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Abundance of reading material

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Abundance of reading material

by vmahalin » Thu Mar 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Hi Stacey,

How are you?

I have been preparing for my GMAT, and have come across lots of resources. When I work with a specific book, I often get worried that I am not using other books / documents. I get anxious that I am might be missing out on other material. What would you suggest ? My problem is not the preparation but the copious amounts of information.

I have seen your comments about not using material that is not from standard books like OG 11 or Manhattan books. Do you think I could complete my preparation with specific/standard set of materials such as OG11, Kaplan, and Manhattan books.

I understand that an answer to this question could be quite subjective, but any advice on the same would be very helpful.

Thank you.
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by TedCornell » Thu Mar 12, 2009 7:37 pm
Hi Vmahalin,

Manhattan books are really good and of course Official Guides are necessary. In preparing for the test, I used Princeton Review, MGMAT, and the Official Guides. The reason the Official Guides alone are not sufficient is that although they offer great practice, they're not very good at teaching techniques.

The MGMAT books are great at teaching techniques and I would recommend them, but like the other test prep books I've used (Princeton Review and McGraw Hill) they don't really show you how those techniques apply specifically to the OG questions. To see OG questions explained with the techniques that you'll find in the good test prep books, take a look at the OG Companion from gmatfix.

I don't think you're missing material if you study lessons from few sources. In fact I think it was counterproductive for me to learn the same techniques from different books. Find the best book for teaching (MGMAT), the best book for practice (OG), and the best book for applying techniques to your practice (OG Companion).

My 2 cents. Hope you score beyond even your expectations
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by Stacey Koprince » Tue Mar 17, 2009 9:19 am
Received a PM asking me to respond.

I completely agree - there's so much stuff out there that it does get overwhelming! And, yes, an answer to this question is going to be subjective. In addition, of course, I'm biased b/c I work for a specific company - so I hope other people respond with their advice too.

Everybody should have the official guide books - either the 11th edition or the newly released 12th edition, and the two verbal supplements. So there's not much subjectivity for this one - get the official books!

Beyond that, you're going to need some other study material but here's where things can get subjective.

As Ted said, the OG questions are the best for practice because they're the real thing, but those books don't really teach you how to get better. For that, you'll need books from some company that prepares people to take the test. You can use books from any company you want; there's lots of good stuff out there. I generally prefer to stick with one source for each major thing (eg, one source for reading comp, one source for critical reasoning, etc.). If I try to learn five totally different approaches for the same thing, I'm likely to confuse myself and make things worse!

I do also think that it's important to make sure that the material you're using is from a company that has researched this test and has also tested its own techniques across many people and testing questions to make sure they work. The most well-known companies (us, Kaplan, Princeton Review) obviously fit that definition, and there are others as well - but you just want to make sure that you're not using something random from the Internet that hasn't been rigorously researched and tested. Ask around here to find what others have liked (and ask them WHY they liked it) so that you can identify what sources are likely to be the most useful for you, your learning style, and your strengths and weaknesses.

Good luck - let us know how it goes!
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

Stacey Koprince
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Manhattan GMAT

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