99%).He completely abandoned the approach of solving and instead relied heavily on POE (process of elimination) or tricks which he considered were 'hard to follow for a technical student'.At some instant he just ball parked randomly without really telling anyone how he arrived at the the answer (obviously he had loads of practice from years and years).All these tips and tricks contributed in making the mind all the more confused as he leapfrogged from the solid concepts on to other things.In the middle of the course I knew that I was trapped and the PR guy was making it all the more confusing by just doing random questions (sitting) from OG.In Verbal he just used to quote that 'it just sounds right' *shrug*... instead of getting into the nitty gritty of things...for nonnatives it was NO help at all.
All in all disaster happened the first time with abysmal scores.After this fiasco, I picked up MGMAT and it felt like someone had kicked me in the face.It went straight to the hardcore stuff without wasting time on ABCD.I envy those people who have MGMAT to train them in their countries.I unfortunately neither had the books nor the facility of a training center.If you yourself pick up any of their books, without doubt, you will notice a difference in the question levels.I also believe this to be a part of their success as well as they really have done a LOT of work on their material in keeping with the real test trends.Also they have staff who also seem to cherish their jobs (not doing it like part time stuff).In my class of PR, there were actually instructors who were doing multiple ( bank) jobs and also teaching in the evenings...what level of commitment a person brings in to a classroom, who continuously looks at his watch is anybody's guess.
Please dont think me as a promoter of anyone or any agency or denouncing anyone person on some purpose, but quality speaks for itself.Even after having a bad score I thought it worthwhile to prepare for myself rather than to go back and join the class again.
