Books for Prep | |
 - Very Thorough, Lots of Practice Problems!This is a fabulous book - very clear, very detailed explanations. I went from a 590 quant GRE score to a 720, and the only math class I had taken in 8 years was a statistics course. This is a great book if you're really rusty on math like I was. However, you should not use this book in isolation. I suggest that you start prepping for you test at least 6 months in advance and spend a lot of time going through this book slowly and working every single problem. Then you should supplement this book with one or more regular GRE review books (Kaplan's is good, so is Princeton Review.) It is true that this math review book doesn't cover every single type of problem covered in the test, so DO go get another one after this one! And finally, the last month before the test, don't study too hard. Keep reviewing, but you should've done most of the hard work by now. Your brain needs time for everything to sink in and be cataloged before you can access it quickly and easily. Rating:  - Arduous, yet effectiveI was about half-way through preparing to take the GRE when I decided that my Kaplan general 2004 book wasn't concise enough on the math section. My quant. scores on the practice tests were coming up at between 390 (nooooo!) and 470. Then, I ordered the math workbook, worked through every single problem in the book, re-worked the ones I missed, and studied the flashcards I made of all of the necessary formulas. I took the GRE this morning, and I received a 750 on the math portion. The book definitely helps to ingrain the concepts necessary into your head. I will warn you not to lose confidence if you have trouble working through a lot of the problems in the book. Many of the problems are really really hard, and they are the ones that will appear for those reaching the mid and upper 700's. So, my main complaint using the book is that I didn't think I could do well on the math portion when I couldn't solve a lot of the really hard questions in the book. If I had known that I had it in me, I wouldn't have had to worry so much about the exam. Use the ETS' powerprep software to compliment this book. Good Luck! Rating:  - doesn't cover quiet a few conceptsI am pretty good at math. I solved each and every question in this book. When I gave the GMAT, I was faced with problems like factorials, permutation/combination, probability, compound interest, median/mode and quiet a few others which this book did not talk about. If you looking for better then average score this book is good, but if you are looking to absolutely crack GMAT math, this book SUCKS. Rating: - Maybe too optimistic, but nothing helps as much as basicsI got 99th percentile on my GMAT 750(49, 42) and i used 3 books: this one, Kaplan's book with CD and Verbal Workbook. I had access to PR book and PP, but I did only tests from those. I found Kaplan's materials of quality and difficulty. Some whine that Kaplan is too hard, but that's good - if you can handle Kaplan, you can handle old good GMAT. My favorite things about this book: - Very short and condensed math reviews - straight to the point - No smart-aleck advice about some stupid tricks - only math review - exactly what I needed - Fabulous problems that illustrate a lot of traps and multiple ways of solving them - Starts with the basics - arithmetic, integers, primes, etc - the stuff that anybody can uses a review of. A lot of applicants underestimate how much they forgot the basics and skim/skip them. I would not do that, and that book does not either. - Finally, the number of questions and quizzes in this book is impressive. I am giving a short summary of some of the sections of the book and number of quizzes and test questions. Quiz questions are math only; Test questions are GMAT-type questions. Arithmetic -Number operations (15 quiz questoins and 15 test questions) -Number properties (15, 19) -Averages (10, 19) -Ratios (10, 24) -Percents (25, 25) -Powers and Roots (12, 17) Algebra -Level One (20, 26) -Level Two (15, 15) Word Problems -Level One (10, 26) -Level Two (37) -Test (40) Geometry -Lines (6, 14) -Triangles (16, 21) -Quadrilaterals (15, 19) -Circles (19, 13) -Multiple Figures (4, 15) -Solids (6, 8) Data Sufficiency -Test 1 (25) -Test 2 (25) CONS: - I went through this book at least 3 times (helping others) and I found that solutions don't include some of the most genius ways to handle the problems. I think the authors of the questions went beyond themselves. - No probability or combinations review, which would be very helpful. Get something. I bombed my probability question on the GMAT. Rating: - incomplete reviewI was incredibly disappointed in this book. It's laid out quite nicely; it has a generous supply of sample problems; it even breaks the problems down into basic, intermediate and advanced. This is all great! Here's the problem: THE REVIEW (GRE) IS INCOMPLETE! There are no stats problems. There are no probability problems. Graphing? You won't even find y=mx+b in this book, let alone the sometimes-needed distance formula. All in all, this book is not even close to "all you need" for a review. Even more aggravating, known Kaplan shortcuts (the combined work formula comes immediately to mind) are not included in the book. This is unacceptable. If you're a maniac who wants to buy four or five books to study for the test, ok, maybe make this one of them. But if you're looking for a complete math review, you'd better look elsewhere. In association with Amazon.com | |