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Magoosh vs Target Test Prep GMAT
Determine whether Magoosh or Target Test Prep is the right choice to help you prepare for the GMAT
Apart from a handful of online-only, self-paced prep packages, in the world of GMAT prep, there aren’t a ton of courses that fall below $500. And among those few affordable prep courses that rely on digital-only content and practice work, Target Test Prep and Magoosh are by far the two most popular. But which one should you choose for your studies? In this guide, we take an in-depth look at each GMAT prep course and break down which one is better.
As this is a lengthy article, we’ve provided helpful jump-to links above so you can easily navigate this post by section.
Video Review: Target Test Prep Or Magoosh?
In this video, TPI team member John analyzes everything you need to know about the GMAT prep courses from Target Test Prep and Magoosh. Continue reading for more detail.
Let’s begin this review with an overview of the Magoosh GMAT course and how it work to help set the stage for our thoughts and direct comparison against Target Test Prep.
From a high level, Magoosh provides many of the same features that Target Test Prep GMAT does.
This includes lessons, practice tests, video lectures, performance metrics, email support, and study notes, among many others. However, when getting into the nitty gritty details, Magoosh is different from Target Test Prep in a couple big ways.
The Magoosh GMAT dashboard
For one, Magoosh takes a slightly less rigid approach to how you work through the study material. With Target Test Prep, you work through the course modules in a very linear, structured order (similar to Kaplan GMAT).
By contrast, with Magoosh, you drive your own studies and attack material in whatever order you see fit. Of course, the Magoosh GMAT team provides suggested study plans and lesson orders for you to follow if you want, however, you have a lot more freedom to jump around with Magoosh.
They likely do this because when prepping for the GMAT, some people already have a pretty good grasp of some of the material, especially on the verbal side.
Thus, spending a bunch of time on material that’s not going to give you much lift just doesn’t make sense.
The second (and arguably more important) difference between Target Test Prep and Magoosh is that Magoosh is a lot bigger on video lessons.
Interestingly, Target Test Prep makes a big deal of promoting how they offer over 1,200 short video lessons.
Magoosh offers content driven GMAT video lessons
The reality, however, is that these videos only focus on quick problem breakdowns. There aren’t any video-based content lectures with Target Test Prep, as they rely heavily on text lessons.
In stark contrast, Magoosh offers 340 content-based video lessons, which is a big difference.
Why Magoosh Is Better Than Target Test Prep
Knowing how the Magoosh GMAT course works, let’s get into where it specifically beats out Target Test Prep’s GMAT course.
Content-Based Video Lectures
As I already alluded to above, the first major victory for Magoosh is their video lessons. While Target Test Prep really only utilizes video for problem breakdowns, Magoosh provides hundreds of content driven videos.
The problem explanations in video form are useful
For visual learners, I think this is a major value add. I don’t necessarily think the delivery format of Magoosh’s videos is amazing, but the content is on point and the visuals definitely help, so that’s a big win.
My last highlight for Magoosh is all the extras. Despite being slightly cheaper than Target Test Prep, Magoosh actually provides better bonus tools and resources, such as flashcards, FAQs, a score predictor, email support, a progress tracker, student forum, and more.
Magoosh makes reviewing completed problems easy
Target Test Prep provides some of these things (like performance analysis and chat support), but Magoosh’s resources just feel more supportive and comprehensive.
Admissions Support
For an extra $50, you can sign-up for Magoosh’s Premium + Admissions course, which gives you access to a plethora of resources post-exam. This includes insider advice on how to best craft your application, essay examples, on-demand videos, and Q&A with MBA experts.
Let’s next cover an overview of the Target Test Prep GMAT course. In comparison to Magoosh, the Target Test Prep GMAT course is fairly structured.
The program is broken out into 47 learning modules, which each cover a specific topic tested on the GMAT.
Each learning module is generally built around four components:
Quick review
Lesson chapter
Chapter test
Test review
The first component, the quick review, is a just a short quiz that reinforces material from previous modules. It leans on the concept of spaced repetition to make sure you’re retaining material as you move through the course.
The lesson chapter, which follows it, is the meat of your learning. Each chapter is built around a series of short passages that are filled with text-based notes, example problems, videos, and occasionally, illustrations.
Target Test Prep GMAT problem video breakdown
Then after you complete the chapter, you take a chapter test. These are basically just quizzes to test the material you just learned, and they come in varying difficulty levels.
And finally, the fourth component is a simple review session where you review your missed problems from the chapter test. You read through or watch a video solution to see where you went wrong and learn from your mistakes.
Then around this main structure, there are some other features, like practice tests, chat support and performance metrics, but that’s largely the Target Test Prep course in a nutshell.
Why Target Test Prep Is Better Than Magoosh
That’s how the Target Test Prep course works. Next, let’s discuss where Target Test prep beats Magoosh.
Volume of GMAT Practice Material
The first advantage in the company’s favor is the amount of practice material. Basically, where Magoosh provides 1,300 practice problems, Target Test Prep provides over 4,000 – over twice as many.
Secondly, I like Target Test Prep’s learning module-based approach to teaching. These “missions,” as they call them, are very effective for efficiently delivering new content and hammering old material to reinforce it.
Each module nicely streamlines content instruction, practice, and review into one nice little package that’s easy to manage and digest.
Better Performance Analytics
Lastly, I like the company’s performance analytics better than Magoosh’s. In short, Magoosh’s performance stats are good, but Target Test Prep’s are particularly deep and helpful.
The Target Test Prep study plan
Their score reports give you behavioral trends through error analysis, metrics on how you stack up against peers, pacing issues, and a ton more.
You could seriously spend hours digging through all the performance data once you’ve logged a good sample size of questions. This, in my opinion, this is a major value add.
Before wrapping up with my final thoughts, I’d like to cover a quick cost breakdown, as it’s an important topic (especially among budget prep providers like these).
In terms of pricing, Target Test Prep offers three packages, which all give you access to the same course, just for different durations.
There’s a monthly flex package where you get access to all of Target Test Prep’s content for $179/month, and there’s two one-time purchase packages, where you can buy access to the Target Test Prep materials for 4 or 6 months. Those two packages cost approximately $550 and $600, respectively.
A typical Target Test Prep GMAT video
With Magoosh, on the other hand, you’ve got two primary packages to choose from. They offer their Premium self-paced online course, which costs $250, and a Premium + Admissions course, which costs $300.
Both companies also offer GMAT tutoring on the side if you need additional help or instruction.
When you stack the two companies up side-by-side and compare the self-paced courses, Magoosh is cheaper by $250 to $350 in total, depending on which Target Test Prep package you opt for. But of course, that’s assuming you don’t need more than 6 months of access, because if you do, you will pay even more for Target Test Prep.
This is because Magoosh provides up to 12 months of access for the same price, while the longest Target Test Prep package is 6 months. So keep that in mind.
Verdict: Magoosh GMAT Or Target Test Prep?
Now that we’ve covered all the important detail, let’s get to my final verdict. Should you go with Magoosh or Target Test Prep for your GMAT prep?
Well, after using and thoroughly testing out each of these GMAT prep programs, it’s a close call. Both GMAT courses actually get pretty high grades across the board, but in the end, I personally would go with Magoosh.
I know Target Test Prep offers more practice questions and has better analytics, but I just think Magoosh provides a more robust all-around course.
Between the video lessons, detailed problem explanations, digital text, and all the extras, there is a lot to like about their course. And this is especially true if you layer in other considerations like their longer content access period, higher score guarantee, and cheaper price tag.
Bottom line, I just think Magoosh provides more bang for your buck than Target Test Prep in this category of value GMAT prep courses, and is the company I would personally go with.
Which is better for GMAT prep, Magoosh or Target Test Prep?
When breaking down and grading all the factors that truly matter when evaluating a GMAT course, we give Magoosh the win over Target Test Prep. The Magoosh course feels more complete and we particularly like their video lessons better.
Which course is cheaper - Target Test Prep or Magoosh GMAT?
If you stack up the two standard packages from Magoosh and Target Test Prep, Magoosh’s self-study package is a bit cheaper than Target Test Prep’s by roughly $200 to $300 (depending on access duration).
Magoosh quant GMAT vs Target Test Prep - which is better?
When considering only the quant-based study materials from each package, we give Target Test Prep the slight edge over Magoosh. We found the realism and quality of practice work from each to be equal, but Target Test Prep’s hundreds of video breakdowns push its quant material over the edge.
