In my opinion, the GMAT is definitely a marathon, but you don't want to run that marathon for more than 4 months. Therefore, most of the material you study for many months before your actual test date could be forgotten or become very hard to remember.

Also, from a pricing standpoint, keep in mind, they won't give you a discount if you already bought the books. When you sign up for the class, they will send you pretty much all the material they have.

It might be a good idea just to sign up for the class early, get the books before your class starts, do some light reading on the material, then expect to go hard as the class starts.

The GMAT is a test of conditioning, and on test day you need to be a well oiled machine. This can only come from brutal studying for the weeks and months before the test. Extending your study timeframe is only of marginal help.[/list]

How are you on your math fundamentals? Even if you do not want to start your actual GMAT studies yet - i.e. don't want to use up the books too soon. You could certainly refresh yourself on the math.

Other things that you could do would be to read a quick grammar book and start recognizing different parts of grammar as you are reading normal things, like the newspaper. You could also read some science oriented material occasionally, like Scientific American magazine or scientific articles on websites (which would be even better because it is one the computer as the test will be).

Those are some things that you can do that will help prepare you for your GMAT studies. If you wanted to get the Official Guide 12th Edition and get a start on some studies - you could try some problem solving on the quant side and some reading comprehension. I would say that you might not want to address the data sufficiency or the critical reasoning or sentence correction before class because you do not want to develop bad habits. I usually find it easier to work with my students if they do not have to unlearn anything.

Good Luck!

Actually, go ahead about buy all the strategy guides. You get fully credited the cost, actually I think they credit you a little more than what you paid. Its like $200 for the 8 guides, and 30 for the OG quant. Just give their customer reps a call