Customer Reviews

Cracking the GMAT with DVD, 2007 Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I only had 2 weeks to study for the GMAT. I bought three books to help me, all of which were highly rated on Amazon. They were:
1. Cracking the GMAT with DVD, 2007 Edition (Princeton Review)
2. Kaplan GMAT 800, 2006-2007
3. Verbal Workout for the GMAT, 2nd Edition (Princeton Review)

My thinking went like this: I'll learn overall skills for the GMAT using #1. Then I'll get some advanced pointers from #2, and finally, since my weakness is the verbal part, I'll fill in any gaps I can with #3.

#1 (this book) was excellent. It had very useful tricks and strategies. Additionally, it comes with 4 full length online CAT tests. To me, this was the most important thing. If anything, the questions on those CAT tests were a little tougher than those actually on the GMAT, which I also thought was good--it gives you good practice instead of wasting your time with easy questions. I read and skimmed the book cover to cover.

#2 (from Kaplan) was awful. It's first problem was that it did more identifying of tricks used to fool you on the GMAT than it did in explaining ways you can avoid those tricks. The second problem was that the practice problems in the book were trivially easy compared to those in #1. It also didn't come with any full length exams. I returned the book to the store.

#3 Was helpful, and was a good supplement to #1, as I had hoped it would be. My fear with buying two Princeton Review books was that they might completely overlap in their recommendations, a fear that went unrealized. The book also had useful practice problems, though sadly it didn't offer any full exams.

During the course of my study, I took three of the four available practice exams from #1, spaced out at regular intervals. My scores on the practice exams were 630, 680 and 730, in that order. My score on the real test was 760. I truly believe I owe that improvement in large part to this book.

Although I liked the way the authors went through and reviewed the topics I needed for the exam, I did not execute most of their strategies during the actual exam.

While most of their strategies to "crack" the test were easily applicable to the sample questions they had, I had a harder time applying them to the actual GMAT questions (both questions on the test itself and the questions in the official guide)

The REAL key to cracking the GMAT is practice, practice and practice, so make sure you buy the Official Guide to GMAT as well and try to do as many sample questions as you can.

One last comment, I consistently kept getting lower scores on the Princeton Sample CATs (around 640) than the sample tests from mba . com and the actual GMAT (around 710) I don't know if anyone else had this problem or not.

Hope this helps

i have now had the chance to read through this book. i also have the kaplan one. i find pr to be more focused and concise compared to any of the other gmat books. i feel like the authors respect my time, schedule and tell me EXACTLY what i need to know. very impressive book and very well organized. it's obviously smart to buy several gmat books - this should be one of your purchases. highly recommended.....

I got this book and took the GMAT yesterday. I scored a 750 on the GMAT, and many of the techniques were VERY useful. One of the big bonuses that the book touts, however, is "4 free online practice tests." These tests were horrible.

Compare: Using the ETS/GMAC practice tests, I scored 650 ad 690, then 750 on the actual test.

When I took the PR practice tests online, the site was slow and buggy, I scored 570-610, and several of the questions were just plain wrong: Bad editing, etc. There were several that had wrong answers inthe math section. I remember one question in reading comprehension where they used "Antebellum" in place of "Postbellum". A fairly important distinction.

By all means, get the book-- just get the $14 one. The extras in the DVD and online tests are not worth your money. If you want practice tests, get the ones from GMAC at http://www.gmat.com/ .

I recently went through the whole GMAT experience. I purchased this book and the Official Guide 11th edition. (The 2006 Princeton Review edition works just as well so that could save you some cash)The Princeton Review book is great for preparing for the test. It especially helped on the Sentence Correction Section and gave some good insight on the Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension. The book also gives a very good math review. While there were a couple of items that I felt like it missed, it is still by far the best Math Review out there. I read this book first and did all the practice questions in it first. As for the practice exams, I felt that they were very accurate and on the same level as the real GMAT. I received two 710s on the Princeton Review practice exams. I also got the Official Guide. It has lots of questions as advertised. The review sections were pretty weak. The one major thing it does provide is insight to how the test makers think. When reviewing their answer explanations, you start to build up an idea of their logic. It helps come test day. I also used the GMATPrep software to take a practice exam 2 days before the test and scored a 730 on it. On test day, I felt fully prepared. When you are finishing it, you feel like you did worse than you really did. In the end, I got a 760 which I am happy about. I could not have got this score without both books. If you just need a decent score and are only going to spend money on 1 book, I would buy the 2006 Princeton Review edition. If you are striving for the best, get both. Good luck!

I highly recommend The Princeton Review study guides. Cracking the GMAT is an excellent guide for the overall exam. Also, I encourage you to use The Princeton Review Math Workout and The P.R. Verbal Workout. These two books went into details not found in Cracking the GMAT. Specifically, the strategies for answering different question types were extremely helpful when I took the exam.
I did not find the DVD helpful at all. It may be a nice introduction to the exam, but it didn't help with study prep at all. I also was not very pleased with the interface of the online practice exams. I found the 2 practice exams available on [...] to be more accurate and easy to use.
That said, save some money and buy the Cracking the GMAT without the DVD and the 2 extra online exams. Put the difference towards the Math and Verbal Workouts. Those are essential.
Only buy The Official Guide from GMAC if you have time to do extra problems beyond the above study guides. Better yet, get a copy from your local library to do extra problems.
This strategy served me well. I went from a 640 on my first online test (before studying) to a 730 on the real thing yesterday!

No short (even at 560 large pages plus a CD) book is going to replace what you should have learned over many years of classwork. You should know the basic rules in English, mathematics and the rest. Instead, this book concentrates on the testing aspects: what areas does the test cover, how is it administered, what is the format of the test, things like that.

And within the confines of what it is trying to do, this book does an excellent job. It is based on what the test is actually testing. That is, here's the scoop on how to take a multiple choice test that is going to be graded in the way the GMAT will be graded. And there are four practice exams, which seem to be bit harder than the actual test.

In addition to the book, there is a CD with a half hour 'TV' show on the test as well as guidance on how to create an outstanding application. In short here's what you need to get into an exclusive MBA program.

i can't say it is THE PERFECT review book, but must say it is better than kaplan. kaplan seems to be much easier than the actual exam itself.

This book is easy to read and understand. It is great source for techniques and math background. However, I didnt benefit a lot from the DVD. There are not many individual excercises for the different sections. The tests are on-line which makes it network intensive. During one of my tests, for some reason the network or their servers was acting up and the page used to take forever to load. But I had 2006 edition CD and I managed it without using their Online tests. In general I am quite happy and learnt a lot from this book. I used it along with Kaplan.

This book is good to refresh your concepts and to browse over quickly what you probably forgot since high school, but thats about it. The tests are totally way off the actual GMAT.
Especially the Math section on the online tests is too simple, and the actual GMAT questions are a few notches higher.

All in all, not worth buying. You could probably get one from a library to use. I'd recommend Kaplan to this one.