Beat the GMAT is coming up with an upgraded version of their test prep product – BTG Practice Questions. It could not have come up at a more appropriate time, as I am preparing for a second shot at the test before I submit my second set of allocations in R2. So when the folks at BTG asked me to do a review of this product, I jumped on board immediately. I spent some time on this new product late yesterday and today during my lunch hours and here is my take on it.
· Highly customizable: Using the combination of section, subject area, number of questions, difficulty level, and mode (practice vs quiz) you can create a highly customized practice session. This is what I used to create a 20 question practice session for practicing during my lunch hour!
· A simulation of the real thing: The new PQ is highly adaptive, like the real test. So if you setup a 30 minute simulation, you will start with a random set of questions and based on your performance it will present you easy or hard questions.
· Online practice: The online practice feature gives you the flexibility to practice any time without having to carry books or being logged into a particular machine. This works really good for me, over the last few months I have been sacrificing my lunch table discussions preparing for GMAT, researching schools, or writing my essays. So this is a good tool to have for a quick 30 min practice during the lunch hours at your office desk.
· Video explanation: The video explanation serves not only to help you figure out the right approach, it is useful for the questions that you might have got right too. Remember, the objective is not to just get the answers right, you have to get to it in the shortest possible time too. This is where it becomes very important to look out for the explanation to check if there is another/better approach.
· Performance reporting & Benchmarking: The BTG PQ allows you to create customizable reports to track your progress as you chug along; it also provides you the average statistics which gives you a means to judge where you stand as compared to rest of the users.
· More than 700 questions: The more than 700 questions is a great way to push yourself and practice more. A quick math will tell you this is more than 20 hours of practice, all high quality stuff!
Overall, I really liked the material, presentation, reporting, customization, and explanations. I also like how it's organized; practicing more questions is much practical and realistic than reading a lot of theoretical material.
The one thing that I thought needs improvement is the variety. Having taken the test once, I think there are more breakdowns possible for different subject areas in each section. So I would like to see more things covered, but again there is no single comprehensive guideline about the subject areas and it is up to the test prep company’s discretion how they cover all the areas.
As if all these great things were not enough, the BTG team has come up with one more reason - you could end up winning an iPad simply by trying out the new PQ. On top of everything they also have a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee if you’re not satisfied. That shows how much the BTG team believes in this product, and I do too!
PS: I already have an account, courtesy the BTG 100K competition. However, Eric has promised me 5 accounts for this review. If anyone is interested please chime in and drop a comment or write to me using the e-mail under my profile.
