Any reviews/feedback on the Knewton GMAT prep course ? Cheers
Any reviews/feedback on the Knewton GMAT prep course ?
Cheers
Hi, thanks for the question about Knewton! Hopefully a few current or former students will chime in to give you a sense of their experiences with the Knewton course, but wanted to let you know that if you have any questions for us, we're here to help!
Best,
Josh
Mod Note : Help, but do not advertise yourself.
Hi!
I took the Knewton Free CAT today
This is how i performed:
Verbal:
37 correct, 5 incorrect. score = 43 (96 percentile)
Quant:
34 correct, 3 incorrect. score = 49 (87 percentile) (I marked wrong answers for ques 9, ques 36 and ques 37)
Overall = 750 (99 percentile)
Please clarify the following:
1) In quants, GMAT prep awarded me 51 for 4 incorrect ques, 50 for 7 incorrect ques. How does the scoring method for Knewton works? Do I have to answer all questions correctly to get a 51??
2) Was it because of the 2 wrong answers at the end of quants, that I got 49?? Does finishing a section with a right answer matter so much.
3) What is level of difficulty of Knewton's free CAT compared to the actual GMAT. I need this information in order to decide whether to go for the paid course or not. I have taken 6 MGMAT CATs, which I found to be tough compared to GMAT prep.
Hi vivnitrel,
I posted this on your Beat the GMAT post as well, but here's a response again in case anyone reading these forums also has questions:
To answer your last question first, we're very confident in the accuracy of our CATs and do everything in our power to match the level of difficulty to that of the actual GMAT. Our CATs were designed by the architects of the original GMAT.
For insight into some of the other questions, take a look at this post on a previous thread by David Kuntz, VP of Research at Knewton. Dave also points to Knewton's GMAT FAQ page, which contains answers to some often-asked questions about our CATS.
In particular, you asked about how the scoring method for Knewton works. You probably already know some of this from general knowledge and research, but just to clarify (this can be found on the GMAT Course FAQ page): A computer-adaptive test (CAT) doesnt really care as much about how many questions you get right or wrong, but rather which questions you get right and wrong. The CAT algorithm estimates your ability based on a variety of criteria, including the difficulty of a question. After each question, it evaluates your response and updates this estimate. When the test is over, the algorithm converts your quantitative and verbal ability estimates into the quantitative and verbal scaled scores, and then separately combines your quantitative and verbal ability estimates to calculate the overall score.
Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions after taking a look at these materials!
Best,
Josh
I was totally disappointed with the Knewton "On Demand" Course for the following reasons
1) They don't have any fixed time frame to respond to your verbal/quant queries, as a result of this there are questions that go unanswered. I found it easier and quicker to get a response to my queries on the forums.
2) The instructors who respond to your queries seem to have an attitude. i.e they don't entertain the 'What if' scenarios. For example, I had a query regarding one of the Sentence Correction questions; I wanted to know whether writing the sentence in another way would be ok; these guys don't entertain such kind of queries, because according to them there are many ways to write a sentence. On the one hand, they may be correct, on the other hand, they don't understand that they could actually be helping the customer answer his/her specific query.
3) They claim to have 3800+ questions. This is bullshit. I wrote them an email and I received a reply saying that the questions span the 13 sessions including the 6 CAT's. I decided to actually count the questions. To my surprise, I counted 1606 questions. If you include the 6 CAT's, it comes to 2074. They have a pre-assignment test that you take before watching the videos, for some of the sections such as, Quant, SC, you will see non-gmat format questions, I counted these questions as well to give them the benefit of doubt, nevertheless, the number I got is no where close to their supposed number of questions.
4) I really doubt the adaptive nature of the course that I took. I couldn't tell how I was being challenged by the adaptive nature of their questions.
5) I came across their program on this website, so I directly went to their site to apply for the course; it was only later that I realized that had I clicked on the link advertised on this site, I could have gotten another $50 discount. I wrote them an email about this, but I was refused the additional discount. In my opinion they were being a bit cheap about this.
6) The CATs cannot be reset by the customer. Also, if you don't complete the test within the time limit, the questions you miss are not displayed when you review the test.
Feeling inadequate, I had to spend money on other test prep company products. I was wondering whether I could sue them for lying about point #3, unfortunately, I don't live in the USA.
Needless to say, I was terribly disappointed and the entire experience was unpleasant. I would NOT recommend Knewton to anyone. Please thoroughly research every company's product before investing your money, is my advise
I was totally disappointed with the Knewton "On Demand" Course for the following reasons
1) They don't have any fixed time frame to respond to your verbal/quant queries, as a result of this there are questions that go unanswered. I found it easier and quicker to get a response to my queries on the forums.
2) The instructors who respond to your queries seem to have an attitude. i.e they don't entertain the 'What if' scenarios. For example, I had a query regarding one of the Sentence Correction questions; I wanted to know whether writing the sentence in another way would be ok; these guys don't entertain such kind of queries, because according to them there are many ways to write a sentence. On the one hand, they may be correct, on the other hand, they don't understand that they could actually be helping the customer answer his/her specific query.
3) They claim to have 3800+ questions. This is bullshit. I wrote them an email and I received a reply saying that the questions span the 13 sessions including the 6 CAT's. I decided to actually count the questions. To my surprise, I counted 1606 questions. If you include the 6 CAT's, it comes to 2074. They have a pre-assignment test that you take before watching the videos, for some of the sections such as, Quant, SC, you will see non-gmat format questions, I counted these questions as well to give them the benefit of doubt, nevertheless, the number I got is no where close to their supposed number of questions.
4) I really doubt the adaptive nature of the course that I took. I couldn't tell how I was being challenged by the adaptive nature of their questions.
5) I came across their program on this website, so I directly went to their site to apply for the course; it was only later that I realized that had I clicked on the link advertised on this site, I could have gotten another $50 discount. I wrote them an email about this, but I was refused the additional discount. In my opinion they were being a bit cheap about this.
6) The CATs cannot be reset by the customer. Also, if you don't complete the test within the time limit, the questions you miss are not displayed when you review the test.
Feeling inadequate, I had to spend money on other test prep company products. I was wondering whether I could sue them for lying about point #3, unfortunately, I don't live in the USA.
Needless to say, I was terribly disappointed and the entire experience was unpleasant. I would NOT recommend Knewton to anyone. Please thoroughly research every company's product before investing your money, is my advise
My experience with knewton was good except for the CAT so for me #6 was a non-issue. Regarding #2 i believe even i got the same reply not only from knewton but also from other forums too because as they rightly said: there are too many ways to write a correct statement.
The cost of the course is definitely high but i got it when they were giving discount so it was worth. The questions solved in class were really good. I too supplemented my knewton course with other courses and books.