You are also welcome to browse our reviews and recommendations of Best GMAT Books (all-in-one), GMAT Quant Books, and GMAT Verbal books

1. Kaplan GMAT 2010 Premier Live Online (Kaplan Gmat Premier Live) – 6/2/2009 (Already available on Amazon)
2. Cracking the GMAT with DVD, 2010 Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation) – 6/9/2009 (preorder on Amazon)
3. 1,012 GMAT Practice Questions (Graduate School Test Preparation) – 6/9/2009 (preorder on Amazon)
4. 365 Daily Lesson Plans for the GMAT – PDF Download – 7/15/2009 (not sure what it is – we’ll see)
5. Kaplan GMAT Direct: Streamlined Review and Strategic Practice from the Leader in GMAT Preparation (Kaplan Direct) – 8/14/2009 (Can’t wait to get a hold of this book)
6. The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review 2nd Edition – 8/17/2009 – Yes!
7. The Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review 2nd Edition – 8/17/2009 – Yes!
8. GMAT For Dummies (German) – 10/7/2009 – Fantastisch!
9. Baron’s GMAT Flash Cards – 1/1/2010 – that’s a way to start a new year
10. GMAT Cram Plan by Cliff’s – 1/11/2010. I love the Cliff’s series and I think this will be a game changing book
11. Kaplan GMAT 800 (2010-2011 edition) – 3/1/2010. This title has been abandoned/changed by Kaplan so I am surprised to see it is planned for March of 2010

Source: Amazon.com

The book is said to have about 30% new questions, including some bold CR’s. Overall the format remained the same and some of the older questions have been replaced with newer ones – no new concepts have been introduced and the new questions are still testing the old principles/concepts. This seems to be in line with expectations, though definitely kudos to the GMAC for including new questions, though more new gmat questions would be nice. I will have to wait until later in the week for my book to arrive.

Here is the feedback on the Official Guide 12th edition from one of the GMAT Club’s members:

It is basically the same as the 11th Edition. About 1/3 of the questions are new, all of which test the same concepts as the ones that have been replaced. If you already have the 11th Edition, there’s no need to buy the 12th. There are several boldfaced CR questions, questions that have already been posted in gmatclub. (source: http://gmatclub.com/forum/the-official-guide-for-gmat-12-merged-76806.html)

As a reminder, the Official Guide 12th edition is coming out on March 23 on Amazon – we have written about this book in more detail in this post: http://gmatclub.com/blog/2009/02/the-official-guide-for-gmat-review-12th-edition-is-out-on-march-30th-2009/

Other books in the works by GMAC:

The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review 2nd Edition – expected in September 2009 with 300 total questions, 75 of which are new.

Many of your are aware that GMAC is releasing the 12th edition of The Official Guide for GMAT Review, we wrote about this a bit earlier, however, another piece of news is that the new Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review (Math Guide), 2nd edition is due out on Sept 8th 2009. Currently, the first edition from 2005 is available and the update is a welcome sign. I can already see page up on Wiley’s press and the book is available for pre-order from Amazon.

What’s new in this edition?

•      75 GMAT questions new to this edition – GOOD

•      300 past questions, answers, and explanations in: Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Problem Solving, and Data Sufficiency – Same as Previous edition

•      Questions organized in order of difficulty to save study time – Same as Previous edition

•      216 Pages vs 212 pages in the first edition of The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review

No cover art is available yet – stay tuned for updates

Other Lists:
January 2010: http://gmatclub.com/blog/2010/02/best-20-gmat-books-gmatclub-ranking-for-january-2010/
August 2009: http://gmatclub.com/blog/2009/08/20-most-popular-gmat-books-from-gmat-club/
March 2009: http://gmatclub.com/blog/2009/04/march-2009-top-20-gmat-books-ranked-by-popularity-on-gmat-club/

GMAT Official Guide 2009

Though there are many other more advanced GMAT Books available on the market by Kaplan, Princeton Review, and others, the Official Guide has a unique value proposition – the questions in this book are Real GMAT Questions from past tests and therefore are the closest to the real questions you will encounter on the test date. Of course not all types are covered, questions are not very recent, and there are no explanations, but who cares as long as you get a glimpse behind the curtain.

The current, 11th edition of the Official Guide for GMAT, came out back in 2005, so a new edition has been long overdue. Important to note, the 2009 Official GMAT Guide has 840 pages compared to 832 in the 2005 Official GMAT Guide. I hope it means more or new questions because what everyone wants to know is – will the GMAT Official Guide for 2009 contain any new questions? It’s been a big let down when the owners of the 10th edition, discovered that the 11th edition, did not really have anything new. Are we up for another disappointment?

Would I buy it if I were taking GMAT in April? Probably not as I already would have had the 11th edition. I would probably go to a bookstore and compare it, but I strongly doubt it has new questions – I’d love to be proved wrong though.

Would I wait till April to take my GMAT? Definitely not. Most of the schools have final round of admissions closing in February and March, so this book is intended for test takers for the next application year. Of course certain schools keep their deadlines rolling or open longer, but I doubt the new edition is worth changing your plans.

However, if I were buying an Official Guide for GMAT review AFTER March 30th, I would definitely go with this version and here is why:

The publisher promises a new section that covers scoring insights (REALLY?) that refute GMAT Myths and GMAT Test taking techniques. I doubt this will be anything groundbreaking as GMAT Scoring Algorithm is one of the closest guarded secrets but I will buy the guide just to see this section.

By the way, love the cover – it is bold red with orange letters, compared to the orange cover with white letters on the 11th edition cover, and weaker green cover white letters on the 10th edition cover. GMAC is definitely taking bolder steps and that’s a welcome sign – I just hope they will put some of those new tricky questions they have been throwing at us lately instead of recycling old questions, but that’s what happens when you have a monopoly – what can you do?

On the positive side, the MSRP remained the same – $36.95.