GMAT Books

If you noticed, my reading output greatly diminished in the month of May and June. This is because I spent those months studying hard for the GMAT, the standardized test required for business school. During that time, I went through 3 major GMAT books. I wasn't going to write about them, but because they are very large books that I spent significant time on, I thought I better give my feedback:

Kaplan GMAT Premium Edition 2007: Worst book ever. I would never recommend this book. I paid $40+ this book, expecting it to teach me the ins and outs of the GMAT. Unfortunately, the book was filled with typos and foolish editing mistakes. It is hard to trust a book for teaching you grammar when it isn't properly edited. Additionally, the book repeated questions. If you pay $40+, you should get recycled questions one chapter from the next. Lastly, the practice tests that came with the book did not produce any scores close to my actual GMAT scores. The other materials I used did mimic my scores. Don't waste your time with this book.

Kaplan 800: Even though the first Kaplan book sucked, I bought a second one which was focused just on the hardest questions. I only bought this because the other companies didn't have equivalent books that just focused on difficult questions. This was a decent book. Obviously, a different bunch of people edited the book.

Princeton Review Cracking the GMAT: I didn't buy this book but borrowed it from a friend. This was the Princeton Review's equivalent of the Kaplan book that sucked. Fortunately, this book was much better. Not only did I trust the material, but the book gave better explanations on the answers. DISCLAIMER: I was previously employed by the Princeton Review.

Completed June 28, 2007