Best MGMAT Package for GMAT Re-takers?

[saeed.rh]

Hi,

i had a chance to attend the first session of the online live class with the brilliant instructor Stacey Koprince: quite awesome instructor, material, and the approach.

However, it seems that the class is focusing more on fundamentals rather that on tips or "what went wrong" issues that are more important for me as a re-applicant.

So, assuming that there are others who will be willing to join MGMAT only after having a terrible experience :), i thought to start this thread for people like myself. i guess, re-applicants will be more interested in an offering that not focuses on basics but goes directly to advanced strategies on lifting up.

Let me discuss my situation in a little detail here:

i have taken the exam and got 560 after going over all the following:

1- four month of study for MGMAT Strategy guides
2- 2 CAT (not from MGMAT)
3- 2 months of online study with another superior provider

and after all this i didn't touch the 600 bar!

now, my question here is not just about what went wrong but how could MGMAT help me in getting back on the track. in other words, which of the MGMAT services could be suitable for me?! shall i:
1- go for a complete live class
2- just buy CATs (and use statistics to know the weaknesses)
3- Buy a tutor office hours
4- Re-read strategy guides
5- spend time on forums
6- Solve challenging questions?

and most importantly "why" do we think that this specific track works better for me than others?!

and the question is not only about the value of money but also the time issue. how much time a re-applicant should put on the GMAT?

finally, i do understand the value MGMAT brings to the table but the question is from where should i start ? Why there isn't a package for re-applicants. i guess no other company provides such a service too. would it be a great idea to have an special course that understands that re-applicants are different? i guess such a course should, by default, include 1-2 office hours (after having the statistics available) so the participant could have a personalized dialog.

Anyway, i would really appreciate your help to help me decide my mind.

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for your kind words, Saeed, and also for joining our class on Wednesday!

So... I'm going to disagree with you on something. I really don't think that you're at the point where you don't need our regular class. If someone came to me already scoring 700+, that person probably needs a different plan, yes. But, in your case, even though you have already studied a lot, you haven't gotten what you needed out of the work that you did previously.

Something is going on that is keeping you at the 560 level, and whatever that is, it's probably the case that it's more complex than just "tips" or "what went wrong" last time. I should add - it's probably somethingS, plural.

I will say that someone in your position might prefer tutoring to a class because you might be getting frustrated with all of the time spent - and a good tutor can customize things to your specific needs. Tutoring, however, is also insanely expensive, so most people can't or don't do that. (But, hey, if money is no object, then that could be the best path at this point. :)

Okay, back to our class. You may feel like you have already learned a lot of what you need to know. And maybe you have, as far as facts and formulas and rules are concerned. The "next level" though, is learning to think your way through these crazy questions, taking into account all kinds of variables, such as timing, unusual wording / language, traps, disguises, etc - and that's the level at which you're almost certainly falling short. (Because, if you could already do those things, then you'd be a lot closer to your goal score.)

And that's exactly what our class does. Within our program, most of that "facts / formulas / rules" stuff is done as homework before you ever get to class. If you've already learned that stuff, great (although I'll argue that there are probably certain areas that you could learn better... :)

When you get to class, we use all of that study and practice that you've been doing to focus on the "next level" skills. What are the clues in the structure or wording of the problem that help you know what to do? When they say XYZ, but they really mean ABC, how do you figure that out, and how do you know what to do from there. When they toss in a weird twist, how can you still think your way through that? How do you guess, how do you spot traps so that you can avoid them, how do you learn how to do something more efficiently?

In other words, the actual class time is about learning how to think and learning how to learn. My students spend 90%+ of their study time without me. They don't need me to tell them the formula for the area of a circle, or even how to solve an equation - that's in the book, or in the labs, or in the videos. Instead, they need me to help them learn how to think about the GMAT and learn how to teach themselves... so that they can then spend the vast majority of their study time productively.

That's why we don't have a separate class for people who've taken the test before - because they still haven't studied in the right way / from that point of view. They need the same things as the people just starting out (though it's harder for the people just starting out because they also have to wade through ALL of the basic material on top of that when they're doing their homework).

Anyway, from what you describe... learning how to think is, in fact, what you need. That would correspond either to a class or private tutoring. (Just a note: don't think that you can do 1 or 2 sessions of private tutoring and get what you would get out of an entire class. Tutoring can be great, but only go down that path if you've got enough of a budget to get the most out of it - and expect to pay more overall in the end than you would for a class.)

[saeed.rh]

thanks for your detailed and quick reply.

i do agree that i need to learn how to think about the problem, and this is what i meant by "tips" :)

however, could you kindly clarify why the books (guides) can't teach me what to do when the coin is flipped? i've read the books and they do cover all what you have mentioned in quite enough details with much more explanations.

Moreover, now, i do understand what i am missing. i do also got the difference between the tutoring and the proper class, but frankly, covering more than 3-4 topics in a 2-3 hours long lecture (with maximum 1-2 examples on each topic): how all this could add this big "next level" change ?

btw, as mentioned earlier, i took another online course and that one also went through all these "learning to think" strategies but i still got 560

Thanks again for your precious time :)

[StaceyKoprince]

covering more than 3-4 topics in a 2-3 hours long lecture (with maximum 1-2 examples on each topic): how all this could add this big "next level" change ?

It can't - not by itself. You've got to take what I teach you in class and apply that to your own studies. What I'm really teaching you in class is how to learn - but then you've still got 90% of your time on your own to implement that!

The books help you to do this in conjunction with the course. There's a ton of great material in the books, and many people do study on their own with the books (that is, they don't take the course). So I'm not suggesting that everyone must take a course - it's quite possible that the books will give you what you need. You seem to be indicating, though, that you've already learned what you see in the books and yet you aren't getting the score that you want... so if you want more than that, then you're going to have to try something else.

For example, do you remember the very first problem we did during class 1? Where in the OG, or even in our own books, did you read any discussion about how to recognize in the first place that the very first sentence clued us in that we had a disguised prime factor problem that was trying to sound like a combinatorics / probability problem? Remember how I first asked the class what the first sentence meant by itself (without seeing the rest of the problem) and *nobody* told me prime, but after we were done with the problem, I took us back to the first sentence, and now people were able to tell me the specific clue that could have told us immediately that the problem was about prime?

That's one example of learning how to think / recognize what you see on the test. Another is the homework assignment I gave - have you tried that yet? (The article with the practice problem that shared something with another problem we did during class 1.)

If you think you already learned what we could teach you and any course you took would just be more of what you've done in the past... then, of course, you're absolutely right that you shouldn't take another course.

I will say, though, that if you want more than your current score, you're going to have to try something new. I can't tell you what that thing is and it may or may not involve MGMAT - you'll have to decide what you think is the best path for yourself - but you are going to have to try something other than what you did the first time around. :)