PMP Exam Prep Seminar - Complete Exam Coverage with 35 PDUs vs Magoosh GMAT Prep

The course is one of the most complete PMP libraries on Udemy — 290 lectures across roughly 24.5 hours, mapped to the PMBOK Guide and split into the PMI exam's three domains (around 20 hours on ways of working, 9 on business acumen, 6 on power skills). Reviewers praise the depth of the worked case studies, the Earned Value Management and ITTO walkthroughs, and the formula coverage. The recurring content caveat is that some material reads as paraphrasing the PMBOK Guide and that the PMBOK 6-to-7 transition left a few coverage seams.

Joseph Phillips is the strongest part of the package and the reason most reviewers recommend it. A McGraw-Hill/AMA/Dummies Press project-management author with 25+ years of consulting and training experience, certified as PMP, PMI-ACP, ITIL, Project+ and a Certified Technical Trainer, he is repeatedly described as clear, articulate and good at breaking complex PMI concepts into understandable parts. The one consistent knock is that he does not answer messages — there is no real instructor interaction beyond the Udemy Q&A forum.

List price runs higher but the course is almost always on sale around $15-25 with lifetime access, and it delivers a genuine 35-contact-hour certificate that satisfies the mandatory PMI education requirement to sit the PMP exam — something most learners would otherwise pay a bootcamp hundreds or thousands of dollars for. That certificate alone makes it one of the best-value ways to clear the PMP eligibility hurdle, with the honest deduction being that you will likely buy a separate exam simulator for practice volume.

The weakest dimension and the one nearly every critical source flags. The course includes section quizzes, formula quizzes and two full-length 200-question practice exams, which is not nothing, but reviewers agree it is not enough question volume to be exam-ready and recommend buying a dedicated PMP simulator on top. There are also repeated complaints about quiz questions that are not covered in the lectures and a handful of wrong or unrevised answer keys.

The course has hundreds of learners crediting it with passing the PMP exam, often on the first attempt, and several describe a workable plan of pairing each PMBOK chapter with the matching lecture over about a month. The deduction is that almost no one passes on this course alone — the consistent advice across sources is to supplement with a separate question bank or simulator, so score movement depends on the learner adding practice the course does not fully provide.

Magoosh GMAT Prep covers all three GMAT Focus Edition sections — Quantitative, Verbal, and Data Insights — across 340+ short on-demand video lessons, and the curriculum was rebuilt after the Focus Edition replaced the classic GMAT on February 1, 2024. The Quant content is the standout: GMAT Club reviewers (Aabhash777, BelronMajes, GMATking94) repeatedly praise it for teaching from the basics and deriving formulas "from root level" rather than asking students to memorise. The consistent content weakness is Verbal, which multiple reviewers call "old," in need of "refurbishment," and structurally confusing with no continuity. Data Insights coverage exists but several students wanted more practice volume there given how central DI now is to the Focus Edition. The slideshow-with-voiceover format is instructionally sound but, as Test Prep Insight notes, "lacks production value."

The lessons are anchored by long-time Magoosh GMAT expert Mike McGarry, whose Quant explanations are described as crisp, well-organised, and conceptually grounded. Reviewers on GMAT Club call the videos "clear, concise" and "easy to consume," and students specifically credit the instruction with teaching strategic shortcuts they would not have found alone ("their lessons were phenomenal and they greatly helped me figure out strategic shortcuts"). The format is voiceover-over-slides with no instructor on screen, which several reviewers find effective but visually flat compared to Manhattan Prep or TTP. The Verbal teaching draws the most criticism: GMATking94 said the "Verbal course seems very old and needs refurbishment," a recurring theme that pulls the instructor score below the Quant-only ceiling it would otherwise reach.

Value is Magoosh's single strongest dimension and the near-universal reason reviewers recommend it. Premium GMAT access runs roughly $199 for 6 months or $249 for 12 months — about one-third the price of Kaplan (~$1,000) and Princeton Review (~$800), and a fraction of premium platforms like TTP or e-GMAT. Payment plans start around $54. GMAT Club reviewers repeatedly use the exact phrase "bang for buck," and Test Prep Insight rated the course 9.1/10 calling it "the best bang for your buck in GMAT prep." A 12-month access window, a 4.5-rated mobile app, a free 7-day trial (30+ lessons, 30 questions), and a tiered score guarantee all reinforce that a low price does not signal a thin product. For budget-conscious or first-attempt test-takers, the value case is hard to beat.

The course includes 1,300+ practice questions, each paired with both a text and a video explanation — a genuinely distinctive feature, since most prep companies do not film an explanation for every single problem. A custom practice tool lets students build targeted quizzes by topic and difficulty. The limitations are real and frequently cited. There are only 2 full-length practice tests, and they are generated from the same question pool as the drills, so heavy users hit repeated questions (reviewer whatsarc flagged "repetitive practice questions"). Several students wanted "more questions in quant," more Data Insights items, and additional mocks. Some also found the Verbal questions diverge from real GMAT difficulty (BelronMajes: "Verbal questions differ significantly from actual test"). It is enough to learn on, but most reviewers pair it with the Official Guide and free official mocks.

Magoosh's own review page documents seven student entries with gains of +100 to +250 points, landing final scores of 700–730, with quotes like "over the last few months, Magoosh improved my score from 490 to 710." The company advertises an average improvement of roughly 90 points and backs a tiered guarantee: up to a 70-point increase for baseline scores below 630, 50 points for 640–690, and 10 points for 700+, or your money back. GMAT Club reviewers report concrete gains of +40 to +140 points and final scores from the high-500s (Focus scale) up to 760 (11Karan, +50). The caveat is honest: the strongest gains cluster around Quant, and a minority flagged the in-product score predictor as inaccurate, so the headline averages should be read as outcomes for committed self-studiers, not guarantees for everyone.