is it worth buying the kaplan 800 book?

Well, it can't hurt to look through it at a book store and see if you're interested in it. I've seen used copies on Amazon for a damn cheap price too so it won't hurt the wallet either.

I highly reccommend the 800 book. i found it very useful, especially to handle advanced questions from the official guide.

Have you gone through the Kaplan cd? Just curious if it is basically the same as the 800 book like others have made it out to be.

If your verbal score was low, get Verbal Workout from Princeton Review. It's da bomb for verbal prep. Dunno about the Kaplan book, tho, don't have that one.

yes ihave the kaplan cd, have been through it twice .is it different from thekaplan 800cd?. the one that i have is the 2002 cd.
i have found that kaplan questions are good and like the ones that you see on the actual gmat, the pr one was not happy it was much easier.

i also have the pr verbal workout book .

thanks for all the replies

jabs

yes ihave the kaplan cd, have been through it twice .is it different from thekaplan 800cd?. the one that i have is the 2002 cd.
i have found that kaplan questions are good and like the ones that you see on the actual gmat, the pr one was not happy it was much easier.

i also have the pr verbal workout book .

thanks for all the replies

jabs

My 2c is that if you can get 800 book cheap, get it.

Even if you saw all those problems before, it is a nice way of making sure you do know how to solve them.

THe book also has points that it illustrates using examples - it is not just a collection of problems, so even if you know ALL problems (which is not true) you will still pick up something.

No matter where you are from, saving $15 on MBA/GMAT is not a wise desicion. The ROI (return on investment) will be high.

Great point BB, in the scheme of things the $20,000 signing bonus you recieve on your first job offer will compensate you for that $15 GMAT 800 book.

DON'T CUT CORNERS ON YOURSELF!!!

I took the old paper/pencil GMAT back in January '97, scored 670 (94th percentile at the time), but decided to go to law school instead. I have recently decided to take a crack at part time B-school and needed to brush up on my skills, especially in the math area. Since I already had a solid foundation, I decided on this book.

If you are looking for test taking strategies or the like, look elsewhere. The book is merely a compilation of questions Kaplan feels are "high octane"; i.e., the hardest you will supposedly be faced with on the real exam. I'm not sure if this is true, but the questions were quite challenging for the most part. If this is what you are looking for, and nothing more, I recommend it.

-- Mike

I skimmed through the Kaplan 800 book in a bookstore. It didn't seem all that special. It' suppose to have some extra questions that are supposedly on the hard side. But, IMO, it didn't seem like there were that many questions in the book compared to the regular Kaplan 2004 and Kaplan Math Review books (or other competitors' books). I don't know if there was any special advice in the Kaplan 800 book that can't be found elsewhere (I didn't read that carefully), but that seems implausible. I don't know what to recommend, but I chose not to buy the book

i bought the kaplan 800 book and started to plug away at it this week. I've taken the diagnostic and the first exam off the kaplan's CD a few weeks back and saw about 3-4 questions that were exactly the same as the book. given that i've only reviewed through a 1/3 of the book and taken 2 out of the 5 exams (including diagnostic), i have a feeling that more questions will overlap. if that is the case then maybe i wasted $ on the kaplan 800 book?

has anyone completed the entire 800 book AND the 4 CATs? are ALL the questions recycled or just a few? practicing from a CAT is important so if ALL the questions are the same, then i'll have to stop reviewing the 800 book.

any advice will be appreciated.

a lot of the verbal questions in the Kaplan 800 book are recycled from the Kaplan verbal workbook....and there are a lot of questions that are also recycled from the Kaplan CD diags...i know for a fact b/c i have used them all.....and furthermore, after i used all this material i tried the Kaplan LSAT 180 book (just for the Critical Reasoning questions) and almost every single question in that book was from the Kaplan GMAT CD....a rip off you ask me?? most likely....here's what i would do....don't buy it...go down the the book store and just use it there...there are enough new questions in the 800 book that it's worth taking a look at....but don't expect completely new questions....