Customer Rating:  
Summary: USEFUL FOR BEGINNERS!
Comment: This book is very good for people who wuold like to start their preparation for the GMAT. You have enough exercices and and a useful section (explanations) about math, algebra and geometry.
After, if you need a more brilliant preparation you need to practice on GMAT 800.
I'm Italian and when I started to read GMAT 800 (by KEPLAN) I found it harder (contents and language).
Customer Rating:
Summary: so-so
Comment: I wasnt totally happy w/ this book. As other readers have posted there are countless errors in the math sections. For example on page 335 of the 11th edition they say (xr)^2 = x^(2r). This is hard to look over as a typo - as are other errors.
There are also no full-length exams in this book. I mean, come-on, why are the GMAC guys such tight-wads with their questions. I dont really like they way they run the show...
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good book but with some typo's
Comment: Math section has many typo's (more than 10 for sure), use google to find the corrections. Apart from that its good.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great source for practice questions, but not good for theory review
Comment: This book should be the first one you buy during your GMAT prep as it contains retired GMAT questions from past exams - this gives you a much better feel for the types of questions you are likely to encounter on the day. There are plenty of questions to practice with in both the quant and verbal sections - although beware that if you are also purchasing the old exams from the [...] that some of these will be replicated.
The real weakness with this book is with the level of detail in reviews. Particularly in the maths section, it does assume a level of knowledge and some topics are not well covered at all (e.g. combinations, permutations). If, like me, you are someone who has not touched high-school maths in 10 years, then it may be worth purchasing a couple of specific maths review books to aid you in this section.
The only other flaw is the lack of time practice available with this book, but it can be mitigated by downloading the free GmatPrep software [...] or by purchasing the old paper exams from the same website. If you cluster the maths and english sections, it will give you a very good feel for how to manage your time on the day.
I had only a few months to prepare for the GMAT, and bought this book, the Princeton Review, Kaplan, as well as the old tests and diagnostic tools on the MBA website. These all helped me to get a score of 710 on the first go. The official GMAT tools are much better to rely on, but the others are a good source of additional practice questions.
Customer Rating:
Summary: No longer useful as it once was
Comment: GMAT has changed a lot over the last 3 years and the materials in this book are no longer as useful as they once was. Most of the questions in this book are over 10 years old and they share approximately 90% of the questions with the 10th edition.
The result is the difficulty level and types of questions contained in this book are no longer fully reflective of the questions one will receive in the real GMAT. If you need proof, download GMAT Prep (just google it) from the providers of the GMAT and you will see the GMAT Prep questions are substantially different and more difficult than the questions from these guides.
The 1400 questions contained in these guides, however, are still somewhat useful, particularly if you are shooting for a lower end (450-620) score range.
If anything, GMAT Prep, which is provided free by the makers of GMAT, is a far better reflection of the real GMAT. Although GMAT Prep does not provide solutions (only answers) to the problems, it contains hundreds of questions in its data bank which will help you prepare for the tougher GMAT problems.
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