Customer Reviews

Cracking the GMAT, 2009 Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation)

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I thought this book was pretty good for the review portions. It helped me relearn a lot of math (especially) that I had forgotten over the past 15+ years. However, the practice tests in the The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 11th Edition Official Guide were better. Those are old questions from actual tests.

As I wrote in my Official Guide review, the best thing you can do is to download the free (as free as the $250 you just paid to take the test) practice tests from the GMAT site. They look and feel exactly like the real test. I believe the reason I scored 70 points higher then when I took the practice test was because I was more comfortable with the process. It wasn't because I got smarter over the 36 hour period between the practice and real tests.

I self studied and scored a 770 on the GMAT. Here are my thoughts on Princeton Review's Cracking the GMAT book:

===== OVERVIEW =====

The Princeton Review Cracking the GMAT book is, like the Kaplan GMAT 2010 Premier Live Online book, a general GMAT strategy guide. However, apart from the natural similarities (such as separate chapters for the 5 types of problems you will see on the GMAT plus an essay section), the two books follow markedly different "paths to knowledge".

As advertised from the beginning, The Princeton Review Cracking the GMAT is not a guide that emphasizes building subject-matter skills in the quantitative or verbal fields, but rather focuses on what the authors call "cracking the system" - tips and tricks to help you score higher with an obvious preference for process of elimination (POE) and picking numbers. Personally, I do not fully support such strategies for the GMAT (I consider them more as backup plans). Here's why: POE cannot and will never replace actually knowing the answer to a question, it will just improve your chances of getting it right. Picking numbers is also quite risky: I sometimes see this strategy discussed in online forums; people try to pick numbers, but particularly at an advanced level they pick the wrong set of numbers and everything falls apart.

The book is a pleasant read though, and I personally found the small info boxes on the sides of pages to be quite entertaining and interesting. The authors use "the average test taker" for examples of do's and don'ts. However, I didn't like the authors' tone for describing the GMAT - I felt an overall negative vibe about the test, which was not the case when I read The PowerScore GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible for instance. An example would come from the Reading Comprehension chapter: "No one in her right mind would ever read one of these passages of her own free will. They are almost always boring." I strongly disagree with this view, since I personally enjoyed most texts, particularly those dealing with the social sciences. My advice is to think of the GMAT as a sort of mind game you have to beat, an interesting little challenge. I assure you that feeling positive about the GMAT will make the experience a lot less painful.

===== PROS =====

* A good introduction to the GMAT, an easy read to make you understand what the test is about, how it's scored, and what to expect on test day

* If your quantitative skills are not fresh, definitely give this book a chance. It covers math basics pretty well. Again, the fact that it's an easy read will probably help you reconnect with junior high and high school math

* Questions are structured in "bins" according to difficulty, which means you can focus on your particular level when you practice

* The book comes with a registration code you can use to gain online access to four CATs (computer-adaptive practice tests). However, I felt that these practice tests were a bit easier than the actual GMAT

===== CONS =====

* If you're shooting for a higher score (above 600), this book won't help much. You will need other resources to help you reach your goal

* At just over 280 questions, this book has fewer and easier practice questions as compared to other guides (like Kaplan GMAT 2010 Premier Live Online). Also the explanations could use some more work, particularly in verbal. I personally get really upset if the best explanation for why an answer is wrong is "because it's out of scope"! This will definitely not help a test taker understand where her error in reasoning was!

* The focus on strategies such as POE and number picking means that you'll have some potentially useful tools for G-day, but such strategies might backfire. Cracking the GMAT does not provide an in-depth analysis of question types and their respective approaches

===== BOTTOM LINE =====

After going through The Princeton Review's Cracking the GMAT, all I can truly say is this: the book is good, but only for a certain level (that is, up to mid-600s). As a basic guide, it shines; as a tool for getting into that top 10 MBA, I do not think it delivers. If you do not already know your starting level, I advise you to do the following: go to [...], download the free GMATPrep software, and take practice test #1 (save #2 for the last days of your prep!). If you score significantly below 600, consider investing in this book. If you score higher than 600, you'd best search for a different resource since you'll need a more rigorous program to get to a higher percentile score.

About me: Dana Jinaru, 770 GMAT scorer, expert at Beat The GMAT - a community serving 100K+ GMAT students/month

I'm in the midst of studying to take the GMAT test and have been using the Princeton Review "Cracking the GMAT 2009 Edition".

This book does some good teaching. Lots of basic knowledge that I had forgotten in the years since high school and college math. However, significant amounts of the book are more about how to take the GMAT test, not on teaching the basic skills. When it does impart important information, it mostly just encourages you to memorize formulas while not following through on why the formulas are important.

Most frustrating is that the book contains many typos and misinformation. It is maddening that the test questions require so much attention to detail, and that the editors apparently did not use the same level in proofing the book. There have been numerous examples that I have come across. For example, on pg 196, there is a data sufficiency question. After giving the sample question, the explanation misquotes the question! In some of the review areas, answers are given to questions that are not even in the quizzes. It seems like they didn't fully proof the book between editions or something.

It would be great to be able to use this book without continually questioning whether the given answer has been proofed correctly by the editors. Highly disappointing and frustrating.

This book does a nice job of introducing the format of the GMAT, what it is, etc. If you are completely ignorant about what the GMAT is, then it may be worth your time to drive over to the local bookstore and thumb through the first couple of chapters. Beyond that there is very little useful information to be found in this book. In fact, I think that the strategies outlined for the quantitative section are simply misleading and wrong.

For example, early on the book describes a guy named "Joe Bloggs," who is essentially a complete idiot who did not prepare at all for the exam. Most every math problem explanation shows one or two answer choices that Joe would have selected because either they are intermediate solutions (solutions that are found during necessary, but preliminary steps on the way to the final solution), or they are just "too obvious." That's real cute, and perhaps makes people more comfortable with the test, but let me tell you that it will not help you on test day, and will likely hurt you.

The best thing that you can do in your preparation is learn the basics cold. Do this by frequenting some of the GMAT prep site forums, where a plethora of practice problems with expert solutions can be found. To sum up the quantitative tutorials in this book- "Make sure that you find out what the question is asking, and make sure that you do not stop short of the full solution, as they will tempt you with answer choices that they know you will encounter during your work to solve the problem." Well, that is sound advice, and much harder in practice than it sounds, but hardly worth basing an entire book upon.

If you are somebody who is really struggling with sentence correction, I would actually recommend that section, as I feel it does do a nice job of summing up the ideal approach to those questions.

In closing, I would say that if you are somebody who is simply trying to get to a 550-600 score, then this book may well be right up your alley, as the concepts are introduced in a very friendly and frankly, childish way. However, if you aspire to a 700+ score, this book is beneath you, and you really need to pass this one up. I bought this book on a whim early in my preparation, because I heard good reviews of it, but promptly closed it and set it aside for the duration of my studies and only used it once for the aforementioned reasons, and I scored a 750. I honestly believe that the reason these books sell so well is that reading them is in a way therapeutic, as it makes you feel comfortable with the test. Trust me that that is not a good thing. You have to make a realistic assessment of your weaknesses, and work to improve those, not waste your time practicing some cutesy methods that you won't have time to use on test day.

While this won't apply to everyone, I used this review during the 12 days studying that I had to study for the test and was able to boost my estimated score by about 100 points. In the end I got a 710 on this test, so that should provide a good selling point.

The best aspect of this book is that it teaches you how to think like the test makers. On all of the practice problems there is a solid explanation for the correct answer along with justifications for the false answers.

The other great thing is that the book doesn't waste time. It only teaches the material that will be covered on the test, and it teaches the process of elimination techniques that you'll need to work through the test questions as fast as you'll need to.

I'd strongly recommend this book over any other book out there.

This a good book to study for the GMAT with because it doesn't just focus on the principles, etc that they will be testing you on, but the quickest way to get through the test. It thoroughly covers what will be tested on the GMAT and give tips and tricks to be successful. I would highly suggest this one.

This book provides a good introduction to the GMAT process, the types of questions and some general test-taking strategies. The book often refers to a 'Joe Bloggs' type, and it appears that this person would do no better than a 550-600 score. This book is good to get some basics underway, but it will not be enough if you are aiming for higher scores.
I bought this book, Kaplan, as well as the official guide. This book is definitely the easiest of the three and provides a very basic approach. This suited me as I had not touched this type of maths since high school, so this was the one I started with. However, you will find that as you gain comfort and ocnfidence with the subject matter that this will cease to be nearly so helpful. The section on data sufficiency was the one I found most helpful out of all the books as it teaches you an obvious and clever way to tackle each problem (this is the same approach as Kaplan, but much more clearly explained).
It's also important to note that unless you are familiar with the maths tested, none of the books (including the official guide) will provide enough to teach you - for this you will need to look at alternative sources of material. All that is provided is a superficial overview but is unlikely to help you gain the deep understanding required to manage the problem solving on test day.

I order this book, the Kaplan 800 and the official GMAT review. This is by far the worst of the three titles. The strategies focus more on guessing than actually how to do the problems. Skip this book and try the official guide to GMAT review instead.

This book covers the basic math and english content pretty well. I agree that if you are looking for real-math solutions to all the math problems you will need a different resource, but if you follow the testing advice in this book, you don't need to know all the advanced math to do very well on the GMAT.

The Cracking book has a thorough description of, and strategy for dealing with, a Computer Adaptive Test (CAT test.) It lays out how to develop a pacing plan and set realistic goals, and offers a lot of great practice. I do still suggest using the Official Guide for additional practice, and also downloading the free CAT tests from GMAC.org for practice as well.

I never got the sense that this book was supposed to be a replacement text for all the math you didn't learn (or forgot along the way) but rather a great guide to give you the test savvy that you need to "crack" this test.

Book is easy to read. Some of their tips are helpful. However, I would be cautious about situations when they start bringing in their favorite character 'Joe Bloggs'. This character is assumed to be an average person and some of their tips are based on how this person would think and attempt the questions. I would never recommend the approach based on Joe Bloggs for a few reasons:

1) it requires you to first understand what average really means and this is very relative. For instance, I consider myself above average (scored a 800 on GRE math), but in some one else's opinion who is much better than me, I could be an average. Also, we all have areas where we tend to differ in strengths/weaknesses. So how do you define 'average''? Unless one can think of an average Joe for Math and an average Joe for verbal, I am certain that some one trying to identify the Joe Blogg's answer will most likely end up picking the wrong answer.

2) You may end up spending more time in the test trying to figure out how Joe Blogg's would think than if you actually attempted to answer the question using a straight forward approach.

The rest of the stuff in the book should be helpful.