Customer Reviews

The Insider's Guide to the GMAT CAT

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Nice book. I'm studying for the Gmat right now. I'm using Princeton, Kaplan and Petersons. I think the last one is the best. It gives a lot of useful tactics and a lot of exercises in all the sections. Princeton gives also a lot of tactics but it lacks of exercises. If you have to buy your first book to prepare the Gmat, buy Petersons.

This is easily one of the bset books on the GMAt that you can buy. It has an enormous number of excercises that you can do to improve your skills, in addition to very practical and valuable tips on how to approach the test. Most other books I have bought somehow only offer advice (dubious, at best) on how to approach the GMAT and always skip out on the number of practise excercises they offer. I have the Princeton review book, 'Cracking the GMAT', as well as some of the other off-the-shelf books, that I now intend to return to the bookstore.

This book offers great advice on tackling the various types of problems on the GMAT CAT. I found the strategies for the Reading Comprehension questions especially useful. However, I found the sample Data Sufficiency questions far too difficult, especially in light of how much time Weber recommends you allow yourself for each problem set. For example, I did a sample set of his problems and didn't do very well at all. Yet if I did the same number of Data Sufficiency questions from the ETS 'Official' GMAT review book under the same time limit as I allowed myself for Weber's problems, I did substantially better (50% correct vs. 90% correct). So I wouldn't get discouraged by Weber's Data Sufficiency problems. Of course, if you find his questions easy, then you should rock that section of the exam. Good luck!

The book is amazing and has some very useful tipe for the GMAT. The number of exercises is enough to give you the practice to crack the GMAT. A must buy.

I thought the tips in this book were good, and they were easier to absorb, and more concisely presented than in the Kaplan book. However, they were the same tips the Kaplan book had. On top of that the Kaplan book had a wealth of tests on the computer (like the actual tests), and is a better buy than this book.
I can't comment on the accuracy of the scores because I didn't take any full length tests from this book, but a really accurate score predicter is the free software (PowerPrep) you get when you register for the GMAT. They give you 2 practice tests that are basically identical to the real tests (as well as tons of exercises) that give you a score within 20 points of what you'll actually score.

No kidding! I just graduated from NYU Stern. I used this book for my GMAT prep, took the test 3 weeks later and scored 720. Highly recommend!

I read through this book at a Barnes and Noble store, and after having used both Princeton and Kaplan, found this to be the best book out there. Most ppl. forget that the GMAT is a simple test, not too complicated and the key is to think clearly and to not get hurried. This book seems to take that approach. Both Kaplan and Princeton, I think complicate the matter a bit too much. That said, I actually went through all three books. I would recommend this as a good starting book.

Second Impression: The contents of the book look more impressive and helpful than they really are. It is deceptively full of "helpful" tips and techniques but most of them are common sense ones such as don't overwork yourself just before the test day or as silly as don't eat greasy food. It is printed on cheap recycled paper - not as bad as the one Princeton uses but nothing compared to the Kaplan's books (thought the 2003 edition of Kaplan's Guide with CD was printed on that crap too - bad choice). I personally hate recycled paper. I really do need the whiteness and cleanliness of the sheet to enjoy the book.

PROS:
1. Full of tips and explanations, often rediculous
2. Has a vocabulary list - will be helpful for international students
3. I can't really think of anthing else....

CONS:
1. Huge - 547 pages (amazon is lying, it is not 520). If you can make through the book, you are my hero - for sure not the overnight prep book.
2. Poorly structured for visual learning. The pages are messy and crammed with material making it harder to use visual memory for learning
3. NO software ??? The title says GMAT CAT blah blah blah, but there is really no CAT. There is a link to the website in the book but after 3 attempts and getting a Server 404 error - page not found, I gave up :-/
3. About 150-200 questions in the whole book and one practice test. It is really not enought for anything serious, esp since the book is so freaking huge.

Before reading this book, I took the diagnostic test at the beginning of the book to get a baseline of my GMAT score. I made a 730, so naturally, I thought that I would do much better on the real test. I read the book and went through all of the math practice tests (my weakest area). On the night before my exam, I decided to take the PowerPrep test to see how much I had improved after studying for a few weeks. I made a 550. Imagine my disappointment!

I decided to not take the GMAT test the next day and wasted hundreds of dollars.

I haven't taken any of the other diagnostic tests in the other books, but they've got to be better than this one! Also, the questions on the PowerPrep exam were MUCH more difficult than the sample questions and practice questions in this guide.

In short, if you do well according to this book, don't expect to do well on the GMAT!

I had the 2nd Edition, btw.

This has got to be the worst book ever... I totally disagree with all the reviews. First of, the examples are horrible - nothing like the real GMAT. This book states that you should leave any questions unanswered blank; whereas Kaplan and Princeton Review state that you should guess. There are also many other mistakes that I do not remember. Reading the Princeton Review & Kaplan and practicing the examples from ETS will lead to a better score. Also, there is no need to waste any money in classes.