|
| 
| Author: Graduate Management Admission Council
Publisher: Graduate Management Admission Council
Category: Book
List Price: $36.95
Buy New: $22.17
You Save: $14.78 (40%)
Rating:  152 reviews
Sales Rank: 95
Media: Paperback
Edition: 11
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 832
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.3
Dimensions (in): 10.7 x 8.5 x 1.4
ISBN: 0976570904
Dewey Decimal Number: 650
EAN: 9780976570905
Publication Date: September 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Great aid in studying. Not enough by itself. August 23, 2007
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
I recently went through the whole GMAT experience. I purchased this book and borrowed the Princeton Review 2006 edition. The Princeton Review book is great for preparing for the test. It especially helped on the Sentence Correction Section and gave some good insight on the Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension. The book also gives a very good math review. While there were a couple of items that I felt like it missed, it is still by far the best Math Review out there. I read the Princeton review book first and did all the practice questions in it first. As for the practice exams, I felt that they were very accurate and on the same level as the real GMAT. I received two 710s on the Princeton Review practice exams. I also got this Official Guide. It has lots of questions as advertised. The review sections were pretty weak. The one major thing it does provide is insight to how the test makers think. When reviewing their answer explanations, you start to build up an idea of their logic. It helps come test day. I also used the GMATPrep software to take a practice exam 2 days before the test and scored a 730 on it. On test day, I felt fully prepared. When you are finishing it, you feel like you did worse than you really did. In the end, I got a 760 which I am happy about. I could not have got this score without both books. If you just need a decent score and are only going to spend money on 1 book, I would buy the 2006 Princeton Review edition. If you are striving for the best, get both. Good luck!
 Wrong answers in back!! March 20, 2006
15 out of 29 found this review helpful
There is a question in the quantitative section that asks for what value of 'x' is the following equation invalid: 1/(x-1)
answer options were (a) -1 (b) -2 (c) 0 (d) 1. Clearly the answer here is the value that reduces the denominator to zero since no value can be derived from an equation with a zero denominator, however, this book lists ZERO as the answer instead of 1!
Now, this was a simple problem with the wrong answer in the back... I'm curious how many hard questions had wrong answers listed that I didn't catch.
Don't get me wrong, the context provided before the sample example is VERY useful. A great review for everyone who hasn't had algebra in a couple of years, but if this is the OFFICIAL guide... am I going to need to answer incorrectly on the exam too?
 Honest Review of GMAT Books! January 13, 2008
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
After going through all the GMAT books, here is my honest opinion about some of the most popular GMAT books:
Official Guide:
Pros - Excellent source of GMAT questions. Very well organized with real test like questions.
Cons - No review of any math content or test-taking strategies. Not enough explanations of practice questions.
Overall, the Official Guide is a must have for all test-takers. It will give you a good idea about the type of questions to expect on the GMAT; however, if you need more than just a bank of questions, you need to look at some other source.
Kaplan:
Pros - Good for additional practice questions as a supplement
Cons - Review of math content is not thorough but just the very basics. Not enough explanation of test taking strategies. Full of guessing techniques with no real mathematical solutions. Not good enough explanations of practice questions. Unrealistic questions.
Princeton:
Pros - Good for additional practice questions as a supplement
Cons - Review of math content is not thorough but just the very basics. Not enough explanation of test taking strategies. Full of guessing techniques with no real mathematical solutions. Not good enough explanations of practice questions. Weird sense of humor.
Barrons:
Pros - Good math review. Big list of questions. Good test taking strategies. Very well organized. This is by far the best of the all-in-one kinds of books.
Cons - Although the book has a good math review, it doesn't go deep enough into each concept. Not enough explanations to practice questions. Does not have a good section for logical reasoning (permutation, combination, probability, etc) questions, which is one of the most important question-type. Does not break down the concepts/questions step by step.
EZ Solutions (set of 9 books):
Pros - Thorough math review from A to Z. Effective test taking strategies. Abundant solved examples. Numerous practice exercises. Great practice question bank in basic and advanced workbooks.
As with most books, you are expected to already have a good knowledge about the various match concepts, but with these books, you can literally start from scratch and reach the most advanced level of the GMAT.
Cons - To get the best result from these books, you have to invest in buying several books (set of 9 books), but if you compare the cost and benefits, the benefits outweigh the cost, or you can buy a few not all. Missing the verbal section. This is not a good option if you are looking for a mediocre score or just looking for a very basic brush-up. Recommended for serious test takers only.
Some of the other books has no real content; whereas, there are some other books that I haven't yet had an opportunity to review, but may be some of them are good supplementary aids.
I hope my review will help some of you in making the right decision.
A New GMAT 700 Club Member...Thanks To This Book! April 26, 2007
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.
Actual Questions From Past Exams- Invaluable Preparation Material August 13, 2007
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
After searching high and low, this official guide should be your ultimate resource for actual questions from past GMAT exams. Other guides from Princeton Review, ARCO, and Kaplan come close, but you should really test yourself on the real thing. One good advice is to sit down and actual time yourself like in the real exam setting. This means that you move from one problem to another without going back to review your answered questions. The actual exam will not be paper-based but you can simulate by moving forward only. This is a computer adaptative exam so your responses determine the difficulty of the following question. Therefore, you can only progress forward since these questions try to mimic this by placing more difficult questions at the end (assuming you get the easy ones right). So, don't cheat yourself by going back and forth on questions since you cannot do this on exam day.
The book consists of a diagnostic exam with various practice problems for verbal (sentence correction, reading comprehension, critical reasoning)and math (problem solving, data sufficiency). For the essay portion, there are several topics to choose from but you can't really grade yourself. Your best bet is to just read through some examples to get an idea of how is it graded. Also, review and review your mistakes and then revisit them later when you have purged your memory of the correct answers. GMAT will give you access to PowerPrep download software (CD available as well) once you have registered for exam appointment. I would recommend that you save this for the very end. Once you feel more confident, you can get a real assessment of how you will perform on a computer-adaptative GMAT exam. Good luck and keep this book close to you. It will definitely provide you with the best preparation for GMAT exam.
Here is my experience in a nutshell: Kaplan visited my school and gave a practice exam on Saturday. I did average but not spectacular (don't get overly depressed over it, people always improve after practice). Two years later, I practiced with Kaplan book and this official GMAT book. I took another practice exam at Kaplan prep center. My score improved by 40 points. Later that month, I took the GMAT exam and my score increased another 10 points (total of 50 point improvement). Also, I did decent on the essay portion after just practice on some sample question. I just typed up my response in MS Word to an essay question from this official GMAT book. Now, I don't know what other people would expect in terms of improvement. But, you should not expect miracles like 100 point increase after tons of practice. Well, if this happens to you, then I guess that you have been extremely lucky and no need to go crazy for that perfect 800 score (unless you have a really big ego). If you are like the rest of us, then just moving up by a few points at a time is a very good sign of your preparation. I would just set my goal each day and don't stress over dismal scores. Just focus on where to improve like on critical reasoning, reading comprehension, etc. Plus, read over the explanations carefully since it goes over how to eliminate the obvious wrong choices. It just makes life alot easier when you can eliminate it down to just a couple good choices. Anyways, enough of the lecturing and get your butt in the library quiet room with this book.
|
|
|
Copyright 2008 BetterEditor.net
| |
