Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not recommended., October 3, 2004
I used a total of five books in preparing for the GMAT: Barron's 13th edition, Petersons 2003 and 2004 CDs, Kaplan 2005, Nova's GMAT Prep Course 2003, and the Official Guide.
I have taken the GMAT twice. The first time I used the Barron's book and the Petersons CD and scored a 40% on math, 75% on verbal, and a 4.5 on the essay for a total score of 570. This score was unacceptable.
The second time around, I budgeted more time to study a day (around 6 hours) and for a longer time period (a month and a half). For me, I felt I had a strong background knowledge on all the required subjects, but I was not as honed on specific strategies and techniques for answering questions. My thoughts on each book:
Barron's: As a beginner, I enjoyed this book. I read the whole book and did all practice tests. They did not explain probability, sequences, and progressions questions well. In general, the math explanations were a bit sketchy. However, the word problem explanations were the best out of all the books.
Petersons: I just used the CDs and did not look at the book. After taking their adaptive practice tests, one is provided feedback which has questions divided into very difficult, difficult, etc. This is beneficial because you can see the level of difficulty at which you generally test. This is a really helpful addition that other CDs lack.
Kaplan: My least favorite book and CD. The book had very poor explanations for test questions. The book only offered general guidance for taking the test and outline common strategies. The cartoonish CD just became annoying and took more time than it was worth.
Nova: Far and away the best book. After reading reviews on various sites, everyone recommended Kaplan and Princeton Review, but no one mentioned this book. I found it by chance at the local book store. It covered everything on math and had exceptional, comprehensive explanations. Also, the drills after all chapters were very, very, very helpful. After doing all drills in Nova, the commonly considered difficult practice questions in Kaplan were almost a joke. I would recommend to anyone this book.
Official Guide: A must to have for everybody taking GMAT. I did the last third of the questions for each section, which are typically more difficult.
I recommend, in order from best to worst:
Nova, Official Guide, Petersons CDs, Barron's, Kaplan.
I recently took the test again and got a 96% in verbal, 60% in math, and a 690 overall.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
DO NOT BUY***DO NOT BUY***READ REVIEWS!, March 2, 2006
Boy, did I learn the hard way!
I bought this book at a bookstore before checking the reviews on this (and all GMAT Prep books) and boy, am I sorry.
$29.99 and countless hours of frustration, aggravation and tears, and then I logged in and read the other reviews. I wasn't stupid or crazy!
The tests were ridiculous. The answers were worse. I sent a sample question to three of the smartest people I know, and I mean Engineer-MBA-can't-beat'em-at-trivial-pursuit-and-know-everything-about-history-politics-religion-everything smart... and they scored as poorly as I did. Out of 6 questions on one reading comprehension sample, no one got more than 3 of them correct.
Then, when I turned to the answer key, the answer made no sense at all. I found myself turning pages and saying out loud: Is this the same question?? Am I on the wrong page? IT DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THIS IN THIS READING!!! etc.
Whoever was responsible for editing this book must have been on vacation that day.
This book almost caused me to toss the idea of going back to school altogether. I graduated college 4 years ago, and after a few hours with this book was sure that I lost all brain cells in those 4 years.
This is the hands-down worst book you'll ever buy -- save yourself the time and money. Check out ALL reviews that Amazon offers -- so far, it looks like the Official Guide for the GMAT review looks best. Excellent reviews and lots of 'em.
Don't buy Barrons ANYTHING. Don't be fooled like me into believing they're a reputable name, so surely their book will be helpful. This book made me want to chuck myself over a bridge.
Reading reviews and purchasing based on that may be the SMARTEST THING YOU CAN DO.
oh and PS - DON'T BUY THIS BOOK!! (did I mention that??)
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Average Book, June 6, 2005
Barrons has any sections with incorrect printing and missing words. Questions are of not good standard and pattern as asked in the exam. The CD-ROM has full length test but does not provide good explanation for the answers. I scorred 730/800 and I attribute it to Kaplan, Princeton and Official Guide to GMAT.
Barrons is good for GRE but not for GMAT
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by Mark A. Stewart
