Okay!! This article is going to be awesome! About Books!! The best part of the entire preparation is the one where I get my new books. I love its smell, which itself is so inspiring that it gives me a sense of excitement of embaking on a journey. But obviously smell is not the only factor that goes into choosing books; there's a lot to be done before buying them. Books and other preparation material can make or break your GMAT. One thing is money that goes into buying them, but I believe that the time spent on the book should not look like time wasted on the book. To ensure that the material and books you devote your precious preparation time on is worth every second of efforts is my prime concern. Make sure that you are not fooled by biased reviews or marketing gimmicks. I have never endorsed anything which I am not completely sure of and always made an effort to recommend books to my students which are the very best. Read on...

milestones

The progress you make while going through the books are markers for your actual progress. So it becomes very important that difficulty level of the content keeps pace with your skill level as you progress in your preparation. What I will discuss here is give you a list of books recommended by me and also a rough sequence in which you should follow them.
But before that I want you to know the basis and strength of my recommendation. I have studied and taught all the major books which I recommend during my preparation and currently while teaching respectively. I have consulted and personally known many 750+ folks and compiled the list of books and figured out a methodlogy which I know works. For a detailed reviews of the books you can go to the review page to clarify any doubts you have.

shopping cart

I will think of you as someone who is just beginning to tread onto the GMAT path and would like you to right away buy these books and start rocking.

air, water & food...the essentials.

Get these books :

  1. The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 12th Edition
  2. Kaplan GMAT, 2010 Edition: Premier Program
  3. Princeton: Cracking the GMAT with DVD, 2009 Edition
  4. Sentence Correction GMAT Preparation Guide (Manhattan Gmat Prep)
  5. NOVA's GMAT Prep Course (With Online Course)

These books are a must. The OG is a must. I have told this several times that doing and redoing the OG is the key. The Kaplan Gmat book will help you know the question type better. It has good theory and will give you a solid background in all the sections. The Sc part is not very good in this book. So you will need a special SC book. No book does it better than the Manhattan SC. My acuracy in SC improved drastically. I cannot imagine my gmat prep without these books. For more info and reviews on these books, you can click on the thumbnails to your left.

clothing...maybe?

Supplemetal books are essential to crack the GMAT big time. To have an edge you need to specialise in each section and know the subtle nuisances of each topic. I would recommend atleast getting the Official Review and one of the Kaplan's or Princeton's workout. In addtion I have tried out the SC Bible and CR bible, both of which are very good books. It will take sometime to finish these books, but they are worth the time, money and effort ou put in.

VERBAL:

  1. The Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review, 2nd Edition
  2. Kaplan GMAT Verbal Workbook
  3. The PowerScore GMAT Sentence Correction Bible(VERY GOOD)
  4. The PowerScore GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible(VERY GOOD)
  5. Princeton Verbal Workout

MATHS :

  1. Kaplan GMAT Math Workbook
  2. Princeton Math Workout
  3. The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review

anyone has a spoon?

If you really suck at the basics or you have completely lost touch of the basic formulae or concepts, you will probably be disappointed by the coverage in any of the above mentioned books. All those books demand a basic understanding of the core concepts. They mostly just touch upon the formulae and give you a more GMAT specific approach, which is fine only if you are good with your basic school level concepts. Manhattan series is very good for those who need to fill this gap. They are easy to understand, follow and do the job intended.

You should finish these books even before touching the Official guide or other books. Build upon your basics and then you should be ready to embark upon actual GMAT like questions.
VERBAL :

  1. Manhattan Critical Reasoning
  2. Manhattan Reading Comprehension

QUANTS :

  1. Fractions, Decimals, and Percents
  2. Equations, Inequalities, & Vic's
  3. Geometry
  4. Number Properties
  5. Word Translations

greed...750+?

Is that so?? Great!! If this is the thing then there's one book I know which is great and a must must buy for people aiming for somewhere around 750. Anyone aiming above 700 should have this book. And I am very sure that this book will add 20-30 points on top, if you follow this book well. No surprises here!!

  1. Kaplan GMAT 800

Testing grounds

Tests are extremely important. Reading from books is like learning karate on TV. Taking tests will prepare you for the actual fight. There are many tests online and its just a matter of how much you spend and how much time you have. Even if some tests are crappy, you don't waste much time. So I will recommend tests which I know are good and some which I have heard are good.

  • GMAT prep (MUST)
  • Kaplan CD/DVD...comes with the book (MUST)
  • Princeton CD/DVD...comes with the book (MUST)
  • Paper tests...both power prep ones and kaplan ones.
  • 800-score tests - A good resource for tests.
  • GMAT Plus - A good resource for tests.
  • DeltaCourse (Good for maths as far as I know)
  • GMAT Club (Heard that they are really tough)
  • Score800

better avoid

So that you DON'T end up getting stuff which I have heard BAD things about, I thought I should add a word of caution for the following materials:

  • Arco Master the GMAT CAT
  • Crack-GMAT
  • Kaplan’s in-person GMAT prep course

words of wisdom

All the books have some shortcomings which is fine! You cannot possibly have just one book which is going to suffice for everything. Try to get all the MUST HAVE ones and then decide for yourself as you advance in your preparation, how much more do you need. Taking regular tests will help you benchmark against the performances of previous test takers. Actual GMAT has tougher question than any of the problems in these books when you reach the 700+ level! (Maybe Kaplan 800 is an exception) What these books also lack is the strategy to actually study each type of question and how to apply the strategies effectively. That's the whole point of putting up this website which I am hoping will work seamlessly with your books, so that your efficiency and extraction/retention is maximized. Needless to say, to do well GMAT demands rigorous practice along with smart ways to learn.


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