In this Magoosh GRE Prep review, we’re going to share with you the highlights of this course, real student testimonials, as well as who should really use this course (as well as avoid it). Read on if you’re interested in this course or are seeking a Magoosh GRE discount.
Pros
- GRE Vocabulary Flashcard App is free and the content is surprisingly entertaining
- Their 6-month subscription is the cheapest we’ve seen
- Video explanations for every question show tutor work through them
- There is now a tutor add-on for subscription members (at a cost, of course)
Cons
- Lesson videos lack interactive components and are generally dull
- There isn’t a live component
- If you need an answer to a question, it can be hours until you get a response
- Their Writing portion doesn’t actually include scoring
About Magoosh GRE
Magoosh is a rising star in the test prep scene for its on-demand prep courses. The Magoosh GRE prep course is known for its affordable price based on a subscription model as well as for their video lessons. Magoosh has been around for about 11 years now and have built an entire business model around online and digital prep products. In this Magoosh GRE review, we’re going to be focusing their GRE Premium Subscription course (which, at the time of writing, is their own GRE prep course offering).
Magoosh GRE is ranked among our top 5 GRE prep courses for this year. Read on to learn about Magoosh pricing, curriculum, platform, and read real student reviews.
New to the GRE? Start Here.
Course Pricing Options
There are only 2 GRE prep plans offered by Magoosh and they are a 1-month and a 6-month subscription:
Magoosh 1 Month Premium
Price: $149
Summary: 1-month access to Math, Verbal, and AWA video lessons, 1200 practice questions, 3 Magoosh GRE practice tests, Magoosh study schedules, and 5+ score increase guarantee
Magoosh 6 Month Premium
Price: $179
Summary: 6-month access to Math, Verbal, and AWA video lessons, 1200 practice questions, 3 Magoosh GRE practice tests, Magoosh study schedules, and 5+ score increase guarantee
Tutoring Options:
GRE Private Tutoring
Price: $100-$600 based on hours purchased
Summary: One-on-one tutoring via Skype or phone. Hourly prices range from $75-$100 per hour depending on the package of hours purchased.
Curriculum Review
The Magoosh GRE curriculum, developed by Magoosh tutors, is pretty straightforward with lessons divided into the 3 main GRE categories: Verbal, Quant, and Writing.
When you first login, you’ll have the Student Dashboard. The dashboard is made up of 3 sections: Suggested Lessons, Quick Practice, and Results Summary. The suggested lessons change dynamically based on your progress and needs. Once you’re on the Student Dashboard, this is essentially where you will be accessing all of your study coursework. Let’s dive into the GRE section categories they offer:
Verbal & Quant
There are over 250 video lessons that spread across the Magoosh GRE Verbal and Magoosh GRE Math concepts. In each of these lessons, you will be introduced to solving GRE question types quickly and methodically. These video lessons are not short, however, and some can range up to 20 minutes in length. This can be a bit long for simply viewing a video without much animation or interaction.
Writing
In the Writing section, you are given a prompt in which you are to form a reply. You are timed and can write directly into the text section in the Student Dashboard. Upon completion of this writing task, you will be led through a series of sample essays and Magoosh explanations as to why they earned their scores. You go through a brief moment of reflection as you “grade yourself.”
This is a helpful exercise to compare your essay to other sample essay scores, and Magoosh claims that grading your own essay after viewing other essay scores typically result in students providing accurate grades to their essays. This seems a bit like a cop-out, however, as most of us students are not experts in grading GRE essays. I think a more effective approach would be for a tutor to grade this essay and receive results and feedback.
We would be remiss not to bring up the Magoosh vocabulary flashcards. Although not part of the course, these Magoosh vocabulary flashcards can be accessed for free in the Resources tab. For GRE Verbal, there are 1,000 flashcards divided by Common Words, Basic Words, and Advanced Words. They also have a GRE math flashcard deck, but we don’t find the memorization nearly as helpful for Math.
Related: 2,200 Free GRE Practice Questions You Need In your Prep
Platform
The Magoosh GRE platform is really user-friendly and simple since lessons, practice, and review are all housed under the Student Dashboard. It’s easy to navigate and a student wouldn’t really require any instructions on how to use the product. That said, simplicity can come with a price, as there isn’t a lot of personal touch here. You can’t access real-time assistance on questions nor are there any webinars, live classes, or strategy sessions that can be accessed. Your best bet for interaction with others is to purchase the tutoring add-on, which is going to cost you nearly as much as your course for one hour of a tutor’s time.
As mentioned earlier, nearly all the material you’ll use from Magoosh GRE prep is housed under the Student Dashboard. After you watch a few lessons in the Dashboard, you can practice what you learned by taking a lesson quiz straight from the lesson video pages. You can also customize your practice by section, subject, difficulty, and time. The questions on the practice are all created by Magoosh, meaning they are not necessarily going to prepare you adequately for the real questions. Students using these practice questions should also be supplementing their prep with real GRE questions to be sure you get a feel for the real thing.
On each question, you can flag it for later practice. After you submit your question, you’ll see the correct answer, difficulty level, pace compared to others, text explanation, and video explanation. If you have more questions, you can click a “feedback button” and get a response within a few hours. Once you have gone through the questions, you can review answers. Here, you can review questions by section, topic, difficulty, pace, and result.
After you’ve answered some questions, you can take a practice test by clicking on the Take a Practice Test link on the top of your dashboard. You can take 2 full-length tests before you may start seeing repeats (although Magoosh says you get 3 practice tests). You can also utilize Resources to see the study schedules that have been created by Magoosh for as little as 1 week up to 6-month study schedules.
Check out this video for the Magoosh GRE Prep Video Tour:
Related: What’s a Good GRE Score? Find Out Here
How Accurate is the Magoosh GRE Score Predictor?
Magoosh specifically boasts an accurate GRE score predictor, but, as we know the Magoosh questions aren’t the real ones, then we are left with the question – how accurate is it then? To understand its accuracy, let’s see a bit more about how it works.
Magoosh’s GRE Score Predictor is an online GRE score calculator that predicts your GRE score on test day. After you practice on up to 50 questions in the GRE course, they have enough data on you to predict your score within a 5-point range by section. This Score predictor will also appear on your Student Dashboard while you are practicing. To test its accuracy, Magoosh has participated in a study of its users’ GRE test scores from test day and compared them to the predicted score in their Student Dashboard. Here are the results:
As you can see here, there is a correlation between students’ Magoosh GRE predicted score and their real test score. It seems that they are predicting scores with more than a 50% accuracy. On the flip side, this does also mean that 50% of scores were predicted inaccurately. For more on this study, check this out. All information taken into consideration, do not count on Magoosh’ score predictor to be the sole determination of how you will do on test day. As we mentioned previously, always be practicing on real GRE timed practice tests as well. ETS offers 2 free GRE practice tests here.
Magoosh GRE Refund Policy
There is some fine print in the Magoosh GRE Refund Policy that we think is worth mentioning, as we hate to hear of students who felt misled after purchasing a test prep product that they felt was not adequate or lacking in any way. As you are paying your own (or your parents’) hard-earned money, we like for you to understand what recourse you have if you do not like this product.
7-Day Money Back Guarantee:
Magoosh states that if you decide you do not like their course, you have a 7-day window to email them and ask for a refund. To ask for a 7-day refund, click the “Leave us a message” button or just email them at help@magoosh.com with the subject line “Requesting a 7-Day Refund.”
Magoosh GRE Score Guarantee:
Magoosh will offer a 100% money-back refund for the GRE course if your score does not increase by 5 points and you meet the following requirements:
- You must have taken the exam before studying with Magoosh
- Your old score must be valid (i.e. less than 5 years old)
- E-mail them a copy of your “Before” score report when you sign up. A scan or screenshot of your official score report is fine. Email them at help@magoosh.com with the subject line “Before Score Report for GRE Score Guarantee” to submit your before score report
As you can see, this is not the most inclusive score guarantee. If you have not taken an official GRE test before Magoosh, then you do not qualify for this higher-score-guarantee. Most other companies offer a diagnostic test that serves as the baseline for whether or not you score higher on the test. This guarantee feels unfair and misleading, which is why we think it’s important to share here for you to know as a potential user.
Student Feedback
We receive direct feedback from students through our review platform but also find reviews from other unbiased sources including Reddit, Trustpilot, and GMAT Club.
-Source: GMAT Club
-Source: r/GRE
-Source: Trustpilot
Related: Get this Free GRE Study Plan [1-6 Months]
Who Needs This Course
This course is best for average students who are looking for a cheap review of GRE material but aren’t looking for an intensive course. If you have any specific areas of concern, especially Quant, then we suggest that you look at other courses specifically aimed at lifting your score for that area, such as Manhattan Prep’s GRE Just Math. That said, you are going to be paying much more for this course.
At the end of the day, those with special needs or who want to raise their scores significantly are going to need to pay more for a more intensive and comprehensive course. If you do not meet any of these two criteria, then Magoosh GRE is certainly enough review to succeed on the GRE.
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