Events & Promotions
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Apr 2610:00 AM EDT
-11:00 AM EDT
The Target Test Prep course represents a quantum leap forward in GMAT preparation, a radical reinterpretation of the way that students should study. Try before you buy with a 5-day, full-access trial of the course for FREE!
Apr 2711:00 AM EDT
-12:00 PM EDT
Prefer video-based learning? The Target Test Prep OnDemand course is a one-of-a-kind video masterclass featuring 400 hours of lecture-style teaching by Scott Woodbury-Stewart, founder of Target Test Prep and one of the most accomplished GMAT instructors
Apr 2808:00 AM PDT
-11:00 AM PDT
Whether you are just beginning your MBA journey or fine-tuning your path to a 700+ score, GMAT Day is designed to give you a competitive edge.
21 Nov 2024, 17:29
Kudos
Bookmarks
Dear students,
This is a not-so-long overdue but still, it is, considering that the book was released in early September, we took a while to review it just for a straightforward and basic reason: we want to know if this book still has the high standard of practice questions for the GRE it had in the previous versions of the book. Going through 1400 questions and analyzing each one is not a joke or fun. However, it is our mission to provide the students for the GRE with the best support we possibly can. To give an unbiased, honest, not skim-through-it review. Therefore, here we go
As in the previous edition, we have practice questions for all three sections of the GRE: the quantitative, verbal, and AWA sections. We will review all of three with pro and cons.
The Quant Section
Guys, if you are on the fence about having the best book to practice for the GRE, well, here you have the best quantitative questions for the GRE money can buy
- Only for the math section we have 24 chapters to practice, ranging from the math strategies to the advanced quant chapter. Every topic for the quant portion of the GRE is covered with questions, the entire spectrum. No expenses have been spared. The math strategies is on point but do not expect the moon and the stars. We have much better resources to learn the concept tested during the exam, covered extensively. After all this is a book conceived, created, and released for practicing to nausea.
- The chapter's organization from the beginning is better organized than in the previous version, even though it is similar. For example, instead of having a chapter called number properties and putting all the questions related to NP, here we have a more granular approach, naming a chapter number properties and one Two-Variable Word Problems.
- At the book's end, we have the quantitative Quant Practice Adaptive Sections and the Quant Practice Initial Sections. Why this? At Manhattan this time, they followed an approach I really do like :
- Pure practice questions that cover all the topics tested on the GRE going not for the four major areas of the GRE as most of the books do but following the granular approach I mentioned earlier
- A section which is the Quant Practice Initial Sections Use these mixed sets to practice your timing and decision-making.
- The quant adaptive practice section: easy-medium-hard questions
- The questions essentially are the same of the previous version. I did not see new questions, apparently. They moved questions from inside the sections to the end in the initial section and then the quant adaptive section for a better organization and unfolding of the book. After all, this book has always been considered the best, gold standard, the lighthouse for the GRE; call it as you wanna, I believe you got it. Therefore, there is no necessity to overhaul something that is already good. It would be best if you improved for the better, not to innovate it.
- Great explanations. Many books (believe me or not, but fundamentally, I own all the books we have for the GRE on the market) just give you a short and concise explanation. Manhattan excels in this. You learn way more from a great explanation than for " a simple" explanation.
The Verbal Section.
- The book does not provide the bare minimum of strategy for the TC/SE/RC/CR questions. I know that this is a practice book and not a theory one, but at least they could scratch the surface. We do have guidelines about the timing a student should have when he/she solves a question.
- The most worrying aspect, though, is the questions themselves. They are quite good, I would say up to the midrange of the GRE; they are above the average compared to those in other books, but still, they suffer from vocabulary syndrome.
Yes, they still are questions based on the vocabulary; frankly, I do not know why. Questions based on words such as inchoate or opprobrium, I have difficulty believing the students will ever see on the GRE. This is confirmed by the fact that I have all the possible official questions for the GRE: I own from the big book to the mentor course, I purchased everything possible. I never saw those words tested.
Not only that: even if we compare, for example, sentence with a similar structure in which we have a similar concept tested , the question falls short. It clearly does not have the nuances and the dynamic of an official question.
My personal and humble suggestion is to study and practice these questions, of course. However, in the final stage of your preparation, I would say the last 1/4 portion, you should practice ONLY official material. As for the vocabulary, in my personal experience, this is valid for every prep company. Even those who assert that have good material and dispatch the fact that they have the best vocabulary section for the GRE. False. Even those sections have at most 30% of the word tested for real. The only vocabulary list that is REALLY close to the real words tested during the exam is the Barron PDF 3500 words list. You can find it via google at this link - The RC and CR sections are a whole different story. Manhattan was always a champ in this territory. Great passages and great explanations. They used the passages in the previous edition but that bespoke to adhere to the new GRE: shorter. They did not just cut the passages themselves but logically crafted them. Not just trim to look like a shorter version. The only downside is that they have a good chunk of ABC questions I, II, or II correct. However, the new GRE shifted slightly to have more inference questions. This should probably be taken into consideration for the next version.
The AWA Section
- Simply put, this section is brilliant. It contains 10 topic Issue essays + strategies for each single topic + 10 examples written by ten Manhattan Instructors. The essays are stellar. I even put some of them into an essay checker; the result was marvelous. Students should mimic and follow the strategy suggested for a top-issue essay score.
- The only thing I found a bit off was at page 835 of my kindle edition, quoteAttachment:
GRE 5lb book 2024.jpg [ 79.78 KiB | Viewed 13326 times ]
I do not know. Maybe StaceyKoprince could elucidate us on this, in a way better.
Conclusion Remarks
Overall, the book is great. They improved it by better organizing the contents. You have literally tons of questions. It's a bang for the buck. The best quant questions for practice for the GRE. The AWA section is towering in its efficacy. The verbal section is the Achilles' heel, but this is common ground to all the prep companies/books/resources out there. No one is excluded.
Best.
Carcass
21 Nov 2024, 18:01
Kudos
Bookmarks
Thank you for the review and details!
