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Magoosh GRE Prep Review: Is it Worth it?

If you are a GRE aspirant, you have probably come across Magoosh GRE prep. In this article, I will elucidate their preparation tool and try to ease your decision making.

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A lot of Pros but very few Cons

Pros:

  1. Excellent video lectures (Recorded + Live) for someone starting from basics
  2. Detailed video explanations with every question
  3. Outstanding student support

Cons: 

  1. Slightly outdated but relevant questions
  2. Practically no full-length practice tests

If you are a GRE aspirant, you have probably come across Magoosh GRE prep. You may have already read their GRE blog or gone through their vocabulary flashcard app. And your intuition says that you should join them as soon as possible, but your mind wants further clarity on their tool. After all, you will be spending a decent sum on these guys. 

In this article, I will elucidate their preparation tool and try to ease your decision making.

Magoosh has Best GRE VIDEOS, Hands Down.

If you have been out of touch with Math or have hated math, then Magoosh will prove to be a great resource. Their quant videos assume no prior Math knowledge and will start from scratch. The videos are extensive and cover all caveats of the GRE. 

Their verbal videos also contain excellent techniques and strategies to approach all question types. Their approach to breaking down a text completion and sentence equivalence question to find clues is instrumental. 

Some GRE test-takers complain that their strategies on reading passages do not work. Unfortunately, with reading passages, the best approach is to improve your reading by practicing passages frequently daily.

However, the videos itself will not get you anywhere. Remember that GRE is all about practice, practice, and practice. You must complement these videos with plentiful of questions that Magoosh provides as well.

A Lot of Questions But a Bit Outdated

The videos are handy for concept building and understanding the basics of the exam. To supplement these videos, Magoosh provides ample practice – 1000 practice questions with brilliant explanations that are easy to grasp.

But Magoosh lacks when it comes to mimicking those questions with real problems that show up on the GRE test. This is because Magoosh has not updated the practice questions in a while. GRE is a continuously evolving exam, and ETS keeps on creating new traps to test students. Over the years, while ETS has updated its exam questions significantly, Magoosh has not been able to keep up with ETS. 

For example, the ‘hard’ and ‘very hard’ Math questions on Magoosh are quite different from ETS. In the hardest level, Magoosh has tediously intricate problems. Some problems and their methods, especially in Algebra and Inequalities, are never tested on the GRE. Whereas on ETS, the tricks are more subtle and require more logic than intense calculations.

For verbal, the text completion and sentence equivalence focus heavily on words that are never tested on the exam. While most of the vocabulary in their app is good, the vocabulary tested in the question options is off-target. Nevertheless, the sentences are useful for understanding delicate GRE sentence structure and subtle shifts in meaning and other nuances that the GRE fiddles with.

The Magoosh reading comprehensions are similar to the ETS tests, i.e., consisting of dense language and challenging vocabulary. Moreover, the passages pertain to areas of History, Philosophy, Biology, etc. – favorite subjects of ETS. 

So if your goal is to score in high 160’s on the GRE, then Magoosh practice questions may not be enough, especially for quant. For verbal, I strongly feel that they are almost on point, except for the vocabulary part.

No Full-Length Practice Tests

Once you finish your GRE prep, either from Magoosh or from other prep sources, the last step is to take full-length computer adaptive practice tests. Magoosh doesn’t offer any as such. This is because they extract questions from the questions in their existing question bank that we discussed above. If you have done all of those questions, you may not see any new items in your practice tests. 

Cost-effective and Superior Customer Care

Magoosh is cheap compared to its competitors, such as Manhattan, Kaplan, Princeton, and many others. Their GRE product comes in different plans and has a broad price range. Their GRE prep is also accompanied by several GRE prep study plans that you can use to organize your GRE prep and stick to a routine. They have a one-month study schedule up to a six-month prep plan, which is very handy for self-preparing. 

What makes Magoosh even more attractive is the fact that they have excellent customer service. They are quick to resolve any queries you have while going through their product. Magoosh even gives a complete refund if you are not happy with their product. They are also very generous at extending the validity of your plan. Just email them once, and you will see how accomodating they are.

Not a Precise GRE Score Predictor

While Magoosh is outstanding for your GRE prep, it lacks when it comes to predicting your score. They have a score predictor, but it gives a vast range of your score, which is not very helpful for most students. But this won’t be much of an issue since most students use Magoosh to prepare for the exam and then use the ETS official exams to get an idea of their scores.

Fantastic Use of Technology

  • You can access Magoosh from anywhere on any device. They have applications for Android as well as IOS devices.
  • The platform is also well organized and easy to navigate.
  • Magoosh has developed separate applications for vocabulary building (Magoosh flashcards and Magoosh vocab builder)
  • They provide a personalized dashboard that keeps track of your progress.
  • Magoosh has an ingenious review system that will analyze your progress and give you insights on your weaknesses.

Live Classes + Recorded Lessons

In addition to its self-study options, Magoosh also offers Live Classes for students who need extra accountability and individualized attention. GRE Live Classes are taught by expert instructors and cover essential topics like statistics and data interpretation, paragraph argument, geometry, and more. Live Class plans come with supplemental homework assignments to reinforce learning plus everything that’s included in the self-study plans — including their 5 point score increase and 7-day money back guarantees.

No Grading of Your Essays

Magoosh does not offer any service for grading or evaluating your essays. However, they do offer a lot of sample essays and have evaluated them in detail.

Summary

Positives:

  • Great live and recorded videos teaching GRE from scratch
  • Value for money
  • Cheap compared to its competitors

Negatives:

  • Little outdated content, especially Math

And finally….

FAQ’s regarding Magoosh GRE

Is Magoosh good for GRE? 

Definitely Magoosh is worth it. It offers ample content to prepare for the GRE. They provide more than you can find anywhere in the market. If you have the thirst and motivation to self-prepare for the GRE, you can find more than enough within Magoosh. In fact, in my view, you will most likely not be able to complete everything they have to offer – videos, questions, analytics, vocabulary apps, quantitative flashcards, etc.

Is Magoosh GRE free?

The full version of Magoosh GRE prep is not free. However, Magoosh does offer free 1-week trial access to prospective students.  During the free trial, you can look at over 20 videos and 20 practice questions. You don’t require a credit card or any other payment information to avail free trial.

Magoosh also offers discounts throughout the year. You should keep checking their website for any.

Are Magoosh GRE questions harder?

Magoosh does a great job for the verbal prep. It does mimic the GRE style on all verbal question types.

For quant, the easy and medium questions are good. However, the hard and very hard are not styled the way GRE tests hard questions. You would definitely find them hard but I think they are not relevant to the actual GRE exam. They tend to induce confusion and can lead you to prepare inadequately for the real test.

Therefore, always supplement Magoosh GRE with all of the ETS official material to see beautiful results. ETS and Magoosh GRE will be enough for your prep.

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