Better review explanations than Kaplan - particularly on the Critical Reasoning Section. This definitely helped me to get my 650 on the real exam!

The book is overall pretty good, and you should definately take advantage of the software and PR's website for more resources. However, I feel that the book needs more detailed explanantions on solutions to many of its questions. For many questions that I got wrong, even with the explanations, I still cannot fully understand why they have to pick that particular answer. Some explanations seem rather vague to me.

The preamble:
In my test preparations, I used three sources: Kaplan's Score Higher on GMAT 2003, this book and Official Guide (10th edition), plus, of course, PowerPrep software. I scored 760 on official exam.

I would say that this book was the least helpful, and, in general, a waste of money (neither the strategies, nor the tests helped me even a single bit).

The strategies are counterintuitive, especially the "Joe Bloggs" ones. The authors ask you to think as a mediocre person and change your answer picks accordingly. In my opinion, the thought of changing the answer and not trusting your own logic just because it is far enough in the test is quite ridiculous. True, there are many questions, where at first glance you can pick an obvious answer, but upon closer investigation, you will find some trick words in the problem. However, to my mind, it would be much better to give advice to always read the condition carefully, and , if the answer is too obvious, to recheck it. As opposed to changing your answer, which you find correct using your own logic, just because "that's what the authors assume Joe Bloggs would answer".

The test itself is even more ambiguous, with many questions simply irritating you. You can sometimes see an explanation like "yes, if you pick numbers 1 and 2, you will find choice C to be correct, but if your pick 17 and 32...". There will be no questions on real GMAT which will, rather than testing your logic, make you pick more than 10 numbers to stumble upon a pair which will change your answer.

The verbal section of this book goes even further to throw the test taker off. The answer explanations are often very unclear, and many times, the authors think "This choice is out of scope" will suffice. Well, it doesn't. I want to know, why exactly this choice is out of scope (where it is, to my mind, just as inside the scope as the other questions).

Unlike Kaplan's book, this one many times fails to clearly explain very many of the choices the authors considered to be correct. And unlike with Kaplan's tests, you get really pissed off and frustrated with the scores from the tests Princeton Review provides. That's because regardless of however many tests from this book you take, you don't learn anything valuable from it.

I can attest, not a single point from my 760 can be attributed to any material in this book, and my letter to the authors would definitely not be a part of the testimonials section.

I had a little over a month to prepare for the GMAT and decided to forego any of the expensive classes. Instead, I purchased this book, Kaplan's Premier book and the official ETS GMAT preparation book and downloaded ETS' PowerPrep software. Before I did any studying, I took one of the PowerPrep CAT tests and scored a 600.

Following the advice of someone who had reviewed - I believe - the 2005 Kaplan book, I started my studying with the Princeton Review.

The Princeton Review book, in my opinion, is a good foundation. They do a very good job introducing the kinds of questions that are on the GMAT, reviewing the math and offering strategies. I skimmed over their section on essay writing, so I cannot really comment on it.

One of the major drawbacks to the Princeton book is that their practice questions seem very tailored to the strategies they teach. For example, in the reading comprehension section they note that when ETS asks you to infer something from a reading, often the inference will be so subtle you may not even consider it an inference. Then, in a practice question, they will have a question where one of the answer choices seems to restate part of the original text, while the other four are fairly obviously wrong. This was not at all indicative of the GMAT.

Additionally, the software on their CD was a bit kludgy. I was particularly disappointed when, after having taken a practice test, I was forced to register my copy of the software online before I could see my score. (Kaplan does not do this.)

I would recommend this book be used in conjuction with the Kaplan book and the ETS book:

1) Use the Princeton Review to refresh your basics, familiarize yourself with different kinds of test questions and determine your weaknesses.

2) Use the ETS book to strenghten any weaknesses. Their math section is superlative. Their software, PowerPrep, is valuable for familiarizing yourself with the actual appearance of the exam.

3) Use the Kaplan book and software to practice. The Kaplan questions are a LOT harder than the questions provided by Princeton Review AND than the actual questions on the GMAT. Practicing on them may seem discouraging, since you'll get lower practice test scores, but it makes the actual GMAT questions seem quite easy.

As a frame of reference, I took the two PowerPrep practice tests and scored 600 (before studying at all) and 660 (after reading the Princeton book). Next I took four Kaplan practice exams and scored 560, 580, 610 and 590. Two days before the exam I took a Princeton Review practice exam and scored 690. I got a 710 on the actual exam.

The Princeton Review is the best test prep company when it comes to strategies for beating the test.

I raised my score from 60 points from 650 on my first Powerprep run to 710 on the actual test with only three weeks of prep. Using both Kaplan and Princeton Review books offers the perfect well-rounded preparation. Kaplan has the advantage in sample problems (challenging and, for the most part, well-explained). But Princeton Review offers advice on how to read the questions and eliminate answers.

In my mind, Princeton Review seems to have less respect for the test. They want you to beat it by understanding its design amd seeing through its tricks. Kaplan, on the other hand, wants to help you do well through thorough review of the material. Both are important appraoches, and they complement each other well.