Princeton Review 1,012 GMAT Practice Questions (Look up details on Amazon)

The book indeed contains 1,012 questions – counted myself . It starts with a diagnostic test (37q and 41v questions). There are a total of 55 different “drills” targeting various interesting and often neglected areas. The format for Math is not just standard multiple choice, but actually 50% of the quant questions are Data Sufficiency, so one can practice both questions types – PS and DS.

Book Contents and Question Split:

• Quant:
  • Arithmetic (terminology, percents, multiples, fractions, ratios, factors, decimals) – 70 questions
  • Algebra (equations and inequalities, plugging in, pita, quadratics, must be true, Yes/No DS, roots, interest, functions, powers) – 163 questions
  • Statistics, Probability, and Combinations (averages, median, mode, range, stdev, rate, factorials, probability, permutations and combinations, groups) – 117 questions
  • Geometry (lines and angles, triangles, quadraliterlas, circles, 3D figures, coordinate geometry, inscribed figures and shaded regions) – 100 questions
• Quant Subtotal: 450
• Verbal:
  • RC – 30 passages and 150 questions (5 questions per passage)
  • SC (subject/verb agreement, tenses, pronouns, parallel, modifiers, idioms, mixed) – 175 questions
  • CR (weaken, strengthen, assumption, inference, evaluate, ID reasoning, resolve/explain, mixed) – 159 questionss
• Verbal Subtotal: 484
• Total: 934 + diagnostic test (78) = 1,012

I am giving Kudos for these sections: factorials, probability, combinations, groups, Yes/No DS, assumption, and parallel structure questions. These areas are often neglected by test prep companies and I am thrilled to see a guide that actually addresses these.

Issues I have with this book:
- Random House used cheap paper – as always
- RC section is structured by topic (humanities, science, etc rather than by type of questions)
- Verbal questions are a bit off (esp. CR) but that’s to be expected
- Could use more 700-level questions but there are a few in each section

See my other reviews for overview of the latest GMAT Books:

• Amazon Reviews
• Best GMAT Books

Biggest Winners: Manhattan CR Book – up 5 positions as well as PowerScore CR Bible

Biggest Losers: Official Guide for Quantitative GMAT Review,  down 13 positions and Official Guide for Verbal GMAT Review – down 6 positions

Most Popular GMAT Books from March 2009

1 (1) The Official Guide for GMAT Review

2 (2) Manhattan GMAT Sentence Correction

3 (3) GMAT 800

4 (6) Kaplan Verbal Workbook

5 (10) Manhattan GMAT CR Book

6 (11) Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible

7 (9) Kaplan Premier Program

8 (7) Kaplan Math Workbook

9 (16) GMAT for Dummies

10 (4) Official Guide for Verbal Review

11 (8) Cracking the GMAT by Princeton Review

12 (12) Manhattan GMAT Number Properties Guide

13 (13) Project GMAT Advanced Math

14 (14) Manhattan GMAT Word Translations Guide

15 (15) Powerscore Sentence Correction

16 (17) Manhattan GMAT Geometry Guide

17 (20) The Ultimate Math Refresher for the GRE, GMAT, and SAT

18 (5) Official Guide for Quantitative Review

19 (18) Manhattan GMAT Fractions, Decimals, and Percents Guide

20 (19) Manhattan GMAT Equations Inequalities and Vics Guide

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.

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.