Customer Reviews

Master the GMAT, 2008/e, w/CD (Peterson's Master the GMAT (w/CD))

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

 

 

Although the preparation material is decent, the sample practice tests are awful. I just took the verbal tests and more than one third of the questions were either low quality, unclear, or just plain wrong. More than half of the critical reasoning questions have arguably no correct answer or more than one correct answer. The explanations are just a few words more than "Answer B is correct because I say so". The author seems to be incapable of critical reasoning and logical analysis, let alone teaching you about them.

I got the book a few days before my exam because I wanted more practice. The material in the book is early beginner level. If you rely on this as a primary guide, you're in for a rude awakening on test day. More importantly, the testing software leaves a lot to be desired. Besides being buggy, there are problems with the material as well. Some questions are vague, incorrect and at least one was simply wrong. The level of the questions in the quant section is low and unrealistic. I believe that the same software is packaged with the Peterson guide as well (same publisher) and I looked at that guide too.
You could apply any of the reviews written for this book to that book as well.
In short, save your money and time. Go elsewhere.

2 out of the first 20 practice questions (quantitative section) are wrong. I don't feel like using it any further, as the remaining questions are ambiguous.

Glad that I borrowed the book from a library and did waste my money.

This book gives you wrong information about the GMAT. The book claims that each section is scored out of 60 points (it's actually out of 51). Also, the book's practice math questions cover such topics as calculating standard deviation, finding the area of a parallelogram, and analyzing data sets - none of which are actually on the GMAT.

I am surprised to read all these negative reviews. I own Master the Gmat, the Official Guide 11th edition, and the Kaplan 800. And let me tell you something: none of them give you a comprehensive review of all the aspects tested by the GMAT.

Master the GMAT's verbal section is weak but it has by far the best explanations on geometry and coordinate planes, giving you formulas that I have not found anywhere else (like the formula to calculate the area of a rhombus). Also the lesson about exponents is one of the best I have seen and the math exercises are very realistic and similar to the ones you'll encounter in the real test. I have taken it twice so I know what I am talking about.

I bought this book in a hurry at a local store, since I remembered good things about a different Arco prep book - what a mistake. It doesn't seem like the writers spent too much time putting this together. Lots of copying and pasting of instructions; annoying formatting/structure; sometimes questionable explanations to example questions.

In short - I'm going to purchase another guidebook today. Don't waste your time/money on this one!