Reviews (93)

a time-effective way to prepare for the GMAT
this study guide is well written and includes all the necessary math and English review notes needed to "study" for the GMAT. The notes are helpful and worth the read before tackling the practice questions.

If you have time to spare, I would recommend using this book in combination with the GMAT official guide published by ETS (it comes with 1400 practice questions).

included CD is invaluable
For those thinking about taking the GMAT, it is absolutely essential that you prepare correctly before the test, not so much in order to do some last minute memorization (there's no arcane vocabulary to memorize or anything like that), but more to get yourself familiar with the type and style of the questions, and to sharpen your skills in answering them.The style of question can be overwhelming, or in some cases, deceptive, so having a guide that breaks down the questions and instructs you on where to focus in order to arrive at the correct answer in invaluable.The Kaplan study guide does a great job at taking you through these problems.The math of the GMAT can be tricky - it requires you to think in a different way than you're used to.The guide will take you through it.More importantly, the book takes you through and explains the grammar part of the test.Most people, including myself, have terrible grammar skills but don't even know it (as I am sure this review proves), as most English teaching is pretty lax and the stuff that wasn't we didn't pay attention to anyway.The guide will take you through that all, and provides ample opportunity to practice with many, many examples.The real gem in this packages is the CD-ROM.It's not just a plain rehashing of what's in the book, as are a couple of other guides I've tried.Rather, I'd almost go so far as to say the book is almost just a rehashing of the CD.It's got interactive lessons, it's analytical, suggests areas of improvement, and even tosses out little facts (that it actually uses your imput to determine) that get you excited about taking the test.It's got a light, fun feel to it in terms of the layout and look, which can be good if you're stressing about the test.Plus, since the test is completely administered by computer nowadays, it's essential to get familiar with that form of testtaking.The book is good for practicing away from home, but you will definitely want to stick to the CD.The only reason why I knocked a star off was because the practice tests were so much harder than the real thing that it could actually discourage you.I'd suggest registering for the test early on, because they send you a CD with a couple of practice tests on it - ones that are more like the real thing.I was getting pretty dissapointing results and getting discouraged.But I took the GMAT's practice test, and scored almost 150 points higher than my Kaplan practice tests.My actual GMAT score ended up being 100 points higher than my last Kaplan test, so again, I have to question making the practices THAT difficult.But overall, a great resource that I beleive is essential to success on the GMATs.

Reviews (32)

Great for verbal , Sucks for Quant
You got have this book for scoring top percentile in verbal. its worth every penny and the questions in the verbal section are the closest to what you will see on the GMAT.

The book is a bad one for Quant, as most of the questions are real easy. That way it does not truly reflect what you see in the actual GMAT. Thats the reason for the 4 star rating. I would highly recommend KAPLAN for quant any day. Good luck people

Absolutely Necessary to Score High on the GMAT
I started preparing for the GMAT test approximately 8 weeks ago using the Offical Guide for GMAT Review, practicing roughly 40 questions per day. Since the Official Guide doesn't have much in the way of test taking techniques, I also used the Kaplan and the PR Verbal Workout. Aside from these books & the PowerPrep tests, there wasn't much else I used.

I took the test today and scored a 720, which closely matched my scores on the PowerPrep tests (720 and 740). On the Kaplan tests, I scored 630, 620, 680 (don't trust the Kaplan scores). In my assessment, the Official Guide practice questions are crucial for maximizing your score - you'll probably want to use the other test prep materials to learn some useful techniques, but the Official Guide MUST be used. Since the math in the Official Guide comes from the old paper-based test and has changed somewhat since then, I found the quantitative questions on the actual test to be slightly harder. I'd suggest supplementing with questions from the Kaplan for the math. For this reason, I gave the Official Guide 4-stars. Seems the Verbal questions haven't changed though - I found them to be quite similar to what I encountered in the Official Guide.

Practice as many questions as possible from the Official Guide and you'll be good to go!

The only thing you'll need
I don't have much to add to all the great reviews for this book, but the one thing that's important to realize is that if you want to use the ETS PowerPreps as diagnostic tools, you should take both tests before you really get into the guide.I took the second Powerprep after I was done with the guide, and scored a nice ole 800.Of course the fact that I had seen about half of the questions tested in the guide made the accomplishment a slight bit less extraordinary.

Reviews (35)

Will help most people
Unless you are already on your way to a 700, this book should improve your score.I took the GMAT without reading it (just used the powerprep software.BAD IDEA) and did not do as well as I should have and will need to take it again to get the score I need.My wife bought the book a few months later and used it for her test.She was impressed so I took a look at it.a read a few chapters and picked out several items that would have improved my score.I imagine that once I have time to sit down and study through the entire book, I should be able to get the score I need.

Get Kaplan & ETS books
Although some part of verbal & math section in the book is quite helpful, the GMAT test from the CD is too easy, doesn't reflect a real question in the test.

Get Kaplan & ETS test-prep materials, allow 2-3 months for intense study, you will get a good results. Score above 650 is not impossible, if you study hard from this two books.

An excellent book, perfectly complements the official guide
This book offers some valuable tips and suggestions especially for cracking math. But overall it focuses more on the "Joe Blogg" tips and tricks approach, which may work for some people and not for others. I still believe knowing sincerely how to solve problems will get you far. But the PR book makes for an interesting read, gives you some excellent strategies (e.g., about the essay sections etc) and does the best job of introducing the concept of "difficulty level bins" -- which is how the CAT works. I, much to my surprise I admit, ended up with a 780 and for those about to take the GMAT, some tips:

1. Definitely get yourself the 'Official Guide' (published by ETS) -- that is indespensable. You should aim to complete it from cover to cover - it gives you a really good idea of the test questions though the math is a liitle easier than what I saw on the test. It even has a comprehensive, complete list of essay topics.

2. Practice tests -- my scores in Powerprep : 780,770; Kaplan : 670,650,690; Princeton : 750,720. So I'd venture to recommend this book to get a decent estimation of where you really stand, and therefore u must take the included tests seriously -- i.e., emulating the real testing conditions -- in order to get an accurate idea of your potential. Kaplan is really tough - I haven't seen too many folks scoring above 700 in thier tests - infact when i gave the first test straight after a 780 in powerprep and got a 650 I was pretty turned off - but later found out that it wasn't really a big deal. Get Kaplan for practice, but the PR and the official guide should be enough.

3. PREP BOOKS: Well other than the Official guide, I used PR and Kaplan. I found the math tips in Kaplan (50 of them) quite impressive but the practice tests in PR give you a very good idea of difficulty levels of math/analytic. This book lays out the test in "bins" (easy bin, medium bin, and the tough bin). I found this to be a very unique and useful feature.

Reviews (18)

Mediocre material on cheap paper
If you are picking between PR's and Kaplan's workbooks, go for Kaplan. You can read my review on Kaplan's workbook (just click on my nickname and you'll see that review along with others), so I won't comment much on that book in this review.

Issues with PR's Verbal Wrorkbout:
1. Question quality - I have seen a lot of GMAT materials and sometimes questions are not very close to the authentic gmat questions. This time, they are quite far. The greatest difference comes in Critical Reasoning. Very often the logic is quite off and confusing. The explanations are helpful, but for a person who is very familiar with OG and PP, the difference will be obvious immediately.

2. Question Difficulty - PR is known for easy questions; this book is not entirely easy, but the hard questions are unreasonable; GMAT logic is very limited - it does not go more than 2 two speps. PR on the other hand makes questions either too easy or too complicated, and neither is good.Reading overall, is fairly easy.

3. Tricks the magic tricks. Yeah, right. PR is famous for its "magic tricks" that don't really work on the real test but work flawlessly in the practice books. Many of the questions are tailored to fit the special rules PR makes up. Some tricks are legitimate (such as GMAT never puts minorities or women in poor light); others are common sense (don't go for extreme answer choices), but a lot overemphasise tricks over understanding the grammar, logic, and reading methods.

4. This book has fewer questions than does Kaplan's Verbal Workbook.

5. It spends a lot more on blah, blah, blah, which really does not stay in the memory; could be more condensed.

6. Paper quality is poor; it is printed on the really cheap recycled paper and does not help studying.

Good things:
It has a bigger section on grammar than Kaplan, however, both books are not enough if you are an international student. The grammar covered in both books emphasizes mostly style (parallel constructions, etc)and does not go through the basics of subject verb agreement, adjective rules, modals, or subjunctive. If you are non-native English speaker, get a grammar book - many of the TOEFL books have fabulous grammar sections. I can recommend one, but it is out of print (1995 edition of Cliff's; the 2000 edition is not good, however). Good Luck on the GMAT!

Only if you only need Verbal work
I'm a GMAT tutor with 10+ years of successful students.Here's what I suggest for the GMAT:

1. Use the Kaplan CD (as cheesy as the presentation is, the tests are very good).I've heard complaints that the prep tests from Kaplan are too hard, and I have to disagree with the point being made by these students.The only way, on a computer-adaptive test, to increase your score is to test using HARDER, not easier problems.I may kick ass at medium level questions, but unless I want a medium level score, practicing at a lower level hurts rather than helps.The Princeton Review Verbal Workout does not come with a CD.

2. Ignore the Kaplan book.Use The Princeton Review books (either Cracking the GMAT or GMAT Workouts for Math and Verbal) for tricks and psychology.Try the Official Guide for extra problems and basic review issues (but use as much of the Princeton psychology as you can -- the Official Guide encourages you to do the problems straight, and that's a huge waste of time).The Princeton tests are buggy for sure (Hello! Princeton Review!Fix this!) but are still fairly accurate.

3. Take as many practice tests as you can.That means Kaplan, Princeton Review, PowerPrep.Arco, Barrons, Petersons, and Dummies are all awful.Don't bother with their instruction or their tests.On Princeton Review and PowerPrep, knock 30 points off your score, just to be safe.

4. Check out your local library.Many public libraries have crazy collections of old, out of print Official Guides, chock full o paper-and-pencil tests going back a good 20 years.By all means, use these -- they're a goldmine of practice questions.

Good luck!

very good for non-native english speakers
This is a very good book specially for people whose native langugage is not english. There are certain idioms for instance "prohibited from" which as a non english speaker I used to "think of as" " "prohibited to", differences in idioms which are marginal but which makes one totally wrong and the other correct.
For a person who has learnt english all their lives this is common sense they don't have to study it to know it. But for people for whom English is a second language it might not be so OBVIOUS.

I have given this book 4 stars because the list of idioms at the back of this book is really helpful and also the book conentrates on idioms that are most frequently used on the GMAT. Also the sentence correction, critical reasoning are pretty similar to those that are in the ETS book. I would not give it 5 stars becasue
1) not too many examples
2) the comprehensions are a little too easy sometimes.

you might be wondering it is not that difficult to create more examples and publish a thicker book right, so why did the authors not do that? but then how will the Princeton test prep company run if everyhting is already given in the book?

Luckily I am from an educated household and my English is good enough for the GMAT but for those of you who struggle with your English also get a grammar book and study it side by side.
This book helped me get a 78% in GMAT verbaland that too I studied only for a WEEK IMAGINE THAT...I am confident that had i studied for 2 more weeks i would have scored >85%

Reviews (10)

An excellent book for practicing the math problems
This book is a great investment if you want to practice the math problems for GMAT. Solving the problems in this book gets you up to speed on GMAT math. Since its getting more and more difficult to get into good schools for MBA, every single point counts. Why miss out on even one? So practice, practice and practice.

This book is very good, but do not SOLELY rely on it.
I took the GMAT exam for the second time yesterday, and I can tell you that this book was very helpful.When used correctly, this book can help you increase your quant score - it is the most efficient study guide to review math concepts.(Strangely enough, I saw a question on my GMAT that was the exact same as a question in this book!!)If you have not had any GMAT prep, I would recommend the Kaplan GMAT book AND CD ROM, plus the ETS GMAT questions book and CD software.These are your core study tools.The Princeton Review CD ROM is good for more CAT exam practice.Kaplan material is usually a bit tougher than the actual GMAT, and the ETS CD ROM should be used to get familiar with what you'll see on test day and to boost your confidence.

I hate to say this, but there is an element of luck involved in the kinds of quant questions you get.My first GMAT exam was a disaster because I felt I was 'ambushed' by the math section, but in my test yesterday I felt great about the quant section - and I think this book played a role.

Don't let the GMAT intimidate you.You will need to be in the right frame of mind, and doing all the practice tests and improving your weak areas will lead you to success!

Excellent workbook
This book helped me to improve my math score. Not only does it give a detailed review of math concepts, there are plenty of math problems to do with complete concise answers.

Reviews (7)

ANEXCELLENTCOLLECTION
For those who enjoy - or would like to get to know - the music of Mozart, ESSENTIAL MOZART is a thoughtful and satisfying collection, so good, in fact, that NPR radio station KUSC is offering the two-disc set as a premium in its current fund drive.

Clearly, an additional bonus is that, for those of us who care about such things, the selections are not rendered by orchestras seeking to escape a well-deserved anonimity, as is sometimes the case with CD's like this. Instead, the recordings feature such outstanding groups as the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the English Chamber Orchestra, and the Academy of Ancient Music

Yet, the real beauty of this collection is that it is neither expressly for beginners nor exclusively for the Mozart lover. It is that rarest of accomplishments: a gift that embraces the best of both.

Yoooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not too many dawgs in da Bizz, are like ma man Mozart. This playa is ahead even of this time!!!! Holla at ma boi Mozart!!!! And you, get your a$$ out of that chair and get out and buy this!!!!

G-W-G-T-I-CH

Mozart: music's greatest
This CD includes samples from many of Mozart's best-known and most popular wrorks--sonatas, operas, etc. It's a good starting point for those new to Mozart or the casual classical listener. Buy it for a friend, get them hooked on Music's genius.

p.s. I know some people may turn their noses up at me for calling Mozart the greatest, but he was better than Beethoven because of his operas, and he was better than Bach because although Bach is more complex, intricate and elaborate in his instrumentation and harmony, Mozart is more perfect. That is the bottom line.