We need to constantly regulate our own thinking- is my thinking in this context appropriate? Am I considering all possibilities? Why did I go wrong in the problem? What aspect of the problem have I ignored?

Why am I reading a passage very slow? How do I get over the blocks? What is the best method to succeed? These questions and many more… and doing the needful.

A basic form of meta-cognition is study skills.
While preparing for an aptitude test, you must be more interested in HOW you are thinking than what problem you are thinking with.
That is how to

- Deconstruct the problem into smaller portions
- Set individual sub-goals and solve a problem
- Identify the relationship between parameters
- Convert the problem from verbal /numerical data to equation or diagram
- Assume value and verify whether the data satisfies the conditions or not
-Observe intricate pattern in the set of numbers given
- Summarize a passage
-Check the meaning of words in context of a passage
- draw inferences from a passage
And so on..

I at http://www.sema...slearning.com// have co-developed the science of thinking curriculum. Have a look and let me know your two cents. You can also email me at george@semanticslearning.com. Cheers

Knewton’s practice tests seem to be of good quality compared to others I found such as:

http://www.800score.com/ (5 tests, $39.95)
GMATPrep (free from mba.com)
http://www.crac...m/gmat-test.htm (5 tests, $19.95)
http://www.manh...t.com/store.cfm (6 tests, $39)

The rest of their offering, however, seems to be lacking.

1. The video lessons are utterly boring and tedious. Most of the instructors in the videos look like they could indeed be great teachers in a classroom setting, but no charisma comes across this medium. Be prepared to literally dose off. The slides accompanying the lectures are also very dry and boring.

2. The practice problems are supposedly ordered in an optimized way, in terms of topics and difficulty levels. I assume this has a small efficiency advantage over solving problems from some standard problem collection, but I couldn’t feel their system significantly “adapt” to me over the entire course of my trial. On the other hand, it has several annoying limitations such as not being able to influence (not to mention choose) what you’d like to work on based on your mood (not even verbal vs. math).

3. Knewton’s claim is to adapt to how I learn best, but in practice it merely asks to fill in the profile page how does one think that oneself learns best (e.g. bullet points vs. paragraphs). Any adaptation beyond that seems to me dubious, like Knewton deciding at some point that despite me choosing “bullet points”, I actually learn better through “paragraphs” and then giving me “paragraph” versions of content…

4. Although there are some useful aspects to using Knewton, their price seems in a totally wrong ballpark given their actual added value. ($13.90 would seem about right.) I find it difficult to believe that 1,000 students have already paid them $799 for this and if so then their real achievement is in the field of marketing, definitely not education.

Most importantly:
5. Knewton ignorantly (or hypocritically) relates adaptive learning to adaptive testing. They boast having adaptive-test-algorithm experts on their team, and imply that this makes them experts at adaptive teaching. Not so: the world of teaching is immensely different (and obviously much more intricate) than that of testing, just as the world of cooking is immensely different and more challenging that that of eating. Knewton’s testing experts are statisticians, not pedagogy masters and this fundamental shortcoming blindingly shines through. Unfortunately, even their experienced GMAT instructors can’t bridge this gap.

In conclusion:
• Great idea
• Good quality GMAT practice tests
• Very poor learning experience
• Misleading marketing messages
• Disproportionately high price

Eric
Founder, Beat The GMAT
http://www.beatthegmat.com