Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Review: GREedge - Online GRE Coaching

GREedge is one of the many online GRE preparation academies. I chose this because one of my friends suggested me, as in my case it would not have made much difference even if it were some other coaching institute. But I would certainly like to write a review of this institute so that others may find it easy to compare.



1. Course Material: This is one of the major aspects to look for, so we will take this first. For this I assume that the reader is aware of GRE pattern as of 2013. The paper contains three main sections:

  1. Quantitative Reasoning: This is relatively easier than other sections. One only needs to brush up the concepts he/she had learned during secondary studies. GREedge has a good amount of material for this section. They cover almost all the related concepts and have a nice variety of questions under each category of this section. The questions in actual exam would be less difficult than what are there in the mock tests provided by them. This makes it easier to score in the actual exam. But, I did find some questions that required too much time to solve and shouldn't really come under Quantitative Reasoning section, nor are they asked in GRE exam.
  2. Verbal Reasoning: This section is what decides your score on a larger scale. Reading Comprehensions (RCs) provided by GREedge are good enough covering a wide range of topics and varying lengths of paragraphs along with proper relevant questions. The art of attacking each and every type of questions for RCs is also very well taught through their ppts and videos. But they still need to add more to this as RCs need more effort.

    For the Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence, I realised that there was some difference in what they had and what was actually there in the GRE exam. SE is still match worthy but TC is what they really need to improve upon.

    The word lists in their learning tracker are still underpopulated. They also provide with a pdf and online database of words, but need to add more into the learning tracker itself as it is a crucial part of preparation.
  3. Analytical Writing: This part is covered well by GREedge. A pretty good amount of essays are available for practice and feedback along with proper strategies for getting better scores.
2.  Student Facilitator & Adviser: This is a facility provided in form of two mentors that they appoint one each for Verbal and Quant section. The  SFAs keep a track of your progress and keep providing you the adequate feedback regarding your mistakes. You can discuss with them on phone or through email if you face any issue. They also keep you motivated and dedicated towards your studies.

3. Learning Tracker: This is the interface from where you access your online source of preparation. This is in beta stage as of now and needs improvement.

4. Webinars; They keep organising webinars on various topics related to 'how to prepare some particular topics', education loans, right time to apply, pitfalls in entire process of application, and a hell lot of other useful tips.

5. Time Management: This is something that they helped in properly maintaining. This is also necessary for your preparation to go well.

On a scale of 10, I would rate 6 for this institute. I managed to get a score of 325/340 in a preparation period of two months studying for average 4 hours a day.
Other famous sources for GRE preparation are like Jamboree, magoosh, wordpandit, CL, etc. Reader can look for some reviews of these to decide which one to join.

PS: Please read other online GREedge reviews as well, the number of people dissatisfied with GREedge services is no less. One of the links to such complaints is there in the comments below.

For any doubts, use comments below.