Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #80351 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Customer Reviews

Best preparation
When preparing for the GMAT, I purchased 4 books. Kaplan's was by far the best as it did the best to challenge me and prepare me for the real thing. Some have complained that the scoring is not accurate. While this is undoubtedly true, the tests are actually harder than the real tests anyway. If you want to prepare yourself for a hard test, there is no better way than to challenge yourself with hard tests. Kaplan was best of the various books in several ways:
- Its sections gave the best advice for test taking
- More practice questions (except for the official prep)
- Harder questions to really challenge your thinking

I would recommend this book to anyone preparing for the GMAT. I would avoid Barron's or the Official GMAT book. Princeton Review's is good.

Good appendices, general overview
Got this book a while back and finally got around to working through it as I studied for the GMAT. I found the text easy to read, quick to move through the practice problems and explanations. The book gives a very good overview of the GMAT format, question types and general strategies for answering each type of question. The AWA writing/essay section is fantastic - read the strategies, example essays and tips on how the computer grades your essays, all you need to get a 6.0/6.0 on the writing. The appendix for math (Quantitative) is worth the price of the entire book. Great quick reference while practicing and in the final week before taking the test, to help remind you of the formulas you'll need to memorize for the actual GMAT. BE VERY WARY, though, that even if you answer almost all of the practice questions correctly, you will not get anywhere near an 800 score on the GMAT. The practice tests simply are not hard enough, bottom line. I thought I would breeze through the Quant section seeing as how I answered 96% of the questions correctly on the practice Quant exam. However, I got to the real exam and the most difficult 10-20% of the practice test was the easiest 10-20% of the real test. So I scored 630 overall (78th percentile), mostly due to a low Quant score. So I was pretty disappointed. I bought the Kaplan GMAT 800 (see my separate review there) and it really gives you great practice questions, explanations and the toughest questions. I took the GMAT again 6 weeks later, after having used the other book as my sole study guide and only for a week or so, and scored 750 (98th percentile)!!! I'd still recommend this book or one of the similar guides (everyone seems to like the Official Guide to the GMAT published by the test writers themselves) to get you started, but don't stop there if you're serious about a 700+ score. The only other comment I'll make, is that I used the online companion to take a practice quiz and that was ok - never did the full online practice exam. Didn't use the CD because it won't work on a Mac, and gave me some error on my Windows laptop about not having the right video player so I gave up on the CD. I found the GMAT 800 book far more valuable than either the CD or online companion.

good book
Tips given in all sections are very useful. Match appendix is very useful. Got 780 in real exam today. Big draw back is that its tests are not even close to real GMAT. scoring is not similar.