Let’s get this fact straight. For Indian candidates (specially when you are a fresher or in a low paying job), taking the GMAT is a costly affair. The exam itself costs you 250 USD (around 17,000 INR). Add to it the cost of coaching and mock tests and you end up spending quite a lot.
This post will help you (Indian candidates mostly) to save money while buying various resources to study for the GMAT. I will start with the preparation and then will move to the mock tests. Also, please note that whatever I am putting up is according to my opinion and your decision making should be completely dependent on your aptitude and comfort level in Quantitative and Verbal.
It is a common fact that an Indian GMAT aspirant is quite comfortable in the Quantitative section and his/her main issue is the Verbal section. So spending a huge amount of money on Classroom course is completely not worth it. (It is my personal opinion. Please use your own discretion while taking any decision)
So what to do? I will tell you.
- Enroll for E-Gmat Verbal Online Subscription. . At 199 USD, it is a complete value for money. Along with the course, you also get Scholranium (around 750 questions each in Verbal and Quant as well. Though I would suggest to leave its Quant as it is not at all according to GMAT level.)
Added to it you get GMAT Club Tests (1500+ Questions, very famous for Quants, not so much for Verbal). GMAT Club tests cost 79 USD if you buy them separately.
- Also they provide a free mock test from 800score.com. So it is a good decision to buy E-Gmat Verbal Online Course. You can also choose to share it among your friends and hence reduce the cost. Or you can ask a friend of yours who has already taken the GMAT and had bought the course to get an extension to the course (The course is valid for only 6 months and can be extended by paying a price which is lesser than the original price).
- Those who must need Maths coaching also, can go for Magoosh. Their entire Quant+Verbal course costs only 99 USD, but since I haven’t used it personally I cannot comment about its credibility.
How to save money on Books ?
Almost all books are available on torrent. Ask your friends. Join the
GMAT Avengers group on facebook. Don’t ask publicly on the group as they do not support piracy. And I do not support piracy as well so neither ask me for the links. But with a little bit of networking you will get all the books. Which books you need? Read my GMAT debrief
here.
Mahakali Book Centre, Mumbai- Call them on 09920411158/09820665661. They will get you OG + Verbal Review + Quant Review + All 10 Manhattan Strategy guides for an extremely cheap price.
Use Gmatclub.com download section extensively. There is almost nothing you cannot get there for free. Posting a few official questions downloading link (
But see these questions only during revision, once you are done with OG + Verbal Review+ Quant Review and also all the questions from GMATPrep Software, else you will get repeat questions.)
- CR- http://gmatclub.com/forum/the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-cr-140375.html
- RC- http://gmatclub.com/forum/the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-rc-140373.html
- SC- http://gmatclub.com/forum/the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-sc-140372.html
Use
Veritas Question Bank. They are free and unlimited!
Use
Beatthegmat forum for free questions and explanations
Use Quikr and Olx to search for used books. Or the old book shops at your city (Avenue road for Bangalore Junta is one of the places). You will find something for sure.
Use
Prep4GMAT App. I haven’t used it but have heard good things about it from a friend who scored 710. Yes it is for free!
Use GMAT Prep Now(
https://www.gmatprepnow.com/). This material is created by Brent- one of the best tutors for GMAT. He is active in both GMATClub and BTG. This is a full course and ABSOLUTELY FREE!! For all
Veritas Prep On Demand App- If you download the app(available in both itunes and play store) you can watch the videos for all the lessons for free. There are total of 12 lessons covering all the sections of GMAT. Once you are done, you can use their free question bank to solve the problems pertaining to a particular chapter
How to save money on Mocks?
- GMATPrep Resetting :- The two mocks will come for free when you will register at mba.com and will download the software (For other 2 mocks you need to pay). Now, do you know that you can get 80% new questions by just resetting the already taken mock test? But make sure that you reset after a gap so that you do not remember the repeat questions (else you will get an improper score). You can keep resetting it again and again till you think that most of the questions you are getting are repeat.
- PowerPrep :- PowePrep is nothing but the old version of GMATPrep Software. You can download it from here and can get another 2 tests for free. But please use these tests at the very beginning of your preparation (as there is a big overlap between PowerPrep questions and OG, Verbal Review and Quant Review Questions).
- Veritas :- Generally priced at 49 USD, Veritas provide discount at various points of time (for example, currently it is available for 20 USD and when I bought it was available for 15 USD). Keep checking.
- Free Tests :- All test prep companies (Veritas, Manhattan, Princeton, Economist, Platinum GMAT, GMATPill etc) provide one test for free. Use them only for practice. Don’t rely on their scores. No one, I repeat no one can predict your score except the official mocks (i.e GMATPrep).
I hope that this post will prove beneficial to reduce the cost of your preparation.
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About the Author:
Kumar Anshul is a Dentist-turned-Manager who is currently working as a Marketing Manager at Oliveboard. He also has his own venture- Founder and Editor-in-Chief of International Dental Journal of Students’ Research. He also works for The Bootcamp, where they help students to prepare for GMAT to get through ISB Admission process. He has an Early Entry Admit to Indian School of Business and will be joining the batch of 2017-18. He is an avid reader. He loves learning new languages and has cleared basic proficiency level exams in Spanish and French and is currently learning Italian (Online) and Japanese (Weekend Classroom Course) simultaneously.
