Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29608 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 212 pages

Customer Reviews

A good way to practice, but not to study...
This book is a quick way to jam through some GMAT practice math questions, nothing more and nothing less. I sat down and did it in a weekend without too much effort. I agree with other reviews that this book is not a good place to begin your studying in that there aren't many pages devoted to concepts - it really is just a tool for practice. As mentioned in other reviews, the questions are in order of difficulty. I found this useful because it gives you a very clear sense of what the GMAT considers difficult versus the types of questions that are considered easy. If you're like me, you'll zip through the bulk of the questions and then hit a wall where you notice you're getting more and more wrong - a good thing, while you're still studying! Kaplan questions are generally harder than these, Princeton Review a bit easier, and Barron's are just plain bizarre. Given the huge inconsistency across books - it's nice to ground yourself in "official" questions once in awhile.

Nothing's better than test-like practice
This book is slimmer than the orange Official Guide, weighing in at about 300 problems, but if you need more math practice, it's a great resource. One caveat: the average difficulty level of questions in this book is somewhat lower than that of the questions in the Official Guide. If you're already getting a 650 or better on practice tests, or if you are comfortable with the vast majority of math problems in the Official Guide, go ahead and skip this one. If you're not yet at that level, this is an excellent supplement to the orange book.

It can't be emphasized enough the importance of doing "authentic" practice questions: while some test-prep companies are better than others, none have completely mastered the exact tone and nature of GMAT questions. As these questions are written by the same folks who write the test, you can't really improve on the authenticity.

The Quant Review book does have some actual math "review" material, but it's very official in nature. Not a shortcut in sight. Buy it for the questions; read the review if you're stuck in the subway without a pencil and scratch paper.

Fairly useful
I bought this after going through the 2005 Kaplan GMAT book. The pro's are that it has a lot of actual past math questions (176 problem solving & 118 Data Sufficiency) and they are very similar to the type of question you will encounter on the real test because the book is by GMAC (the makers of the actual GMAT test). Therefore, it's great as a source for additional practice. The con's are that it has a very brief instructional section that isn't very useful at all and the problems are organized in order of increasing difficulty. This means that approximately the last 20 questions of both P/S and D/S type problems will be like the real thing, assuming you are doing fairly well on the real thing and only receiving difficult level questions. All in all, I highly recommend using this in conjunction with another more thorough GMAT review (such as Kaplan), but not on its own. And if you want an accurate full-length practice test then definitely use the 2 FREE practice tests downloadable from MBA.com when you register to take the GMAT - they are much better indicators of actual performance than Kaplan.