Hey Ashish,

I didn't want to jump in as the corporate shill here, but at the same time didn't want to let your question go unanswered. As a quick explanation of the forum reputation of our books...we just started selling them as individual volumes (via Amazon and other retailers) maybe 6 months or so ago in the summer of 2010, so there may just not be as many of our books out in circulation for people to have commented on. I know there are some reviews on Amazon and some other sites...

I'm obviously biased as a Veritas representative and a co-author of a few of those books, but I will say this as someone who took the GMAT without a real verbal strategy and somehow did okay: since I picked up the Veritas verbal strategies in 2003 I haven't been able to think about a verbal question any other way, and those strategies have made verbal questions a whole lot easier.

Best of luck as you continue your GMAT preparation!

Cheers,
Brian

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:Hey Ashish,

I didn't want to jump in as the corporate shill here, but at the same time didn't want to let your question go unanswered. As a quick explanation of the forum reputation of our books...we just started selling them as individual volumes (via Amazon and other retailers) maybe 6 months or so ago in the summer of 2010, so there may just not be as many of our books out in circulation for people to have commented on. I know there are some reviews on Amazon and some other sites...

I'm obviously biased as a Veritas representative and a co-author of a few of those books, but I will say this as someone who took the GMAT without a real verbal strategy and somehow did okay: since I picked up the Veritas verbal strategies in 2003 I haven't been able to think about a verbal question any other way, and those strategies have made verbal questions a whole lot easier.

Best of luck as you continue your GMAT preparation!

Cheers,
Brian

Thanks Brian for your reply.

I had a couple of queries and it would be great if you could comment on those

Firstly , i was browsing through the VeritasPrep Website and was getting some insights on the Prep Books . I came across the strategies like STOP , VAMPIRES etc that seems mechanical in the sense that you follow a step by step sequence with each question that you come across and consequently may take more time . I maybe wrong , since i havent seen the books at all , but just got the feeling that these strategies maybe Tough to get hold of and that i might take a long time before i can succefully start applying into questions , in comparison to something that is logically oriented . Request you to please comment on that.( Frankly , these kinds of words are terrifying and makes Verbal look like rocket Science ...Just Kidding )

Moreover , having crossed the 700 mark , i am looking for high quality practise rather than learning strategies . Could you throw some light as to what extent the Practise material can help me in my endevor to get a great score . If i could put in other words , what %age of the questions in the Prep Package would you put in the 700+ range . I am asking this since i feel more confident when i have thoroughly practised stuff rather than getting into Strategy.

Awaiting your Reply on that.

Thanks & Regards,
Ashish

No problem, Ashish! Honestly, I've always found that the strategies we teach make the questions quicker...I'd call them much more "guiding principles" than mechanical techniques if that makes sense. Their goal is to have you reading verbal questions proactively so that you're focusing on what you know will be important (the question stem, the conclusion, comma-separated modifiers at the start of a sentence, etc.) and not letting yourself get lost in details.

So I wouldn't consider the strategies to be time-consuming or mechanical, and certainly not rocket-science (if I can use them and even write a few of them, it can't be that hard!). Tell you what - if you want to take a look at a demo of our strategies, this video link here - https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid= ... r&sid=1295 - includes a demo of our Critical Reasoning strategy, maybe about halfway through (about an hour or so into the presentation...you can scroll your way through it). That may be more effective than my trying to explain just in this paragraph.

As for practice problems, I'll defer to my colleague David@VeritasPrep who, en route to a perfect verbal score last year, noted that he actually found a lot of the verbal questions, and in particular CR questions, to fall more toward the middle level of difficulty in our books, and he didn't see any real surprises. He also mentioned that the GMAT included a lot more "special case" type CR problems (those that try to obscure the question stem away from the classic "Strengthen"/"Weaken" types), which we cover thoroughly in our Critical Reasoning 2 book. So I certainly do think that we include quite a bit of what you're looking for.

Thanks a lot Brian for your detailed reply.

The Video has really helped me in getting a detailed insight into the Strategies Used .

Thanks a lot!