Went from 39 (57%) to 50 (96%) for a 760 GMAT finish

Reviewer: Amazon Reader from Alexandria, VA United States December 08, 2002

My quant score killed me the first time I took the test--57 percentile. I had thought I was prepared with the general Kaplan GMAT book with CD-ROM. Wrong.

For the quant-challenged, there are two general prep strategies. One, you can dish out a couple grand for Kaplan tutoring. Personally, I recommend the following three-book approach, assuming you have time. Get the ARCO GRE-GMAT Math Review. It is basic, but trust me, if you don't know/review the basics cold, you are done. This book would also be a fine starting point for people who would score less than 57%, so don't let that put you off. The section on word problems was particularly helpful. Each topical area (such as factoring) has practice problems, and each section (such as Algebra) has a practice test to reinforce what you are reviewing (or learning).

The second book I recommend is the Kaplan GRE-GMAT Math Workbook. It will take you the next step, assuming that you know the basic math and getting more into how to manipulate certain figures and math concepts to get the answer you need. Test taking strategy is also addressed in this book, which it is not in the ARCO. There are far more practice problems in the Kaplan than in the ARCO, and they are divided into "Basic", "Intermediate" and "Advanced."

I used only these two books, and my quant score went from 57 percentile to 96 percentile. I reviewed for two weeks, one book a week, about 4 hours per day.

I called this a three-book approach; the third book is one that I wish I had bought--GMAC's current edition of previous tests. Practicing in this book would probably have increased my confidence a bit more going into the test--I must admit that I did not fully trust Kaplan's problems to be truly representative of the real GMAT. Judging from my results, this mistrust was unfounded. I did use GMAC's PowerPrep software, which you get when you register for the GMAT. A big drawback with PowerPrep is that it uses the questions from a paper test, and just levers them into the CAT format. The questions don't really get harder if you answer them correctly (as of November 8, 2002). Use them for math practice, but keep in mind that the CAT is designed to challenge you by offering you harder and harder questions as long as you keep getting them right. Don't learn a time managment strategy on the paper tests and expect to use it on the CAT. Don't expect your CAT to be as easy as the paper tests.

I also got Kaplan's GMAT 800 at a local bookstore, and returned it two days later. After the other two books, I could not see that it was helping me much at all. I don't recommend that one. Not for math anyway--I am not addressing verbal anything in this review.

One final note--none of the books address probability, which exists on the GMAT in rudimentary form. I didn't need to know permutations or combinations either time I took the test, but that's not to say that you will not--I just don't know. I did need to know basic probability calculation, and that's not in any of the books above. So, spend an hour at the library and nail that down--it's not difficult


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