The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 11th edition

Trust the worldwide bestselling study guide to help you prepare for the GMAT!

Here's what you'll find inside the only book on the market written by the creators of the exam.

• More than 800 actual questions from past GMAT tests—300 of which have never before been published
• Full answers and detailed explanations for all questions
• Grammar review covering concepts tested on the GMAT Verbal section
• Comprehensive math review of the topics tested on the GMAT Quantitative section
• Actual essay topics, sample responses, and scoring information
• Questions organized in order of difficulty to save study time

Visit www.mba.com to:

• Get 2 free downloadable tests and practice questions
• Sign up for the GMAT Teasers, a weekly practice question
• Register to take the GMAT exam

"5 stars" - A must have / by Youssef J. Habbouche

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.

"5 stars" - An absolute must for any GMAT Prep / by RG

This book, coupled with the Official GMAT Verbal and Quant Review Guides (by the same company, GMAC) is enough to give you a thorough understanding, of the type of questions that can be expected in the GMAT and the reasoning needed to answer them correctly. I found the reasoning provided with each answer, especially useful. Another nice thing about these books is that the questions are arranged in increasing order of difficulty. So, if you find some questions very easy, just jump a few questions forward. The only setback with these books is that they do not give detailed explanations in the 'concepts review sections'.

You will need to turn to other books/websites to get tips and tricks for the exam. I recommend Princeton for this purpose: The Princeton guide gave me very clear and effective test taking strategies that helped me a lot. I highly recommend NOT USING Kaplan, especially to take practice tests. The scoring is very tough, and you are tested in areas that are absolutely unnecessary for the GMAT. Also, very low scores on these tests are discouraging. I highly recommend taking the two Powerprep practice tests available for download from the GMAC website. These tests consist of 'retired' GMAT questions, and are very much identical to the actual GMAT. Your scoring on these tests would be identical to your actual GMAT score.

My practice scores are as below (in chronological order):
Powerprep Test 1: 630 (35 days before my GMAT)
Princeton Test 1: 650
Kaplan Test 1: 600
Princeton Test 2: 670
Princeton Test 3: 700
Princeton Test 4: 720
Kaplan Test 2: 530 (One day before my GMAT - Very, very discouraging!!)
Powerprep Test 2: 750 (One day before my GMAT)
Powerprep Test 3 (Reinstalled): 760 (with some repetitions from Powerprep Test 2)
GMAT: 750 (Verbal 40, Quant 50)

My GMAT Prep consisted of lots and lots of practice, analysis of my practice test results, and noting down where I erred, and making sure that I did not repeat my mistakes.

"5 stars" - 770 - Essential Resource / by B. Elwood

After 3 months of study, I just took the GMAT last week. This is my first and only attempt at the GMAT-CAT. In fact this is the first standardized test I have taken in 12 years. Overall I am happy with my score (770 Q51 V44).

The only study materials I used were:

- Official 11th Edition
- Official Verbal Review Guide
- Official Quant Review Guide
- Official GMATPrep Software (sent to you once you schedule your test)
- Manhattan GMAT Guides (reviewed for techniques only)

The three official books are the absolute bible for sample problems. I am a firm believer in quality over quantity. I NEVER did any problem that was not provided by the real GMAT company...NONE. Using problems written by other vendors is not needed, and could be counter productive. I would rather fully understand 200 official problems, than slog through 1000 non-official problems.


STUDY TIPS:

- First master all the problems in the printed official guides (11th, Verbal Guide, Quant Guide). NOTE: Getting the correct answer is not the same as "mastering" a question.

- Any problem you miss or find changing, repeat many times (even after you may have memorized the answer). Keep repeating the problems, until the basic skill is fully understood.

- Keep accurate records every time you do a problem (correct / incorrect, easy / challenging / stuck).

- Focus on core concepts. In truth, the GMAT tests very few concepts, but will use these simple building blocks to construct an unlimited number of tricky problems. Know the core concepts, become aware of the tricks, and the rest is timing.

- Only once the printed materials are exhausted (took me about 2 months), then you should "graduate" to the GMATPrep software. This should be used mostly for developing timing skills. In the end, you need to gain the confidence to flex your time during the actual test. You should be able to answer simple questions quickly, so you can invest more time in higher value problems.


This book is not a problem solving technique book. You will not find tips and tricks. Basically this is book should be considered a "question bank". In the quantitative section it will provide the questions and an answer key...period. For the verbal section, it will provide very useful detailed explanations of the correct answers. If you are you looking for a book on techniques, I would recommend the well organized Manhattan book set.

Bottom-line: you need this book for any serious attempt at the GMAT.

"4 stars" - THE must-have book for GMAT students / by Jeff Sackmann, Author of "Total GMAT Math" and gmathacks.com

Weighing in with over 800 pages, 800 practice questions and answers, and a bright orange cover, this book is the best twenty-two bucks you'll spend on preparing for the GMAT, hands down. When you're in the market for practice questions, your number one priority is authenticity. Since the Official Guide is written by the same folks who write the test itself, it doesn't get any better than this.

There are some drawbacks. The section overviews are well-nigh worthless, and the explanations are often opaque. You'll never find the "faster way" in this book, but if you're working with a tutor, that's what he or she is for. The book claims that questions are organized by difficulty level, but there are no markers to indicate what those difficulty levels are; also, I suspect they are organized only in the most general manner.

Most students will start with the Diagnostic Test (section 3), which is actually one of the more challenging parts of the book. The questions, on average, are set at about the level of a 600-650 test taker. Because the diagnostic is not adaptive, your score (the book provides a conversion table) is not all that predictive of how you'd do on the computer-based GMAT.

In other words, this book is far from being the perfect GMAT resource, but because it is the one location where you'll find hundreds of authentic test questions, it's a must have. It should be at the center of your preparation from day one.

"5 stars" Don't take the GMAT without this / by Elizabeth

If you're taking the GMAT, you must work through this book. I made the mistake of buying every study guide out there (Kaplan, Princeton Review, Barron's...), but on the day that I walked into the test center, the Official Guide was the only book that I had used.

I took the GMAT a single time and scored a 770. Here's how I did it:
1. I bought the Official Guide.
2. I bought Jeff Sackmann's two e-books, The "GMAT Math Bible" and the "Official Guide to GMAT Review" and used them to work through each problem in the Official Guide.[...]
3. When doing a set of problems from the Official Guide, usually 10 to 15 at a time, I timed myself. Anytime I took longer than 2 minutes to complete a a problem or I got it wrong, I read Sackmann's explanation and re-did the question from scratch.
4. I worked through the Math Bible methodically, trying to do at least one full chapter a night.
5. Six weeks before I took the test, I[...] This is the official site of the GMAC, and the only place that you can access these two practice tests that use the same scoring logarithm as the actual test. Two weeks before my test date, I took the second practice test.

All in all, I spent about two months studying for 1-3 hours a day - and I work full-time, so it wasn't easy. But it was worth it. You *need* the Official Guide if you're studying because it's the only resource with actual questions from the GMAT. The rest of the books out there use made-up problems and many of them aren't very accurate. Because the Official Guide doesn't rate each problem's difficulty, you should consider a companion book (like the ones mentioned above) that rate the problems and offer better explanations.