Review: Beat the GMAT Practice Questions

UPDATE: For a chance to win free access to the Beat the GMAT Practice Questions, click here.

I started studying for the GMAT near the beginning of July and decided to take a Manhattan GMAT course.  As the course was winding down, David Park from Beat the GMAT offered me access to a new product that the website was offering: The Beat the GMAT Practice Question Set.  I was initially skeptical about how much these could help me, since I was nearly finished with my online GMAT course, but since I knew I had about a month before the test, I thought they were worth trying out.  I had originally planned to just use the BTG practice questions as just a supplement to my other material, but they soon became an integral part of my study plan.  I used them intensely during my last week of study and ended up scoring a 750 (Q 48, V 46) on the test.  Needless to say, I am a very happy and satisfied user of this product.

The best part about the BTG Practice Questions is the inclusion of video explanations – the video format makes a huge difference.  How many times have you read through the explanation of a difficult MGMAT math question and had absolutely no idea what you were being tested on or how to solve it if you saw it again?  The video explanations from BTG are given by two GMAT experts who go through each problem clearly and in detail.  I was impressed that, after every question I got wrong, I was able to truly learn something from my mistake and walk away with everything I needed to solve it correctly the next time.

I made sure to sit through each and every one of the Sentence Correction explanations, even if I answered the question in 30 seconds.  I feel this is crucial towards honing your SC abilities.  It’s not good enough to just know which answer choice is right; you have to know why the other answers choices are wrong.  If any of you have taken a Manhattan GMAT course, you’ll know that this is exactly how they teach practice problems.  The class will be given a problem, given a limited amount of time to solve it, and then the instructor goes through each answer choice, including all the wrong ones.  Studying Verbal at this level of detail was what helped get me to the 99th percentile in that section.

Another really cool feature is the BTG Question dashboard.  The dashboard is your home base during your study sessions.  It shows you your progress based on accuracy level and pace.  (You can see an example of my scores sorted by topic below)  The best part about the dashboard is that it also compares your performance against those of all other users of the question set.  Now, I’m not someone who naturally likes doing GMAT problems, (who is really?) but being able to view the stats and the benchmarks of other users was what made me addicted to this product.  I’d start each question with the motivation to compete with my fellow GMAT takers and try to improve my scores.  And with the online format, I always found time to do them.  Sometimes it was just 5 questions during a lunch break at work.  Other times I went through as many as 40 questions at once to try and build endurance.  This convenience and accessibility helped me focus and ramp up my studying appropriately during my last few weeks of study.

One minor criticism that I do have about the product is that the user base seems heavily weighted towards international students.  (During my practice, I had trouble reaching the benchmarks for some of the Math sections, but there were times I felt my Verbal was super-human)  This isn’t a huge gripe, and I’m not saying they should stop selling this product to people outside the US; I just think it would be great if the dashboard could show two sets of benchmarks: one representing US candidates and the other representing International candidates.

Overall, the BTG practice questions are an excellent supplement to a larger study plan.  The questions included are of moderate difficulty, so I would recommend that you do some significant self study or complete a GMAT course before going through all of them.  The BTG questions won’t get you a 700 score by themselves, but they can definitely push you over the top if you’re getting close.  Had I not spent the countless hours going through each of these questions and their video explanations, I likely would not have achieved my 750 score.

So what are you waiting for?  If you’re studying for the GMAT, and need additional study material, you should at least sign-up for the free trial and see for yourself whether the BTG Practice Question Set can help you reach your goal.