I need advice about GMAT books

- Princeton is good to start your preparation.
- Kaplan books are good to understand strategies and tricks.
- OG books, which are mandatory, are best for GMAT preparation.

Apart from that GMATprep test software is recommended to test your score before appearing in real GMAT exam.

Manhattan for Sentence Correction is recommended for Verbal:SC section.

Please do some search from this site...you will get lots of useful tips.


Regards,
Farooq

Thanks to Farooq for his reply.
Any other reply from anyone else, need more advice especially about Manhattan books!!!
Wish to see more replies
Thanks to all

ahm wrote:Hi,

I need advice about best GMAT books to use in my self study.

I want to ask you about few things:

1- what best books to use
I am thinking to buy

a-cracking the GMAT princeton review,
b- the 3 OG books,
c- Kaplan 800 and Kaplan Math)

2- what is the best and most important books to select from Manhattan books bcz they are expensive for me to buy all of them.

3- Is there any other books you advice me to use?

4- Is there deep differences between the versions of books like in princeton the 2008 and 2009 edition and with or without DVD?

5- Do you have time table to study within 3 months.

Hope to hear replies soon

thanks
AHM

:roll:

I am in the same boat as you are, so I felt like I should respond. I went through the Princeton Review and it is a CRAP! Very basic concepts. I guess it is a good way to start, because the books deals with the very basic concepts, but not at the price tag that they are offering the book for. Still havent decided if their CATS are good or bad. I think they are ok. Definately have lower margin of error than Kaplan does, but the questions are sort of easy.

Just like you, my budget is very limmited. Instead of buying Kaplan, which I found very similar to Princeton Review (just by glancing at it in a book store), I have decided not to waste any of my money, that I already dont have, and pull it together and buy what is necessary. Which will be MGMAT and and 12th OG as well as Verbal and Math books from OG. I have yet to find a negative comment on MGMAT (and not just on this site) so I assume it will be a great investment. MGMAT is expensive but if you are willing to wait, you can get it cheaper. There is E Bay, where I found full set of used 3rd edition for $100 as well is amazon (which is out of stock). The amazon has a decent price on these books. So honestly, If you are on a limited budget I sugest you to do what I am doing. I can afford to wait, I can take gmat next year because I will apply in september next year anyway. If you cant wait, however, I would Just stick with Kaplan or Princeton Review, and buy cheap textbooks that cover specific areas tested on GMAT, such as cheap Geometry Text book, Algebra text book... etc. There is no point of buying the same content twice as it is a case with the McGraw Hill, Princeton Review, and Kaplan (their CAT's are dramatically different though). So thats my advice...

Hi nasharussia,
Thanks for your reply and your time. I really appreciate your advice.
I think Princeton is good to start with and to be familiar with basics, people say good feedback about Kaplan Math and Kaplan 800.
But all of them agree that MGMAT are the best books. But I found that most people buy MGMAT CR, SC, RC, and Word translation. It seems that those are the most important books.
OG books also are mandatory. The problem is that .. the price is too much here and not all the books are available.
If you would share with me any other ideas let me know.
Thanks
AHM

We agree that Manhattan Sentence Correction book is good. For free you can read well written newspapers online such as the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. The more quality reading you do, the better your reading comprehension will be.