Taking GMAT in 5 months, best book & strategy to start w

[IneedtheGMAT]

I will be taking the GMAT in 5 months in preparation for my application to B-School this coming fall. My undergraduate education and current occupation is an engineer. Because of this and a short review of the GMAT flash cards so kindly shared by Mr. "beatthegmat" himself, I realize that I am very undeveloped in the areas tested by both the Analytical Writing Assessment and Verbal Section. Are there any particular books or resources that provide not test questions or test taking strategies but rather an in-depth review of all the fundamental English and writing skills that both of these sections of the GMAT attempt to assess? I am taking the approach that reviewing and understanding these core concepts is the right place to start before moving into taking practice-test questions and studying test-taking strategies. Any thoughts or comments on this approach or on a resource that can help in this area are highly appreciated.

[Osirus@VeritasPrep]

I would suggest taking a diagnostic test to see if you only need help with verbal or if there are some quant areas that you need help with as well. As an engineer, you might not think that you would need help with quant, but the data sufficency, number properties and geometry can be tricky. If you determine you only need help with verbal I would recommend getting PowerScore's Critical Reasoning Bible and Manhattan Gmat's Sentence Correction Guide. If you need help with quant, determine which quant areas you need help with and buy the Manhattan GMAT guides that cover those areas. Good luck.

[IneedtheGMAT]

Osirus - thank you for your timely and informative reply. I think you are right, maybe I am a bit hasty in assuming that I have the quantitative portion covered. Both of the books you suggested seem like great choices, although the Critical Reasoning Bible seems at bit old at being a 2005. Maybe the test doesn't change much from year to year?

What easily available diagnostic tests do you know of? Maybe this will help me hone down into what exactly I am must unprepared on.

Also, are there any books that are specifically geared for helping with the Analytical Writing Assessment portion of the exam?

[Osirus@VeritasPrep]

With the AWA, I would honestly say don't worry about it. Just by reading your post on here, you can construct good sentences and the AWA is a seperate score that doesn't count towards your actual GMAT score that is important. The only time the essays would ever come into play is if you are borderline at a program and they want to use the essays to compare you with other applicants for a final spot.

In terms of books for it, just go to the library and check out a Kaplan Premier GMAT or a Princeton Review and go through that. With the CR Bible, the test hasn't changed much, plus the concepts really wouldn't change at all, so its still the best resource for CR on the market.