The Economist GRE Prep

The Bottom Line: The Economist GRE Prep Course shines in terms of their adaptive difficulty personalization but comes in as quite expensive for their short access periods. (Last update: April–2024)

The Economist GRE Prep Review

GRE exam preparation is something that can be very stressful and time-consuming because of the stakes involved and how important it is for your career.  As such, you’ll want to make the most out of your preparation time and leverage some of the best resources out there so you can perform at your best.  In this review, we are going to explore the Economist GRE Prep course, to determine whether it is something you should be spending your time and money on to improve your GRE results.

Let’s dive in.

• Program Structure
• Study Materials
• Pricing
• User Experience
• Support
• Student Performance
• Conclusion
• Additional Info:

Program Structure

The program is structured around hundreds of bite-sized, interactive video lessons that the course takes you through. These videos are typical whiteboard explainer videos which run through the concepts and then ask you to answer questions to test your understanding of the material. The route through which these videos are presented to you shifts and changes depending on your answers to the questions – so the curriculum is essentially personalized for you. Not only that, but there are algorithms working behind the scenes that monitor your progress and adapt the difficulty accordingly in an attempt to consistently push you to the edge of your abilities without overwhelming you.

Study Materials

While the course boasts a large bank of test questions, you have to use course credits to redeem them, so in practice – you aren’t able to practice on as many questions as other courses without breaking the bank.  This is one of the major downsides of this course.  The questions are quite useful when you get there, but this barrier means that you have to pick which concepts you are going to practice questions on, which isn’t ideal.  That being said, the video explainers are very well-made and are actually quite engaging – which encourages better retention and application.  When it comes to practice tests, the course does offer a few for you to test yourself against and get a sense of where you are currently at.

One additional perk that comes with this course is a free 3-month digital subscription to the Economist magazine, which is a great way to stretch your reading, vocabulary, and understanding of current affairs – all of which can give you a leg up on the competition, assuming you actually take the time to read and engage with the magazine.

Pricing

There are three different packages to choose from, all of which are quite expensive when compared to their peers. The ‘Express’ package gives you 6 weeks of access for $349 and limits some of the higher value features. The ‘Premium’ package gives you 3 months of access for $489 and includes extra tests and more tutor support. The ‘Genius’ package is $699 for 6 months and includes all the bells and whistles, including the live one on one tutoring if required.

What you get:

• Free 7-day trial.
• Offers personalized Analytical Writing essay feedback.
• 7-day a week virtual support.
• Optional one-on-one tutoring.
• Money-back score guarantee if you don’t improve at least 5 – 7 points (restrictions apply).

User Experience

The course is delivered through an application that works seamlessly across devices, so whether you’re on a desktop or on your mobile, you can work through the material in a very intuitive way.  The design is superb and lightweight, allowing you to focus on the concepts you’re learning – no matter what context you’re in.  In addition, the adaptive difficulty and personalization helps you to identify what you should be working on next, removing the analysis paralysis and pushing you to work on the things that you struggle with, not just the stuff that you find easy.  It makes the whole studying process easy to navigate through and somewhat gamified.

Support

Unlike some other course providers, the Economist has built-in tutor support right in their app without having to pay anything extra. If you’re struggling with something, you can chat to a real human tutor through their instant messaging feature to get some help at the exact moment when you need it. If you’re looking for assistance on a more regular basis, they also have live one on one tutor sessions on their most expensive package. All in all, the support is one of the highlights of this course and you can see that if you look through any customer reviews.

Student Performance

As always, it’s difficult to judge exactly how you might perform after taking a course like this because it all depends on the work that you put in, but the Economist GRE course does have a score guarantee of a 6- or 7-point improvement (depending on what plan you’re on), or you get your money back.  That is quite a bold claim and points to how confident they are about their material.

Conclusion

All in all, the Economist GRE Prep course offers some really great features including the live support and adaptive difficulty, while falling short on others such as how the test questions work. At the end of the day, it will depend on your learning style as to whether this is the right choice for you. Some students have found that the adaptive difficulty and personalization on its own was enough to keep them on their learning journey and pushed them to succeed. So, take this review into account and decide whether its right for you. If you’re on the fence, try their 7-day free trial to get a peek behind the curtains before spending any hard-earned money.

Good luck!

Additional Info:

Guaranteed to improve your score, The Economist is trusted by many students looking for quick and efficient GRE Prep programs. Though best known for their magazine, The Economist, GRE prep included personalized Analytical Writing essay feedback and various other test support channels.

The course credits that come with each package (to various degrees) are flexible in terms of what you can use them for. So, you can spend them on tutor questions, practice questions, practice exams, and the like – in whatever proportion you’d like, depending on what you need. It’s up to you, essentially, to make the most out of the money you’ve paid and leverage the resources as required to get bang for your buck.