Customer Reviews

Reading Comprehension Gmat Strategy Guide (Manhattan GMAT Preparation Guides)

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
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Reading Comprehension is one of the most difficult areas to improve in a short time for the GMAT. If you are not getting good scores in this section and if you've not been a life long reader, then it is not easy to improve your score - it will take hard work and a lot of practice, and probably the Manhattan GMAT RC guide.

This book is definitely one of the best out there for this section. The book offers some radically new tricks and tips to better attack this section (I ended up using a few of them and they were very helpful) and it also has a bunch of practice passages apart from pointers to practice passages from the Official Guide.

I will be reviewing other ManhattanGMAT Prep books individually but here's what I have to say about the entire series - buy them all, it will cost you less than 150 dollars and believe me, it will be money well spent (I scored 760 on my GMAT last month).

I self studied and scored a 770 on the GMAT. Here are my thoughts on the Manhattan GMAT Reading Comprehension Guide:

===== OVERVIEW =====

Reading Comprehension (RC) is possibly the only question type that you'll see in all major standardized tests: SAT, GMAT, LSAT, GRE, and so forth. Unfortunately, reading comprehension is also one of the hardest areas to improve as a test taker, simply because RC is closely linked your overall ease in reading and to your general English fluency. Even so, the Manhattan GMAT Reading Comprehension Guide does provide some useful strategies for attacking this question type.

This book is also the only GMAT guide I've seen that is dedicated exclusively to GMAT Reading Comprehension. As such, it fills the need for a quick reference on this verbal section. The Manhattan GMAT RC guide is especially useful for non-native speakers of English, but could benefit native speakers as well by improving their accuracy and speed when dealing with this particularly time-consuming question type.

===== PROS =====

* The only guide on the market that is entirely dedicated to Reading Comprehension. The alternatives to the Manhattan GMAT RC book would be general or verbal strategy guides, but they are usually not as detailed as this book (with the possible exception of the PowerScore GMAT Verbal Bible--however the PowerScore book contains markedly fewer practice problems)

* Really good lessons on theory/concepts. Manhattan GMAT's friendly approach earns them points by making the learning process quite pleasant

* Provides access to 6 online computer adaptive tests (considered to be among the best in the industry) and 25 extra practice questions. As opposed to the SC guide, this book contains quite a few practice questions: 44 in total, with good explanations and a reasonable difficulty level

* Offers detailed note-taking tips. This is actually one of the main focuses of the book, which is a plus compared to the PowerScore GMAT Verbal Bible.

===== CONS =====

* I would have loved to see more about connectors and their role in passages in a separate section of the book. Tips regarding this topic sometimes pop up, but they're not grouped together

* The system that Manhattan GMAT uses to classify various passages and questions is a bit superficial, so to speak. For instance, the length of a passage is not necessarily what makes it difficult, in my opinion. The analysis of different question types is not as complete as it could have been

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

As the only book to cover exclusively RC, the Manhattan GMAT Reading Comprehension Guide is a welcomed addition to the series of question-specific books available for the verbal section of the GMAT. It scores well for the number and quality of problems and note-taking strategies, but it could use some work on its classifications and theoretical review.

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

I wouldn't take the gmat without comprehensively reviewing all the workbooks and online material for manhattan GMAT. They are simply the best books and most directly relevant books to studying. They don't care about teaching you material, but teaching exactly what you need to know for the GMAT, and nothing more!

If you get this book, you should also get access to the online material. I would highly suggest you do all the material and time yourself. There are 6 practice tests that in my opinion are the best in the market. I would do the pearson/GMAC provided test once in the beginning to see where you stand. Then take on practice test from Manhattan GMAT per weekend. Treat it like a real test! Then carefully go over all your answers and mistakes. Even go over the ones you got right!

During the week, I would focus on going through the workbooks and other online exercises.

It is a major commitment but it was worth it...I got a 740

It was what I expected. I just need more examples to practice because the book has few of them. Now I have to buy another book with examples. I guess it is the business.

I purchased this book because I was taking a nursing exam and needed at least a 90, well what I got was a 109 after using the Strategy in this book. I use it for all my tests and I am doing very well. Thank you very much, and the suppier was excellent would use them again. Came in so fast.

The book is very helpful, it changed the entire process for solving RC questions for me. Higly recommended.

The best companion to RC that I have read - great to start, improve and then hit the practice tests. Loved it and it worked like a charm for me because I improved my scores tremendously.

If you read this book from front to back and do all of the examples, it WILL raise your verbal score. I ended up ranking in the 92nd percentile for verbal, which is usually my weaker subject. I did not take the course in addition to using this book - so my comment is really just on this specific product/book. Hope this helps!

This and all the other Manhattan GMAT guides were really helpful in helping me prep for the GMAT. My colleagues had recommended them over other guides and I continue to do the same after getting the score I needed on my first try.

Overall, this is a good book, with detailed and accurate explanations on methods and what to expect in the exam.
One thing can be improved though - the questions/quizzes. Very small portion of the questions are not really good ones.