Reddit mentions: The best gmat tests guides

Congrats on starting the process of preparing for the GMAT - - success on this test is one of the most important aspects of your candidacy AND one thing you can really manage as you head up to applying (the other is your application and essay).

While setting up a schedule first seems to be the most logical thing to do, before you create one, take a diagnostic and see where you already stand! You can save a lot of time and frustration by seeing which areas you should be dedicating the most time to. We recommend you take an official GMAC CAT test, which you can find free on the GMAC website. Knowing how you perform with questions written by the same people who create the real test as well as create the CAT's (computer-adaptive) algorithm, will give you the most reliable score.. 

After your diagnostic, identify what types of questions you’re answering wrong, which ones you guessed on, and which ones you had NO idea how to even approach. While the content you’re tested on is finite, it's best to use your time to grok what you need to work on rather than doing everything -- you don’t need to fix what is not broken. Stay focused on what you need to improve.

Once you know the time blocks in which you’ll devote time to study each day/week up until the test, you’ll want to further break down this time into what you're doing.  Consider the number of hours you can devote daily without feeling overwhelmed (we always recommend a day off from studying each week). Working in 45 minutes-1 hour segments, followed by a 5-10-minute break will help your cognitive engagement. The brain needs time 'not' studying to integrate information. Plan on going through a process where you learn the material, practice your skills, then quiz yourself on it.  Students who work carve out time prior to work hours, during their lunch, and after dinner. Weekends are always ideal for marathon sessions. For quant, we recommend our students use Bell Curves' student center.

For the verbal portion, you’ll also want to identify what you need to learn, and even how well you know American formal written English! Just because you’re a native speaker, it doesn’t mean that the sentence correction will come easily. In addition to the Manhattan Prep material, I recommend you check out our Full Potential Sentence Correction Intensive book, which can be found on Amazon. For some students, they can just ‘feel’ whether a sentence is correct/incorrect, for others, it’s a process going through the ‘rules.’ Figuring out how you'll reliably answer correctly will help ensure there are fewer surprises on test day.

You’ll also want, for verbal, to identify your reading speed. Since this is a timed test, you’re penalized if you cannot answer questions in a timely manner. The quickest way to increase your reading speed...is to learn speed reading. We teach a GMAT speed reading clinic (1-day/5 hours), but there are likely other online or local solutions, though no other GMAT specific speed reading training that I know of. So put that training on your schedule as well.

Throughout your schedule, plan on taking timed diagnostic tests so you can continue to track your progress AND identify when you don’t fully understand a particular question type. The more questions you see, the more you get a feel for the kind of questions you’ll have to work on to succeed on the test. Aim to take as many practice tests as possible, before your test date.

Forums like Beat the GMAT and GMAT Club are great places to ask peers and featured experts (like ourselves) questions as well as get support, commiserate, and celebrate. There are listed, there, in fact, specific schedules to follow.

Another thing we recommend is to do audit your mental outlook and integrate ways to feel your best. Some ways to up-level -- like meditation and exercise, are a cumulative activity. You want to be sure that you enter the test focused, calm and without any stress or anxiety. If you have issues here, we recommend you identify the ‘symptoms’ hindering you, then seek out solutions. We use hypnosis, visualization, mindfulness, sound therapy, and more. We are to test-takers what trainers and sports psychologists are to high-performing athletes.

Finally, if you go on our Instagram, we have a #45DayGMATChallege series of posts that provides helpful tips on setting up a schedule, working on time management, handling stress, prepping for and succeeding on your GMAT.he test go beyond basic grammar and into the ‘meaning’ and implications of what is read. You’ll need to utilize and flex your critical thinking skills and analyze data. 

Stay alert, aware, honest, focused and track your progress. A schedule is a great document to use as a guide, and adaptable as needed. It's great you're starting early enough to make huge strides. But take note: for our students, it typically takes 6 - 8 weeks to reach his/her goal...so yours, working alone, shouldn't be too much more beyond that.

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Best of luck!

I don't see any concrete advice, so I'll advise of what I did to prepare. I started 4 months away from my test date because I was still a full time student the whole time preparing. Got a 159/167/5.0 and was pretty stoked with my verbal score. I started out in the low 140s/high 130s (words r hard) and had to work a lot to bring that up. For math, I just ran through two practice tests in the beginning and that was enough to brush up on the math stuff (the only things I forgot were statistics related).

Materials

• Kaplan's GRE Prep Book (with online tests) http://www.amazon.com/GRE-Premier-2016-Practice-Tests/dp/1625231326/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463072761&sr=8-1&keywords=kaplans+gre
  
  
• Roughly 1,000 flash cards and a large notebook for writing down words you don't know/essays/miscellaneous (I got one with dividers to split up 1. words I don't know 2. essay prep 3. essay writing 4. math equations I don't know)
  
  
• 5 bags of coffee and a shitty test score for motivation
  
  Process
  
  Writing: For this, I don't have much of a way of recommending how you prep. I have never been too great at writing itself, but you can learn a great deal from going through the book and googling extra essay prompts to organize your ideas. Organizing your ideas in an outline is imperative. Beyond that, the writing center at Tech might be worthwhile if you score below a 4.0 on your first test (it also depends what you're going to grad school for: I went into the medical field so writing is somewhat important, if you're going into engineering, you could pretty much get by with a 3.5 so long as the other scores are decent). Just work on organizing a good argument with brief but concrete examples. Read tons of example essays to figure out how to formulate your ideas.
  
  Verbal: This is what I sucked at. My vocabulary has always been horrifically bad, and I got by forever with saying "I'm an engineer, I don't need this shit!" The Kaplan book has good lists in the back. I made flash cards for the most used words as well as word roots to figure out words on the fly. Go through the appendix and write down all you don't know, start with that.
  
  Next, everytime you take a practice test, write down all of the words you didn't know on paper while you're taking the test, and make flash cards of those. I had a good 5-600 of word roots and words by the time I got done with a dozen practice tests and with how stupid the Kaplan book made me feel. Vocabulary is what got me the most, and is important for both the multiple choice as well as the reading comp. If you suck at reading comp. even after learning vocab, ask someone at the Writing Center for help. Reading/writing were never enough of a problem for me to seek out extra help, but I still wasn't great at them.
  
  Math: Just run through practice tests. Write down any formulas you forget from math. If you're struggling with this, idk how to help because I can't explain math. You should be fine coming from Tech. I made like 50 flash cards of formulas to run through the week before the test (things like permutations vs combinations always tripped me up in the way they were worded).
  
  TL;DR
  
  Practice. A lot. If your grad school of choice is competitive or your GPA isn't the greatest, you should treat this like a class in itself over the next few months. It helps if you can budget the extra $200 to just take it now to get a feel for it and get a score to see where you need to improve. You must wear headphones and they give you a full pat down each time you go in and out of the computer room. The guy running my session was upwards of late 70s, and he stood behind me during half of the test.

To get an idea of the resources you'll need, I suggest that you take an official practice test. It may be the case that you're already scoring above your target score, in which case you may not need to prepare at all :-).

Resources-wise, be sure to get GMAC's Official Guide for the GMAT. For extra practice questions, the test maker has a quant-only book and a verbal-only book, each with 300 questions.

Regarding strategy, to achieve a solid GMAT score, you must:

1. Learn the concepts and techniques tested on the GMAT (e.g., circle properties, divisibility rules, past perfect tense, equation-solving, etc.)
   
   
2. Master GMAT-specific strategies (e.g., testing the answer choices, rephrasing the target question, identifying subjects and verbs in sentences, etc.)
   
   
3. Understand the many different ways the test-makers can test your knowledge of each concept
   
   
4. Hone your test-taking skills (e.g., endurance, time management, guessing strategies, etc.)
   
   Many students make the mistake of limiting their preparation to item #1 and perhaps item #2. So, once they fully grasp a concept and successfully answer 1 or 2 related questions, they move on to the next topic.
   
   The problem with this strategy is that the test-makers can take ANY concept, no matter how simple, and create dozens of wildly different questions, each requiring a different approach. Take, for example, the relatively simple concept of averages (arithmetic mean). The test-makers can take this concept and create super simple questions like this and they can create super hard questions like this, both of which test the same concept. So, to achieve a great score, you must answer A LOT of practice questions specifically-related to each concept tested on the GMAT.
   
   To find tons practice questions related to a certain concept, you can use the question-tagging tools at GMAT Club or Beat The GMAT. Alternatively, our GMAT course is arranged so that students can fully explore a certain concept. For example, at the bottom of the video lesson page for inequalities, you’ll find links to dozens of practice questions that test the specific concepts covered in that video. This format lets you fully explore the ins and outs of each concept.
   
   Finally, your study plan should include several full-length practice tests. Keep in mind that the GMAT is a test of your math and verbal skills AND it's a test of your test-taking skills. So, 700-level math/verbal skills, combined with 600-level test-taking skills, will likely result in a score that's closer to 600 than to 700.
   

Thank you! I'm ordering some books to drill out practice problems. I don't struggle much with the theory, more the way to go about problems quickly and efficiently. I noticed, having my math background, I was trying to rigorously prove/find an exact solution for almost all quant problems. I didn't exactly run out of time, but I felt like I ended up guessing quite a bit because I would try to keep myself to about 2min per problem. The verbal section I did a bit better than average which was a nice surprised, and the IR was the same case. I have to make some calls/emails to the programs I'm applying to for deadlines to determine when i will need to retake the test. Other than practice problems, would you recommend any strategy books? The two packages I was looking at are provided via Amazon links. The 2018 on looks good, but has 700 or so less reviews than the 2017 one. Let me know what you think which one would be more beneficial and why. Thanks again!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1119396174/ref=zg_bs_11686_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8TJGNN2M6BAHGKH4TZEF

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1119347637/ref=zg_bs_11686_19?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8TJGNN2M6BAHGKH4TZEF

Kaplan Premier for the basics and practice CATs (I used MGMAT and Kaplan). Actually relied more on MGMAT only because it was the first one I opened.

OG (Official Guide) for practice - they're actual, past GMAT questions.

GMAT Club for additional resources. The regular posters are very helpful and there are a ton of extra questions to practice with available there. Just be careful, as some are of pretty poor quality.

And don't forget, when you register for the GMAT, you'll gain access to two CATs via the GMAT Prep software. Those are the best indicators of your ability as they're written by the creators of the test.

Good luck!

If you want to do a bit of work in preparation for a GMAT class, be sure to get GMAC's Official Guide for the GMAT. For extra practice questions, the test maker has a quant-only book and a verbal-only book, each with 300 questions.

As far as instructional resources go, the one that's best for you will be the one that best suits your learning style. We have a free GMAT video course you might want to try.

Finally, it's a good idea to have some kind of Study Plan. We have a one here if you're interested.

Cheers,
Brent

re: courses, I don't think any school course would be especially useful here. The retail prep courses are mostly fine--Manhattan GMAT's is highly regarded. In my opinion, the big-name ones can be a little too gimmicky, relying on situational tricks instead of just explaining the concepts.

If you're already comfortable with math, I recommend Sackman's 'Total GMAT Math'. I did pretty well on the GMAT, and I found his explanations to be the most straightforward & gimmick free (at least, as of 5 years ago, when I was studying).

I would definitely recommend to start with this collection: GMAT Official Guide (OG) 2020

- Take the evaluation test in the beginning and review some of the basic materials/subjects. This should refresh the base knowledge you need to know as well as give you a feel for how the test is structured. Then, take a free practice test online (official gmat one). See how you do and proceed from there.

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From the above, you should be able to get an idea of how well you can perform now and what gaps you may need to fill to get your desired score.

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For more focused review on subjects/improving on weaknesses, I would suggest: https://www.amazon.com/GMAT-Manhattan-Prep-Strategy-Guides/dp/1506219705/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=manhattan+gmat+prep&qid=1574377630&s=books&sr=1-1

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For adv quant, many people on this subreddit have recommended TTP: https://gmat.targettestprep.com/

If you’re super short on cash this is great. Add manhattan on scribd.com for $10/month and OG 2020 for $50 if you can. For $80 you can self prep hard.

I would get GMATclub.com’s tests too just because they have such useful error tracking, although you can get around that if your willing to put the time in on an excel spreadsheet. Gmatclub’s explanations of answers includes everything on that free Chinese site.

Top tip: track and attack your errors. Good luck.

I know you are looking for alternative advice, but I took the test last year for grad school and bought the official GMAT guide book and also the Princeton Review prep book. Both are between $25 and $40, but I found the Princeton Review book was extremely helpful in understanding the test, types of questions, grading, and great strategies on how to get through questions quickly. I ended up going through the entire book twice and then just practice problems as much as possible.

As a side note, grades are based on how you did relative to everyone else who took it, which means your overall score will tend to be closer to your english section score, because it is much more common for people to do well on the math section and not so well on the english section (likely due to the large amount of international students who take the test).

Edit: I believe this is the newest version of the Princeton Review book I referred to. http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Computer-Adaptive-Practice-Graduate-Preparation/dp/0804124949/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415661935&sr=8-1&keywords=princeton+review+gmat

No great option for Verbal. The best options are to go through either the MPrep Verbal books (now conveniently all in one book: https://www.amazon.com/GMAT-All-Verbal-definitive-Manhattan-ebook/dp/B07P5GPKD7/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=manhattan+all+verbal&qid=1569590560&s=gateway&sr=8-3) or any combination of the PowerScore books or Aristotle Prep books.

PowerScore CR: https://www.amazon.com/PowerScore-GMAT-Critical-Reasoning-Bible/dp/0972129634/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=gmat+powerscore&qid=1569590592&s=gateway&sr=8-3

Aristotle SC: https://www.amazon.com/GMAT-Sentence-Correction-Grail-3rd/dp/9350872846/ref=sr_1_6?crid=B6HNA0GUGFXA&keywords=sentence+correction+gmat&qid=1569590620&s=gateway&sprefix=sentence+correction%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-6

http://www.khanacademy.org/ has been really helpful when it comes to reviewing my math skills (I was never bad at math but it's been 10+ years since I was in a basic algebra class)

And Cracking the GMAT breaks down GMAT questions and shows you how to solve them.

I recommend some time with both of those!

Your prose is excellent, but your arguments are weak. You offer many possible reasons that you hope to explain the decrease of business and the increase in litter and vandalism. But your reasons are not persuasive mainly because you are not developing any one of them in detail. When writing an analytical essay, you need to focus on a few points and develop them in full. You should not just throw in ideas without developing them, which will make your essay vague.

Another reason your essay is weak is that you do not provide plausible reasons for the decrease of business and the increase in litter and vandalism. You say that bad location and the lack of trash bins as possible reasons, but these reasons do not sound plausible given that the plaza has been there for some time and business was good in the past. Your fourth paragraph just repeats ideas in the second paragraph.

HOW TO IMPROVE

When responding to this type of causal arguments, you have to ask yourself whether the suggested event (the increase in skateboarders) is the genuine cause of the other event (the decrease in business). If the suggested event is a spurious cause, the conclusion (to increase business, we should prohibit skateboarding activity) is not warranted. That is, even if we eliminate skateboarding activity, business will not increase. To me, the most likely reason why this will happen is the popularity of internet shopping (real cause). People simply do not shop at brick and mortar places. Viewed in this way, the increase in skateboarders in the Plaza is not the cause, but actually the effect of the decreased business activity (causal reversal). If you want to know how to analyze GRE-type faulty arguments, this book should be useful: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MF455XK.

The OG prep books from GMAC themselves is going to be your best bang per buck.

These are the GRE books I'm using:

[Prep book from ETS, the test writers] (http://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide-Revised-General-Test/dp/007179123X?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00)

[Kaplan Prep book] (http://www.amazon.com/GRE-Premier-2016-Practice-Tests/dp/1625231326/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464258601&sr=1-1&keywords=kaplan+gre)

[Big book of practice problems] (http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Problems-Manhattan-Strategy-Guides/dp/1941234518?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER)

ETS PowerPrep II, which is software that includes 2 practice tests with standard testing conditions.

If anyone has other suggestions, please share.

I haven't gotten into the 2017 set yet, but it doesn't really matter between 2016 and 2017 IMO. Each successive version of the official guide only provides 15-25% new questions (15% new in 2017), so they are not radically different year-to-year. Therefore, I would just go with whichever is cheapest.

I would probably go with the main OG2017 because it is on sale ($20 on Amazon). If I needed more math questions (likely), I would just use the ones on www.gmatclub.com (thousands free, though ugly format - use forum advanced search or check out PS Directory and DS Directory). If I needed more verbal questions, I would go with OG2017 verbal. If I needed more verbal questions than that, then I am studying incorrectly and really need to reevaluate my preparation strategy.

If I were you I would buy this book as soon as it goes public (sept 24th): GMAT Official Advanced Questions https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119620953/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_6daIDb53B8DZP
It is a new book by the GMAC focused on 700+ questions. Also I would check all the 700+ questions on gmatclub.

I'm about to order these 8 guides- http://www.amazon.com/Manhattan-Strategy-Guides-Fourth-Edition/dp/098417804X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331607685&sr=8-1

I have taken a princeton review course, tested, was not happy with my score, and now i'm studying for a second time- but switching to manhattan prep material. hope this is helpful.

I got the 2017 bundle on Amazon for like $35

https://www.amazon.com/dp/111925468X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687622&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1119101816&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=TV6NERQWXTS1BT1PYEGG


EDIT: also, $40 off Magoosh ($159 total) using this link: https://gmat.magoosh.com/invite/VNND8V

I recommend this book as a guide http://www.amazon.com/30-Day-GMAT-Success-Days/dp/0615326277 you can probably get the ebook somewhere I believe they sell it on their own site or something.

You'll also need the official study books as well probably. And as others have said try to get as fast as possible because even if you're doing well you will run out of time as the computer gives you harder and harder problems in the math section.

I used that and studied about 5-6 weeks and got a 740 on my first try.

750 or above is 99% percentile - it will require months of studying almost daily. If you have the will and dedication for it, it is possible. It's not going to be easy, but if you check success stories on GMATclub or other forums, you will find people who have done it.

1. What is your breakdown for Quant and Verbal?
   
2. Do you know what type of questions you got it wrong on both sections?
   
   For verbal, I suggest:
   

1. Powerscore Critical Reasoning
   https://www.amazon.com/PowerScore-GMAT-Critical-Reasoning-Bible-ebook/dp/B00A413J4O
   
2. Manhattan Prep Sentence Correction
   https://www.amazon.com/Sentence-Correction-Manhattan-Strategy-Guides/dp/1941234070/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
   
   For Quant:
   
3. Manhattan Number Properties, Word Problems, and Geometry are very useful
   
4. Kaplan Prep Plus helped me a lot with probability and combinatorics.
   
   
   

is this the offcial guide to GMAT? http://www.valorebooks.com/textbooks/official-guide-for-gmat-review-13th-edition/9781118109793#default=buyhttp://www.valorebooks.com/affiliate/url/siteID=x0f6M7?url=http://www.valorebooks.com/textbooks/official-guide-for-gmat-review-13th-edition/9781118109793%23default=buy&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Froogle&utm_source=Froogle&date=05/21/13

also, you think i'll be fine by getting this and the above link?: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/098417804X?ie=UTF8&tag=gmatclub-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=098417804X

Thank me later. ; ) https://www.amazon.com/Complete-GMAT-Sentence-Correction-Guide/dp/0997517808

I bought the Wiley GMAT prep book and got the score I needed for my program. I would have done better had I actually completed most of the book. Pay attention to the math section as they focus on stuff you probably haven't done since your algebra/trig days.

It's alright, but shouldn't be the strength you're looking for. The most important thing that the GRE is looking for is your reading comprehension (RC).

One resource I cans suggest is the GMAT Review 12th Edition. You're not using it for the GMAT portion, but for the RC portion which is Ch 7.4 and Ch 8.4.

I used

http://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide-GMAT-Review-12th/dp/0470449748 (actually older edition, but no need to date myself)

and a priceton review cd someone had.

Basically its all about learning your math again, and how to break down problems without a calculator. Some people benefit a lot from studying, others, might as well just take the test.

Post test, I burned the book, it was very cathartic.

Here you go.

Or just know stuff. https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01NBS5XOG

GMAT Official Guide 2020 Bundle: 3 Books + Online Question Bank https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119576156/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_h9MmDbQKGPAG1

GMAT Official Guide 2020 Bundle: 3 Books + Online Question Bank https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119576156/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_J2DuDbGZY7VK8