Looking for the right GRE test prep can be stressful, especially because some options can be very pricey.
The Target Test Prep GRE can be an interesting option for anyone who wants to get a strong GRE preparation (particularly on the Quant front), without spending thousands of dollars.
This fully digital GRE test prep offers a number of interesting features on paper, but do they actually deliver?
In this Target test prep GRE review, we will discuss in detail all the features and resources provided while weighing in on the pros and cons.
We hope this article can help make a better-informed decision about the right GRE test prep for you.
Summary Table
Before diving into the review, let’s take a look at all the offerings from Target Test Prep GRE.
Target Test Prep GRE | ||||
Flexible Preparation | Dedicated Study | Maximum Learning | Maximum Learning + Live Classes | |
Price | $179 per month | $449 | $499 | $1,399 |
Access Period | month-by-month | 4 months | 6 months | 6 months |
Practice Exams | Customizable (No full-length tests) | Customizable (No full-length tests) | Customizable (No full-length tests) | Customizable (No full-length tests) |
Practice Questions | 4,000+ Questions | 4,000+ Questions | 4,000+ Questions | 4,000+ Questions |
Video Instruction | 1,000+ Videos | 1,000+ Videos | 1,000+ Videos | 1,000+ Videos |
Live lessons | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | 40 Hours |
Prep books | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ |
Flashcards/Quizzes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Mobile App | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ |
Free Trial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not for live classes |
Score-Improvement Guarantee | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Target Test Prep GRE Overview
The Target Test Prep GRE (TTP) offers a full-on-demand digital course that covers all the essential concepts for both the Quant and Verbal sections, offering clear lessons and useful strategies.
However, before you buy it, you should know that this course is definitely more oriented toward the GRE Quant section.
Besides the on-demand course, TTP also offers a plan with online live lessons, an option that was added more recently.
Let’s take a quick look at the core features of the Target Test Prep GRE:
- 4,000+ Quant and Verbal practice questions
- 1,000+ Quant and Verbal videos led by GRE experts
- 1,200 vocab flashcards
- Customer practice test builder
- Personalized GRE study plan and daily study calendar
- Performance analytics and error tracking
- 15-point score improvement guarantee
- Up to 6 months of access
Target Test Prep GRE Review For 2024
Target Test Prep was founded in 2008 in Los Angeles.
The whole idea was to combine time-tested teaching methods with cutting-edge technology and innovative learning science, to help students achieve better scores on their standardized tests.
Besides the GRE, TTP also offers preparation for the GMAT, the SAT, and the EA.
Their GRE prep course differentiates from the others in the market in its focus on the Quantitative Reasoning section of the exam.
So, if you’re someone who feels comfortable with the Quant section but needs more support with the Verbal section, you may want to consider other prep courses.
Course Options
TTP offers four plans – three of them fully on-demand, and one with live classes.
The GRE Flexible Prep, GRE Dedicated Study, and GRE Maximum Learning all offer the exact same course and prep materials, but with different access periods.
While the Flexible Preparation offers a monthly subscription with unlimited access, the Dedicated Study and Maximum Learning plans have a one-time billing for 4 or 6 months of access, respectively.
These plans offer a self-paced, step-by-step study plan and calendar, and customizable practice tests.
With over 4,000 practice questions, TTP positions itself above a lot of its competitors, including Kaplan, Princeton Review, and Mogoosh, although not as many as Manhattan Prep with its impressive 100,000 questions.
The course also offers over 1,000 video explanations and several cool study tools and resources, such as flashcards, error tracking, and ActiveReview study sheets.
We will look at all of these a bit further in the article.
The Maximum Learning + Live Classes plan came a bit later than the on-demand course, and it offers 40 hours of seminar-like, GRE test prep classes conducted using live video.
TTP’s GRE classes online allow for real-time interaction, and you’ll also be assigned personalized homework.
Curriculum Structure
TTP course gives you the option to choose between two types of study schedules: a mission-based study plan and a calendar study plan.
The mission-based plan is task-focused instead of focusing on daily tasks, so you can curate your own course of study.
The calendar-based study, on the other hand, provided a curated, daily schedule based on your score goal.
You can also select your desired score and choose between Quant only, Verbal only, and Quant + Verbal to customize the content of your study plan. The course is broken into up to 41 modules.
TTP organizes the course in two major phases.
The first phase is essentially the learning phase, where you’ll review the content and acquire the knowledge and skills needed to ace the GRE exam.
The second phase is the practice test phase, where you’ll take 4 official GRE practice tests.
Similar to an ebook, the course content is organized by chapters. Depending on how you customize your study plan, you have up to:
- 21 chapters with a total of 638 lessons in the Quant Reasoning section.
- 3 chapters with a total of 61 lessons in the Verbal Reasoning section.
- 1 chapter with a total of 16 lessons in the Analytical Writing section
As you can see, the focus here is predominantly on math skills. In fact, TTP was initially created as a GRE Quant course.
We would prefer to see more balanced content across all sections of the GRE, but if your focus is improving your GRE Quant score, then TTP offers you great preparation.
You still have a reasonable amount of Verbal Reasoning lessons, so it’s not so tragic in the end.
Lessons & Video Explanations
The lessons on the Target GRE prep course are text-based. Depending on your learning style, this might be a good or a bad thing.
Each lesson is short and easy to digest, so you’re not going to be inundated by text and questions.
The explanations are clear and the language is simple enough.
Within each lesson, you have example problems for the content which are also exercises that you have to solve and answer.
After you answer, you are given the solution in video form, and if you get it wrong, you can select the reason why you got it wrong to review later.
For visual learners, these short videos can be extremely helpful and a great complement to text-based lessons.
The production value is not the most spectacular (it’s essentially a whiteboard with an instructor explaining the solution and making notes on screen), but it does the job.
The content of the videos is quite good and the explanations are simple and clear.
The lessons give out many tips, tricks, important formulas, and critical concepts. In each chapter, these are highlighted in call-outs called “Must Knows” (in green).
We really like that TTP also organizes these “Must Knows” in one central location, so you can conveniently access them anytime.
Another cool feature of these text lessons is that you can highlight each sentence just like in a real textbook and add a note.
TTP also offers live classes with other students for a higher price, which may be ideal for those students who prefer the commitment and interaction that live lessons provide.
There are over 40 hours of seminar-like GRE test prep live classes over a period of 10 weeks.
You’ll get your answers answered in real time, and you will have personalized homework assigned to you. You can check the full syllabus here.
Practice Questions & Tests
Target Test Prep’s practice questions are considered to be quite representative of the GRE.
You also get a great amount of questions (over 4,000), especially for the price you pay.
The realistic practice problems appear throughout the chapters as examples of the subject you’re studying.
We also enjoy the fact that you can create your own customized Qbank for your custom tests.
You can select questions from specific chapters, and choose the difficulty level (easy, medium, and hard).
You can also set your preferences by choosing, for example, only bookmarked questions, only new questions, and only problems you’ve gotten wrong, among others.
You should also know that Target Test Prep doesn’t offer any full-length practice tests. Instead, they guide towards the official practice tests from ETS. These are the most accurate tests you can practice on.
Still, Target Test Prep offers you “chapter tests”, custom tests”, and a diagnostic test.
With the chapter tests you can do several tests for each chapter of both the Verbal and Quant sections. It’s also organized by level of difficulty.
The custom tests, as we saw, are customized by you based on your preferences and target score. You can add questions from both the math and verbal question banks, and select the time per question.
Finally, Target Test Prep also offers a diagnostic test that consists of 20 quant questions and 20 verbal questions.
At the end of the diagnostic, you will be presented with an initial level of preparedness for the GRE. However, you will not be given an estimated GRE score.
These practice tests can be super helpful when complemented by the official ETS tests. The platform is equivalent to the actual GRE, so you get a feel of the real test.
Other Course Materials
When it comes to supplemental course material and tools, TTP doesn’t disappoint.
Target Test Prep offers 553 Math flashcards and 1,148 vocab words to study, which is plenty enough for you to boost your practice.
We also really like the bundle of resources that TTP offers:
- The Must Know Review, where you can access all of the most important tips, tricks, and concepts for each chapter.
- A complete guide to Analytical Writing in 16 lessons
- ActiveReview study sheets that you can download and print to take notes and organize key concepts
- An Equation Guide that you can download, containing an overview of important equations and quantitative concepts.
- TTP Vocab list of easy, medium, and hard vocabulary words that commonly appear on the exam.
Besides these resources, TTP also stands out for the analytics, which is a very valuable tool to understand your progression.
It breaks down your performance in detailed metrics and gives you a chapter overview of your strongest and weakest points.
The error tracker is also another cool feature because it organizes your most common types of mistakes so you have an idea of how to improve.
There are, however, no hardcopy prep books available.
Interface & User Experience
Target Test Prep’s platform is very user-friendly and easy to navigate.
The interface is clean and well-designed, which is important for a text-based online course.
The test interface is also made to mimic the one from the actual test which is another positive.
On your home dashboard, you can immediately see your progress (the percentage of course completion), your message board, and a video tip of the day.
On the top of the page, you have your toolbars so you can easily navigate through the course resources.
Although TTP doesn’t have a mobile app, the design is fully adapted for mobile devices, so you can easily and comfortably access the course via your phone.
Student Support
TTP offers live customer support through chat, with a team ready to answer your questions usually within 4 hours.
Students have reported positive experiences with the live support, stating that the team was helpful with their responses.
Although the customer support seems very responsive and helpful, you shouldn’t abuse this resource, of course. It’s not private tutoring, after all.
If you do feel like you need one-on-one support, TTP does offer private tutoring personalized to your needs at $350 an hour.
Pricing & Score Guarantee
Compared to other competitors in the GRE prep space, TTP pricing is considered mid-range.
It’s more affordable than Princeton Review and Manhattan Prep, but slightly more expensive than Mogoosh or Achievable.
The Flexible Preparation course (monthly subscription) is priced at $179 per month, but at the date of writing this article, it had a 30$ discount.
The Dedicated Study Course costs $449, currently with a 100$ discount.
The Maximum Learning costs $499 and is now priced at 399$, and the Live Lessons + on-demand course runs at $1,399, but is presently priced at 999$.
TTP also offers an impressive 15-point score increase guarantee, which is more than what other competitors offer.
However, TTP doesn’t offer a full refund of your money.
If your official GRE score hasn’t improved, you are entitled to get a free course subscription equivalent to your previous purchase.
Be aware that you have to fulfill specific criteria to benefit from the score guarantee and complete 100% of the TTP course.
You also have a 5-day free trial if you want to have a look at the course before buying it.
Target Test Prep GRE Pros & Cons
– Customizable structured learning, adjusted to your needs.
– Well-organized and comprehensive text lessons, particularly for math.
– Helpful explanations in short video form.
– Realistic practice problems.
– Customizable question bank for personalized tests.
– High-quality study materials.
– In-depth analytics that help you understand your progress.
– Affordable plans.
– Not enough focus on the verbal reasoning section of the GRE.
– No full-length practice tests of its own.
– Text-based lessons may not be suitable for visual learners.
– No hardcopy prep books.
Verdict
The Target GRE Prep Course is a solid option to practice for test day, particularly if you need to significantly improve your Quant score.
Target test prep’s strongest point is, exactly, the Quantitative section, as it is super comprehensive.
However, if you feel like your weakest area is the Verbal part, then you might feel like the TTP course is not the most adequate.
The text-based lessons, divided by chapters, provide clear and helpful explanations.
If you are a visual learner, you might struggle with the fact that this is not a video-based course.
There are, however, many short videos explaining the problems you have to solve throughout the chapters.
The practice questions are quite realistic to the real exam, and you have provided a good amount of them.
Target GRE prep course doesn’t have its own full-length practice tests though, but you can do customizable tests from the QBank. TTP recommends that you do the official ETS tests to practice.
Overall, we really enjoyed how the course is structured, the strong toolbox they offer, and the in-depth analytics that help keep track of your progress and areas of weakness.
We believe that it can provide you with a strong preparation to help enter the graduate school of your dreams.
Hopefully, our Target Prep GRE Review gave you some valuable insights that will help make a better-informed decision.
Target Test Prep GRE FAQs
Is Target test prep worth it for the GRE?
We believe Target Test Prep is worth it for the GRE, as it offers a comprehensive study plan, realistic practice questions, and useful resources.
It’s especially worth it if you are looking to improve your Quant score.
If you are specifically looking to improve your verbal score, you may consider other options.
How long does it take to finish the target test prep GRE course?
It will depend on how intensive your study schedule is.
Based on reports from students and instructors, you may need an average of 150 hours to complete the course.
Can Target Test Prep be used as a standalone resource for GRE quant preparation?
In general, yes, we believe TTP can be used as a standalone resource for the GRE.
However, you should know that this course is more focused on the Quant section and less on the verbal.
If you need more practice on the latter, you should consider complementing it with other resources.
How accurate are Target Test Prep’s GRE practice tests?
TTp doesn’t offer full-length practice tests of its own. Instead, they recommend the official ETS tests.
You can still create your own customizable tests on the platform with questions from the QBank.
The questions are quite realistic and the interface is similar to the real GRE.
