Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 151
 Indispensable August 18, 2006
Ashutosh Rahalkar
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
The questions in the official guide are relevant. Kaplan questions point you in the wrong direction and are a waste of time. I focused entirely on the official guide during the last 2 weeks beforethe test and I loved the verbal section esp because its highly accurate in the kinds of questions you are faced with in the real exam.
The quantitative questions are not good enough ie hard enough and so even the official guide is inadequate if you want to score 90 percentile and beyond in Q.
powerprep1 : 760 q:49 v:44
Kaplan1 : 560
kaplan2 : 610
kaplan3 : 690
kaplan paper : 670
Kaplan4 : 660 (50/36)
powerprep2 : 770 q:50 v:44
Actual : 750 (q48,v44)
Best book for GMAT review May 11, 2007
Dave (Philly)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I purchased this book, the Princeton Review one, and the Barron's one, and I found this one to be the most helpful for studying the GMAT. This is the only "official" GMAT book, so it is the only one that contains real questions from the GMAT. It also provides review sections that tell you exactly what material you will find on the test. Since this is the official book, you can be assured that the material is accurate and provides the best representation of the types of questions that will be on the actual test.
There is a diagnostic test that is helpful in gauging your current level of ability. And there are tons of practice questions - enough where you porbably won't have enough time to go through them all unless you start studying several months in advance.
It is also essential to get the free GMAT CD-ROM that you can request when you sign up for the test. I think you can also get it as a free download even if you haven't signed up for the test yet, but the CD is available for free if you have signed up. The software provides full-length practice tests that are a necessary means of preparing for the real thing.
Definitely get this book first, make sure you download the free software, and then I would also recommend that you purchase another book such as the Princeton Review one in order to get a different perspective on how to approach the test. A different book would be helpful to gain some additional strategies that the offical GMAT book doesn't offer.
This combination of two books and the software and a reasonable amount of study time allowed me to increase my score by 70 points, and my starting score was already well above-average. I think it would be very possible to raise your score by 100 points or more by studying with some good books like this one and studying diligently.
Good luck!
As absolute essential if you're going to take the GMAT November 5, 2007
Larry (Washington, DC)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I used this book in conjunction with the Princeton Review and Kaplan books. The Princeton Review is a huge help for its review of the math fundamentals, but lacks a bit on questions. The Kaplan book is good because it prepares you for a harder test than the actual exam. This book, however, does the best job at just grilling you endlessly with questions.
As most of them are actual retired test questions, they are the most accurate in terms of preparing you for the test. The wording in most is very similar to the actual exam, unlike a lot of the Kaplan questions. And many ranges of difficulty are covered, letting you prepare on multiple levels.
The only shortcoming of the book is that it alone will not prepare you for the test - you need a review of the math section and some additional guidance for the verbal, which is the purpose of the Princeton and Kaplan books respectively. I don't consider this a failure, though... the quality of the questions more than makes up for an inadequate review section.
This should be the last book you use as it's the most similar to the real test. I recommend doing every single problem in the book and doing at least a dozen of the suggested essays. Give yourself time allotments to finish groups of questions - this will help you focus. And then do as many full practice tests as possible. I ended up taking over 10 practice exams, half of those in the week before the test.
I scored in the 96th percentile on my first and only exam with a perfect score on the essays. I did this using only books and didn't take an expensive class. It takes a lot of time, but it pays off.
Don't take the GMAT without this June 12, 2008
Elizabeth (Seattle, WA USA)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
If you're taking the GMAT, you must work through this book. I made the mistake of buying every study guide out there (Kaplan, Princeton Review, Barron's...), but on the day that I walked into the test center, the Official Guide was the only book that I had used.
I took the GMAT a single time and scored a 770. Here's how I did it:
1. I bought the Official Guide.
2. I bought Jeff Sackmann's two e-books, The "GMAT Math Bible" and the "Official Guide to GMAT Review" and used them to work through each problem in the Official Guide.[...]
3. When doing a set of problems from the Official Guide, usually 10 to 15 at a time, I timed myself. Anytime I took longer than 2 minutes to complete a a problem or I got it wrong, I read Sackmann's explanation and re-did the question from scratch.
4. I worked through the Math Bible methodically, trying to do at least one full chapter a night.
5. Six weeks before I took the test, I[...] This is the official site of the GMAC, and the only place that you can access these two practice tests that use the same scoring logarithm as the actual test. Two weeks before my test date, I took the second practice test.
All in all, I spent about two months studying for 1-3 hours a day - and I work full-time, so it wasn't easy. But it was worth it. You *need* the Official Guide if you're studying because it's the only resource with actual questions from the GMAT. The rest of the books out there use made-up problems and many of them aren't very accurate. Because the Official Guide doesn't rate each problem's difficulty, you should consider a companion book (like the ones mentioned above) that rate the problems and offer better explanations.
A New GMAT 700 Club Member...Thanks To This Book! April 26, 2007
Vanessa Maserati (USA)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
I was initially intimidated by the size and the range of question difficulty of this book. It made me wonder if I could ever be ready for the test. But it turned out to be the best prep book among all that I used. There are conceptual reviews and explanations for answers. There is also a pool of essay questions, but I believe that it's only about 90% complete now because GMAC is constantly adding new questions to the pool. For people who know the concepts well and just need practice questions, this book itself or along with the other official GMAT guides (for verbal and quantative reviews) might be enough. But for others, it's better to supplement the official guide(s) with a prep book from Princeton, Kaplan, or others. I personally used Barron's, and you can see my review for that book here on Amazon. Finally, contrary to some reviews of this book, there are NO incorrect answers. In my opinion, I probably wouldn't have scored above 700 if I hadn't used the official guides.
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