The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 11th Edition by Graduate Management Admission Council Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 11th Edition
Book Review: Powerprep practice exams not reflective of true GMAT score
Summary: 4 Stars
Don't panic if you get low scores on Powerprep practice exam. Check out my scores:
Kaplan (first try): 530
Powerprep 1: 600
Powerprep 2: 590
Powerprep 3: 610
Actual GMAT score: 670 (88th percentile)
This book is GREAT practice, as the problems are all old GMAT problems. Keep in mind that the HARD problems are in the last 100 questions of each section. The easy ones are in the first couple hundred, and might waste your time.
This book has answer explanations, but NO tips or tricks. Definitely use this book along with the Kaplan and/or Princeton review books. The tips and tricks are what help you solve the tricky problems in the limited time available.
Book Review: A Must Have
Summary: 5 Stars
The secret for the GMAT is practice and stamina.
For my own preparation, I used The Princeton Review, Kaplan's Book and ETS' The Official Guide for GMAT Review.
I will go through the advantages and disadvantages of each, and explain why The Official Guide for GMAT Review was the best of the three and why you should give it more time than the others.
Princeton:
Plus
- Good review sections (both quantitative and verbal)
- Practice tests similar to the GMAT
- Online tests are easy to review
- Provides you with a test strategy on how to crack the questions
- Explicitly advises you to practice also with The Official Guide for GMAT Review
Disadvantages
- Does not explain why a choice is wrong
- Not enough practice questions
Kaplan:
Plus
- Good quantitative review sections (appendix was great)
- Interactive software for reviewing the Kaplan GMAT strategies
- Practice tests similar to the GMAT
- Practice tests and sections are difficult, this creates in you a sense of urgency
- Plenty of practice questions
Disadvantages
- The software interface is old and slow, you are left to work with a little box on the screen
- Practice tests and sections' answer choices are not very well explained
- The questions are far fetched and do not fall in the spirit of the GMAT, this might lead you the wrong path
The Official Guide for GMAT Review:
Plus
- More than plenty of practice questions
- You might get the same or similar questions on the GMAT (like I did)
- The practice questions are organized by level of difficulty, the last ones are the most difficult
- Free PowerPrep software that has two practice tests exactly similar to the GMAT in look and feel (free online tests at the mba dot com website http://www.mba.com/mba/TaketheGMAT/Tools/PowerprepSoftware.htm)
- The practice questions reveal actual GMAT test patterns
Disadvantages
- Absence of test taking techniques
- The skills review sections are poor
- Only the last 200 questions in every practice section will be like the ones you will see on the GMAT (unless you perform poorly)
This Official Guide from GMAC should be the cornerstone of your preparation, simply because the questions are from past tests and are very thoroughly researched. This will allow you to develop insight into the test mentality.
Equally important the correct and the wrong answer choices for each question are explained in detail. You will learn the various ways used to lead you in error and consequently, you will develop the feel to spot and eliminate wrong answers.
The rules of grammar on which the GMAT Sentence Correction questions are based are best outlined in this guide. I had a lot of difficulty with the Verbal section until I read through the explanations here.
Overall, this book shows you all the tricks of the GMAT. I did not have bad surprises when I took the actual test; it seemed that I had seen all the questions before.
Book Review: Helpful to practice with real GMAT questions
Summary: 4 Stars
I found this book very helpful because I knew that the questions were truly representative of the actual test questions. The sample questions are organized by question type (problem solving, sentence correction, etc.) and by hardness (the first is the easiest, the last the hardest). This makes it easy to focus on problem areas and not waste time on questions you find easy.
The downside of the book: besides the sample questions, most of the information is available for free from the GMAC website (mba.com). Some sample questions also appear in the free software (also available at their website), but supposedly this won't be the case after 1/1/06.
Book Review: New Guide vs 10th Edition (Little Difference)
Summary: 4 Stars
The previous comment about all questions in RC and CR being the same is incorrect. There are definitely new questions in both the Reading Comp and Critical Reasoning sections (I would say at least half the RC passages are new whe compared to the 10th edition). That said, there are a few things for any person preparing for the GMAT to consider.
Do you already have the 10th Edition?
If you do, this might not be necessary. There are less questions in the 11th Edition than the 10th Edition overall. One reason for you to HAVE to take the new version over the 10th is that you have used up all the questions in the old book.
Price.
Its way more expensive than the older version. Originally the 11th edition guide was set for $32.95 retail (pre-release stated price)but now, the website and everywhere else is pricing it at $36.95. Again, unless you have done all the questions in the 10th edition, or can't get your hands on the 10th edition anywhere, you might want to consider the 10th rather than the new.
Relevance.
Supposedly, the explanations for the answer choices have gotten better. I have yet to review the answer choices, but i must say that the answer explanations, in the 10th Ed, in nearly all the Verbal sections were absolutely useless. If you used their methodologies to arrive at the answer, you are more likely to hurt yourself than to help yourself. The explanations in the 10th edition were not systematic, so it always relied on internal logic for each question. More often than not, GMAT questions are similar to one another and I am sure the people at ETS (The people who wrote this book) knew that, but they seem hesitant to reveal the "tricks".
Overall it's not a bad book. Considering I been staring at my green/blue 10th edition for so many years, its nice to see a bright orange cover and nicer paper material inside the new book.
As for actual functionality, if you have a guided instructor, the 10th and 11th edition might not be that big of a difference. If you are working alone, and the rumors are true about better answer explanations, then you might benefit from the 11th Ed.
Irregardless of which one you decide, I really want to emphasize - all GMAT students MUST practice with the Official Guide. There is nothing out there that develops "air-tight" questions free from inconsistencies like the GMAT does. You can always use additional questions from various vendors as supplements, but the Official Guide is a must for your foundational GMAT preparation.
Book Review: Improved over 10th Edition, but....
Summary: 4 Stars
Contrary to the information posted on some MBA chat sites, most of the reading questions and the CR questions are carried over from the 10th edition and/or the retired tests sold in PDF format on the MBA official store. (I haven't checked the math as thoroughly, but it looks pretty similar.) So if you have the 10th, you won't get as much as you might hope from buying this new edition. You will get what GMAT calls "improved" explanations. Improved? Maybe. They're still pretty circular at times (eg, D is correct because it's uh....correct), but they do seem more detailed and better organized. The two supplemantal volumes, one on verbal and one on math are pretty much the same story, old questions, "improved" explanations. They are all good study tools, just not as new as the GMAT folks would like us to believe.