Manhattan GMAT - Input

Hi friends -

Need your opinion on the following:

Manhattan GMAT Prep or Manhattan GMAT Prep Plus?

MGMAT Prep includes - The guides, practice tests, post exam assesment
MGMAT Prep Plus includes - The guides, practice tests, post exam assesment + 27 hours of class recordings and 27 hours of section recordings.

Price Difference?

MGMAT Prep - $600
MGMAT Prep Plus - $800

Is Prep Plus worth the $200 premium?

Thanks for the input! :))

 

Prep is enough, at least for me. The concepts are simple enough that spending the extra 200 maybe a bit of an overkill. But result also depends upon what type of learner you are. I personally dislike video lessons and learn better just with books, maybe it is different for you.

 

I think both are a bit overkill. If you need to brush up on math basics, then buy the MGMAT math fundamentals (?) book. If you don't, then just the MGMAT Guides + Practice Tests + OG Guide are sufficient to do well (that's like >$200 total I think). You can find high quality explanations for topics you don't understand on gmatclub. Of course, like someone else mentioned, buy the package if you learn much better from videos.

 
Khayembii:

Depends on how you learn best. I'm a book learner so I just bought the MGMAT guides and used their CAT's in conjunction with the OG guides/CAT's and was able to get my score from a 690 to 750.

@Khayembii was 690 your CAT score? That's pretty good

 
pphi:
Khayembii:

Depends on how you learn best. I'm a book learner so I just bought the MGMAT guides and used their CAT's in conjunction with the OG guides/CAT's and was able to get my score from a 690 to 750.

@Khayembii was 690 your CAT score? That's pretty good

Before I started studying for the GMAT at all I took a practice Kaplan CAT for a baseline and scored a 690, so it wasn't an official GMAC test but it was a CAT. The journey to 750 sucked!

 

Can give you my perspective on this. I actually did the "Live Online Course", which was (I think) $1000, and instead of class recordings, you actually participated in the class one night a week. Here are my thoughts:

  1. By far the best part of the course was the books and CATs. They were worth the price alone, so obviously, if you can get them for way cheaper, that's great. For someone who was very far behind in quant, I needed to spend significant time going through each subject matter book. This was huge for me.

  2. The class was useful for me at first. I enjoyed seeing the instructors walk through the problems, and it definitely helped me to listen to them talk about each one. However, as time went on, I realized that within about 3-4 weeks, the classes/lectures moved WAY to slow. They were literally mind numbing. Even if I got a problem wrong or didn't understand it, they spent 15 minutes when I thought a two-minute explanation would have sufficed. I ended up not even going to the last two classes (though I did listen).

  3. The structure was the most valuable part of the class for me. I had struggled to study consistently, but signing up for the class and having weekly homework is what really got me going. Worth the money? Probably not, but if you're like me and have struggled to study more than on and off, this could really help

If you're self-motivated and have no issue studying on your own, I think I would do what everyone else said, which is buy the books (MGMAT + Official Guide) and attack it own your own. You can even find a syllabus or study guide to follow if you want one, which I would recommend if you're a bit farther behind on either Q or V. I just don't think the classes themselves add all that much value, and if you really need an explanation of a problem you can usually find it on Beat the GMAT.

 

@"BGP2587" Thank you for the detailed input. I usually go on GMATclub.com, but will give Beat the GMAT a try.

If you don't mind me asking, how did you do on your GMAT? As in what was your CAT -> Final Score improvement and how many months did you prepare for it?

 

I didn't take a baseline test score but I got a 750 after about 45 days of after work studying. I bought the Manhattan GMAT books on Amazon (which included the CATs) and bought the Official Guide and Quant supplement. The verbal supplement is overkill, you don't need it. All in, I'm out $180, a bunch of nights, and 6 weekends.

Best advice I can give is keep an error log and save your practice problems for after you've finished the guidebooks. Practice makes permanent.

 

I ended up with a 730 (48Q 42V). I believe my first CAT was a 660 or 670, but that was not totally blind. As I mentioned above, I had done some studying off and on before taking the test (enough so that I at least knew all the question types). I also probably paused the test a few times that first time, so my actual score level was probably GMAT Prep question and find detailed answers for how to solve on one (or both) of those sites. They're a great resource that I didn't use much until the end, but I probably should have.

 

cough I'm also selling a set of the books, completely brand new, for $120. Like literally, I took them out of the box, put them on the shelf, and then decided to postpone b-school so they haven't been touched.

In case, you know, anyone else is interested.

Currently: future neurologist, current psychotherapist Previously: investor relations (top consulting firm), M&A consulting (Big 4), M&A banking (MM)
 

This is turning into a personal recommendation session.

I just want to know whether to purchase only MGMAT Quant/ MGMAT Verbal or the complete toolkit (every book they have).

I'll consider GMAT Quantum but general consensus has led me to believe MGMAT is historically the best.

Economist GMAT is great and I'm liking the adaptive style of learning - i think it's relatively new though so hasn't had the critical mass support.

 

I'll reiterate my first comment with a bit more detail.

I would buy the full self study toolkit (your first link) and the Advanced GMAT Quant book which is only like $25. These resources are very low compared to the cost of getting an MBA in general. I'd buy the full strategic set (your link above) and the Advanced GMAT quant (https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/store/strategy-guides/advanced-gmat-…).

Think about it this way; the ~$600 for the two resources above will impact your chances to get into a better school, get scholarship dollars, and likely will even have an impact on which job attain within business school. All of these have a FAR greater impact on your earnings over the course of your life than the small dollar outlay currently.

 

As someone who took the GMAT recently and also used the older Manhattan Prep books, I can tell you that there is absolutely no need to get the latest edition. The updated content will not have a meaningful impact on your preparation. If anything, you'll find a a bunch of new questions for practice and rectification of errors. But then again, there's just way too much free practice material available online and to me it doesn't make sense to upgrade your books just for a few edits and new questions.

Integrated Reasoning: No additional prep is required for this section. Just download the GMATPrep software and do the free practice questions to be aware of the question formats. If you're planning to take mock tests, I'd advise you to take the IR section. That's more than enough practice.

Mock tests: Extremely critical. Take as many as possible. You get 6 mock tests if you purchase a Manhattan Prep book (Whether you buy 1 or 10 books, you'll still have access to the SAME tests.) The GMATPrep software comes with 2 free tests. I would also recommend that you invest in Exam Packs 1 and 2 which will give you 2 additional tests each.

If you have any other questions, I'd be glad to answer them. I also have a lot of practice material, in case you need some.

Cheers

EDIT: My response seems to have upset someone. Lol. Thanks for giving me shit.

 

I found manhattan books to be a waste of time.

Invest in the following courses/materials -> for quant - gmatquantum There's no better way to crush quant and you won't need anything else -> for verbal - e-GMAT verbal course+ powerscore critical reasoning bible + official guides for practice

 

it depends on what your target score is and what you have been achieving on the (real) practice tests. if you want to get 700+ and that is the score that you've been getting on the practice tests, then you probably don't need the prep course.

your question is a bit too vague... kinda like asking whether you should buy a porsche. if you want to drive 2 miles to work every day, maybe it's not worth it... if you want to race your car, maybe it is.

i didn't take any prep courses and am reasonably happy with my score. i basically got what i was getting on the official practice tests. i only purchased 2 books, a kaplan one (not recommended) and the official one (highly recommended as it is pretty representative of what the real test is like).

 
[Comment removed by mod team]
 

I wouldn't recommend Manhattan GMAT to anybody. The problems range from the absurd to the surreal. You will waste your time practicing excessively complex probability and geometry questions when on the actual exam you are only going to get a handful of them in the first place, and they aren't going to be remotely as difficult. You are better off just getting the Official Guide and familiarizing yourself with the math topics and question types presented there. It is the official guide after all, and the problems you will confront are precisely like the ones on the actual GMAT, both in scope and topical distribution.

 

Verne - You are way off.

MGMAT is the best, bar none. OG, etc. is good, but too easy. If you really want to get your score up there, MGMAT is the way to do it. Especially if you are not coming from a super quant background.

 

FullMonte- I respectfully disagree

In my opinion,

OG is not too easy, it is just right. This is because the questions, in both their type, format, and distribution are identical to the questions on the actual GMAT. In my opinion, time spent on excessively difficult, dissimilar and unrealistic 4-step probability and geometry problems is silly time. If you are a super quant person (i.e., an Indian IT guy or engineer), MGMAT may be good for getting a 99th percentile quant score. Then again, if you are a super quant person, you aren't going to need to kill yourself studying for the quant section in order to do well anyways. If you are not coming from a super quant background, this is probably the worst study guide to buy, at least initially. The problems are just going to terrify you and make you reconsider the whole thing.

I would guess that the reason we are in disagreement is that you are, and nobly so, an advocate of developing solid mathematical knowledge through rigorous preparation in order to score highly on the GMAT, whereas I am, in my devil may care manner, a proponent of just loading up the shotgun and haphazardly shooting at the damn thing.

Both ways can get you superb results, I suppose it comes down to personal style.

 

Verne makes some points.

Lets put it this way, if you want to score very high, go w MGMAT, but you will put more hours in. If you just want to score high and put in less hours, use the OG

 
[Comment removed by mod team]
 
Erwe422:
Manhattan GMAT has a lot of challenging questions, but I don't think it's very accurate. I scored 70 points higher on my actual GMAT than I did on my last Manhattan test.

...would you say that MGMAT prepared you pretty well for the test?

 
Erwe422:
Manhattan GMAT has a lot of challenging questions, but I don't think it's very accurate. I scored 70 points higher on my actual GMAT than I did on my last Manhattan test.

They do that on purpose. All of the test prep companies deflate your scores on their practice tests for the following two main reasons:

1) To convince you that you need to buy their materials. 2) To ensure that you score higher on the actual GMAT than on their "diagnostic" exam and subsequent practice exams, thereby honoring their higher score guarantees.

A third but less relevant reason is that they have no clue how to emulate the GMAT scoring algorithm. Only the official practice tests at MBA.com offer accurate scoring and question distribution.

Typically, you can add on 50-100 points on your practice test results (depending on the company) to give yourself a reasonable estimate of how you should perform on the real thing.

The only prep company with which this does not hold true is Princeton Review. Their material is so easy that you are better off subtracting 50-100 points.

 

1500 bucks seems pretty high. Just buy some books and study and take the test. If you get pretty low then it might be worth it, but there is no sense in paying that much money if you can score pretty high on your own.

 

I took their course and broke 700. Would have been exponentially harder to stay focused on my own. And their material is far superior to any other service in my opinion. If you are an undergrad you can get a discount...

 

personally i think 1500 is pretty steep, monkeyinasuit. but it depends on your study habits. assuming youre fairly intelligent, if you have the self discipline to create a study schedule and stick to it, you will be fine. just dont underestimate the amount of preparation you need. i would take a practice test ASAP to gauge your base level and go from there.

I cannot speak for their prep class, but i did use mgmat materials to study for the gmat and i think they are the best on the market (prolly why kaplan bought them). the mgmat approach is to dissect the topic and drill down to the minute details of how it works and then apply that knowledge to multiple forms of the topic.

if you are like me and need to know the rules of how something works to be able to manipulate it in all different forms - rather than just learn tricks - mgmat is def for you. that applies to both their math and verbal books.

i also recommend paying for their tests. the way mgmat parses the results is the best ive seen yet. it really lets you hone in on where you need to work. you can pay for the six exams separately or if you buy just one book they come as a bonus (this is what i did - then used the test to identify my weaker areas and got the mgmat books that addressed it). its worth it.

good luck.

 

I did their online course that met every Saturday for 2.5 - 3 hours for about 10 weeks. Can't quite remember the details. MGMAT instructors are very good but you'll get the most out of the weekly classes if you complete the required studying beforehand. If I had to do it all over again, I would have just gone through the 8 guides myself while following their prescribed syllabus. I was very happy with their service but I could have saved some money by doing self-study.

I'll sell you my 8 guide books for $100 plus whatever shipping turns out to be. Let me know.

 

Yah get them on Amazon. Be careful and make sure you are buying one with the online access codes. The pen and pad should be 15 and the timer 30 if you really want that (you don't need it though)

looking for that pick-me-up to power through an all-nighter?
 

Can you guys get more specific and tell me exactly what I should be purchasing? Need to buy them soon b/c studying starts in 3 weeks. Links would be preferred. I'd like to study on my own 3-5 hours per day for 2-3 months.

Thanks.

-- "Those who say don't know, and those who know don't say."
 

I'm taking the exam next week, so I can sell them to you then. I bought all 8 MGMAT guides, plus the 3 corresponding official GMAT problems books, brand new. I did not write in them or take notes - they are just like when I bought them. Send me a PM with your info. and I can ship them out after next weekend.

MKballer
 

I was scoring in your range and was able to significantly improve my score with the MGMAT guides. They're the best (except for the RC and CR guides). The advanced quant guide is really good too but you should only do it once you've mastered the other guides, imo.

 

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