Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) : Quantitative Questions

mankhu8

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

Updated on: 05 May 2009, 14:53

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I have one more book which has not been listed here in this section. It is McGraw Hill Book, I really found the book useful

Strengths:
1. Lot of word problems which are usually difficult to solve
2. Focuses on Maths basics with clear strategies foir each type of problems
3. Works well with the OG side with more detail on each topic

Weaknesses:
1. Does not cover complex topics like Permutation, Prob. etc

Originally posted by mankhu8 on 05 May 2009, 14:28.
Last edited by bb on 05 May 2009, 14:53, edited 2 times in total.

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PC2009

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

28 May 2009, 04:58

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Hi Guys,

I am very new to GMAT Club just have been following it for the last couple of weeks. I have started my GMAT preparation around 1.5 weeks back (wasn't much in touch with these types of quant or verbal qs in the last 4-5 years)....to comment on the Mcgraw book, that was the 1st one I got from a friend and started with it......with absolutely no pratice, I found the questions pretty easy, I could finish all the quant (taking less than 2 mins per qs on an average) and verbal qs (taking a few secs more than 2 mins/qs on average) with fairly good accuracy......thus I feel
1> the qs standards are not up to the mark at all
2> the reviews are not very detailed in some specific topics like permu-combi, probability etc.
Then I got the OG12 this week and found the 1st 5 diagnostic tests (in the begining of the book) much different from what I saw in McGraw. I am planning to get Kaplan and some of Manhattan next week, I am happy that I did not spend much time on the McGraw one and then find out it's flaws nearer to the test date.

Cheers,
PC

gmatoverduegirl

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

19 Jun 2009, 18:41

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Has anyone tried the EZ Solutions - Test Prep Series books? I was on Amazon and they came out as suggested books but I dont know...

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

19 Jun 2009, 19:46

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gmatoverduegirl wrote:

Has anyone tried the EZ Solutions - Test Prep Series books? I was on Amazon and they came out as suggested books but I dont know...

Hi. and welcome to GMAT Club forum. It's always great to see new people.
Answering your question on E-Z Solutions. You can look though this thread gmat-books-ez-solutions-thoughts-76791.html
But I'll sum it up for you. Apparently this company has its employees writing fake reviews on amazon and other web-sites. There was an attempt to do so on gmatclub site also. Since we find such a way of doing business not only inappropriate but also highly unethical, we removed our review on E-Z books from Best GMAT Math Prep Books thread.

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

22 Jul 2009, 23:18

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I bought Manhattan GMAT Inequality and Geometry, I will highly recommend in case you want to work on the fundamentals of these 2 topics.

dumbasbricks

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

26 Jul 2009, 13:32

I am truly torn. After working through the math section of PR's Cracking the GMAT it is apparent that I need additional study. I'm deciding between some of the specific Manhattan books, the Kaplan math workbook, and now the new entrant, the Kaplan math foundations book.

I should note that I am less concerned with additional sample problems accompanied by many of the books, but most concerned with what gives the most thorough, succinct, correct instruction on math concepts. I'll be purchasing the official guide to make sure I have a gauntlet of questions to test out my knowledge on, once I've studied up.

Are the mistakes in the Kaplan Foundations book only present in the review questions, or are their some errors in the fundamentals they teach?

Are Manhattan's books worth the added expense? i.e. If I purchase 3 math review books from Manhattan I am looking at roughly $50+ vs $15 for either the Kaplan Math Foundations or Kaplan Math workbook? Is this a 'get-what-you-pay-for" situation?

I ask because I cannot find any of the Manhattan books at any local retailers, so I can't actually take a look at these books before purchasing.

L

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

26 Jul 2009, 17:57

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dumbasbricks wrote:

I am truly torn. After working through the math section of PR's Cracking the GMAT it is apparent that I need additional study. I'm deciding between some of the specific Manhattan books, the Kaplan math workbook, and now the new entrant, the Kaplan math foundations book.

I should note that I am less concerned with additional sample problems accompanied by many of the books, but most concerned with what gives the most thorough, succinct, correct instruction on math concepts. I'll be purchasing the official guide to make sure I have a gauntlet of questions to test out my knowledge on, once I've studied up.

Are the mistakes in the Kaplan Foundations book only present in the review questions, or are their some errors in the fundamentals they teach?

Are Manhattan's books worth the added expense? i.e. If I purchase 3 math review books from Manhattan I am looking at roughly $50+ vs $15 for either the Kaplan Math Foundations or Kaplan Math workbook? Is this a 'get-what-you-pay-for" situation?

I ask because I cannot find any of the Manhattan books at any local retailers, so I can't actually take a look at these books before purchasing.

Very valid question and I have been trying to figure out how to make the process of picking books easier.

I would say that the mistakes in the Kaplan Math Foundations are not very concerning - a few errors in the explanations are easy to spot. They are not in concepts or rules or theorems, so you are not learning baloney, just a few errors in the explanations/answer choices, which are minor. So, it is irrelevant for the majority of test takers except the pickiest, but I am sure the book will be condemned on Amazon as the result.

Here is my shot at it. I would say the best combination for what you are looking for is probably Kaplan Math Workbook with MGMAT Number Properties book.

Kaplan Math Foundations is much more thorough but basic and starts with how to multiply/divide numbers. It is not enough by itself - you would need another math book with harder Math Questions to practice.

MGMAT Guides are better than Kaplan Math Workbook in terms of explanations and learning presentation - they are the ultimate collection and having used them, you can be confident you covered all areas, though most people find that though they learnt the concepts, the books did not contain anything they did see in other books (except Number Properties book). In my opinion, it is probably not worth the extra $$$ for all of the guides.

To summarize:
If you are completely bad and rusty with math - get Kaplan Math Foundations
If you are looking for a good time/money ROI, then Kaplan Math Workbook and MGMAT Number Properties
If you are looking for the ultimate high score/thorough coverage, then the MGMAT Guides.

-

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

14 Aug 2009, 20:34

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I kept reading here about the Manhattan GMAT here and decided that I needed a strategy book (at least one) for my studies. I don't see Kaplan helping too much now (at least the results aren't as tangible as I've hoped) and the official guide can get you only so far. I figured since I read good things here and maybe something that's not "mass produced" like the Kaplan and Barron's (I bought the latter too, barely read it and didn't like it), might help. Then again, I'm very skeptical of these strategy books. I find that they're often very similar and teach me very little new information. So I decide on the Manhattan GMAT and specifically the word translations that seem to make up a large bulk of the math.

Lo and behold, I'm reading the Manhattan GMAT and it's showing me practical strategies that I've never seen before. Age and rates problems that used to seem convoluted have been solved brilliantly. By brilliantly, I don't mean "correctly", of course every book would have the correct solution. But the brilliance in it is that the book helps YOU solve these problems. I always considered myself strong in math, but let's face it, even algebra can be confusing. With my penchant for dumb mistakes, that hurts even more. But their strategy of organizing this material in tables, works wonders. I've never seen these tables before. Now everything is so much clearer and easier. Kaplan and the $1,500 that I've shelled out has not shown me how to solve these problems as clearly and as easily as the Manhattan GMAT. I'm up to combinatorics and am actually looking forward for more strategies that will help me solve these problems and save time. Thanks guys for letting me know about this series, this book is highly recommended.

L

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

04 Sep 2009, 00:51

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The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review, 2nd Edition

The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review, 2nd Edition is out!

There are 44 new Problem Solving and 31 new Data Sufficiency Questions (a total of 75 new questions out of 300).

List of Changes:
Problem Solving (PS)
- 4 new easy questions
- 21 new medium questions
- 19 new hard questions
Data Sufficiency
- 13 new easy questions
- 8 new medium questions
- 9 new hard questions

The main issue with the first edition was low question difficulty. This edition addresses the issue slightly, but as you can see, not by much. One issue that was fixed is the total number of questions. The first edition claimed (just like this one) to have 300 questions, but only had 294 - how can you make that mistake in the Official Guide for Quantitative Review? The question split is 176 for PS and 124 for DS.

As to content, changes, it is interesting to see many of the tables and data-interpretation questions go and addition of sequence questions. Also, DS lost many of its arithmetic questions, which were replaced by Word Problems.

Overall - pretty much the same book - would have loved to see more new questions, but $12 for 28 new hard and 29 medium REAL questions is not bad. By the way, the first edition is on sale right now The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review for $6.78!

Here is the full list of new questions for reference:
PS: 1, 2, 7, 41, 56, 60, 61, 62, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 102, 103, 108, 112, 117, 131, 135, 142, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 160, 162, 173

DS: 1, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 21, 22, 24, 31, 33, 43, 48, 51, 66, 70, 73, 79, 82, 85, 96, 102, 104, 106, 107, 111, 116, 117, 122

Good Luck on your GMAT!

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

05 Sep 2009, 13:32

Just one small question... Which book replicates the difficulty level of the actual gmat math questions the best?

L

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

07 Sep 2009, 02:52

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urchin wrote:

Just one small question... Which book replicates the difficulty level of the actual gmat math questions the best?

Since GMAT is an adaptive test and adapts to YOUR level of difficulty, this is not the right question to ask. If you are wondering which book has more of harder questions or ones that resemble the real GMAT, then that's the GMAT Official Guide 12th edition.

The Quant OG lacks harder questions.

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

16 Sep 2009, 14:25

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new to the forum...

Is it me, or is Princeton Review 1012 absolutely riddled with errors? So far I have found at least 8 mistakes in the answer keys or diagrams.

thanks,

acc

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

16 Sep 2009, 16:13

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tweakxc03 wrote:

new to the forum...

Is it me, or is Princeton Review 1012 absolutely riddled with errors? So far I have found at least 8 mistakes in the answer keys or diagrams.

thanks,

acc

I have not solved through the questions, but that's what the feedback comes back.
The unfortunate reality of a new book - was released not fully proofed, definitely makes studying more complicated.

By the way, if you can, would REALLY help everyone if you can post question numbers and a list of issues - would help a lot!

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

17 Sep 2009, 18:39

Here are the books that I have from the Manhattan GMAT so far and my thoughts:

1) Word Translation- Loved it. The most difficult material from the math books that I had from them. That's probably because this material is in fact the most difficult in the quant section. Even the easiest Word Translations are more difficult than some medium difficulty numbers property questions. I feel like this taught me some strategies that Kaplan never taught me. Such as the RTD/RTW table. The anagram method (though I don't use it much, for some reason I find the regular formula more intuitive).

2) Numbers properties- Pretty good. However a great majority of it was stuff that I can easily solve. However things like number of factors might help on test day. Also helps with many data sufficiency problems.

3) Geometry- Good book. Some of the stuff it goes over, is stuff that I got wrong before on CATs and wouldn't have if I knew it. Like the largest possible area of a triangle when you know 2 sides. Also, similar triangles. Diagonal of a rectangular solid. It seems like it didn't go over the hardest problems (polygon's within polygons etc.)

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

20 Sep 2009, 14:38

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Some Errors in PR 1012:

Page 314, Question 2, Lines and Angles Drill - They placed either the x or the y in the wrong space in the figure. The answer explanation indicates that x and y comprise both a "large angle" and a "small angle" created by the line intersecting 2 parallel lines. This is not the case as both are large angles.

Page 320, Question 5 of Triangles Drill - They don't indicate that any of the triangles in the figure are right triangles, making it impossible to determine if a triangle is indeed a Pythagorean Triple.

Page 333 Question 8 of Circles Drill - Answer explanation gives B as the answer, but you need A to provide the radius of the circle. Answer should be C.

Page 334, Question 10 of Circles Drill - Statement 1: x =72. There is no X in the diagram!! retarded....

Page 335, Question 13 of Circles Drill - Answer explanation says "Statement 1 gives you the second of two of the three sides of the smallest triangle." Incorrect... It only gives you one of the three. They may have left out a number they meant to put in.

That's what I have so far. There are some others but I can't find them at the moment.

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

25 Sep 2009, 16:52

The McGraw-Hill gets a really really bad review in amazon by the Gmatclub, but it is because the text has tons of errors that could mislead you on your study.

The practice tests dont have hard questions, they are just average, o a little above it. The answers to those questions are not deep, they just state it with one simple sentence or two. So i didn't find that much of a learning opportunity by doing them.

However, the book has chapters dedicated to the admitions process, and life during and after Bschool. I think the value of the book is on how the authors put the admitions process, your career and the gmat into perspective.

It is a good read, but not because of the excercises and math theory. So if you don´t have much time to study, stay away from that book.

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

29 Sep 2009, 07:40

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I recently completed the Kaplan Math Foundations book and I agree that the few errors in the review explanations (I noticed only a handful throughout the book) did not outweigh the benefit of the book.

I think the book is best for people who either 1) need to begin at square one with math, or 2) notice that their math foundations are holding them back from achieving a higher score. Since I was a liberal arts major in college (and have not really dealt with math since high school), I felt like I needed the book before delving into the MGMAT guides. In that regard, it has served me well and I feel like my footing is much stronger.

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Re: Best GMAT Math Prep Books (Reviews & Recommendations) [#permalink]

29 Sep 2009, 07:40

Book Bundles and Study Plans at a Glance
	Standard Plan	Advanced Plan	Ultimate Plan	Beyond Hardcore Plan
General Strategy Books Explain how GMAT works, provide general principles and strategies, give an idea about weaknesses, provide practice tests	Kaplan Live Online + comes with 6 practice tests	Kaplan Live Online + comes with 6 practice tests Kaplan GMAT Advanced - Poor guidebook, more of a question collection	Kaplan Live Online + comes with 6 practice tests Kaplan GMAT Advanced - Poor guidebook, more of a question collection GMAT Test Simulation Booklet + Great for practice	Kaplan Live Online + comes with 6 practice tests Kaplan GMAT Advanced - Poor guidebook, more of a question collection GMAT Test Simulation Booklet + Great for practice
Quant Books Refresh math principles, fill gaps, and learn patterns	Kaplan Math Workbook - missing probability and combinations	Kaplan Math Workbook - missing probability and combinations MGMAT Number Properties	5 Quant MGMAT Guides MGMAT Math Foundations	5 Quant MGMAT Guides MGMAT Math Foundations Probability and Combinations for Dummies
Verbal Books Refresh grammar rules, aquire CR and RC strategies	Kaplan Verbal Workbook OR: PowerScore Verbal Bible	CR: PowerScore CR or MGMAT CR RC: MGMAT RC SC: PowerScore SC or MGMAT SC	CR: PowerScore CR or MGMAT CR RC: MGMAT RC SC: PowerScore SC or MGMAT SC SC: Kaplan Verbal Foundations	CR: PowerScore CR or MGMAT CR CR: LSAT Critical Reasoning RC: MGMAT RC RC: LSAT Reading Comprehension SC: PowerScore SC or MGMAT SC SC: Doing Grammar
Practice Questions Additional practice	Official Guide 12th + 900 retired real GMAT questions	Official Guide 12th + 900 retired real GMAT questions Verbal Official Guide + 300 retired verbal GMAT questions Quant Official Guide + 300 retired quant GMAT questions	Official Guide 12th + 900 retired real GMAT questions Verbal Official Guide + 300 retired verbal GMAT questions Quant Official Guide + 300 retired quant GMAT questions Princeton Review 1012 + Great target practice	Official Guide 12th + 900 retired real GMAT questions Verbal Official Guide + 300 retired verbal GMAT questions Quant Official Guide + 300 retired quant GMAT questions Princeton Review 1012 + Great target practice Paper GMAT Tests + Official Retired tests available from GMAC
Tests Simulated Practice GMAT tests	GMATPrep, Kaplan, Free tests	GMATprep, Kaplan, MGMAT, some GMATClub tests	GMATprep, PowerPrep, GMAT Focus, Kaplan, MGMAT, GMATClub tests	GMATprep, PowerPrep, GMAT Focus, Kaplan, MGMAT, PR, GMATClub tests