Want to do this right

[yraza]

Hi all,
First of all want to thank everyone here. This is an amazing site with tons of great information. I stumbled across this site a week before my GMATs and wished I had done a little more research! Anyways, I'm retaking the GMAT and this time I want to do it right so I'm pretending this is the first time I'm taking the GMAT with no prior knowledge.

I looked at the 3 month study guide and they recommend some books (mainly from Kaplan) however, upon doing some more research, I keep running across the Manhattan books and how great they are if you want an extensive in depth studying book. Anyways, my question is should I go ahead and follow the 3 month program with the recommended books or do people here recommend going through the Manhattan books? Price is no object but I just don't want to have to go through 2 or 3 different sets of books.

Please let me know what you think and again thanks so much for taking your time everyone!

Cheers,

Yusuf

[Jim@StratusPrep]

Yusuf-

This really depends on what areas you are focusing on... Are there specific topics you struggled with? What was your performance like on the original exam?

[tigerd]

Price is no object but I just don't want to have to go through 2 or 3 different sets of books.

By all means, go through as many different books and sources as possible.

Trust, but verify, I always say. Trust the books written by the experts, but always go with different sources to be sure. You never know whether each source will mesh with your learning style.

Do you want a no-frills, serious attitude? Do you want a book that tries to make the GMAT fun? There's a book for every learning style. In the end, it's all up to you.

[yraza]

I tried the Princeton Review, in my opinion, that book relied too much on "tricks" which were great but at the same time didn't really explain fundamentals. I did the princeton review and also the 1012 questions by Princeton Review. I just did practice questions and didn't really do any TIMED practice tests (this was my fault and its because I didn't have a plan). I ended up rushing through the actual test and got a 570. I don't think there was any one section i was bad in or want to focus on, I want to focus on everything, start from scratch.

I've been hearing great things about the Manhattan books but the 3 month study guide (the longest study guide i see on here) has various kaplan books.

Would you guys recommend going through all the manhattan and the recommended Kaplan books or go through the kaplan books then buy the manhattan books in areas i want to focus on?

Haha a lot of questions I know but your guys help is greatly appreciated.

[tigerd]

So I'm probably in the small minority, but I actually used LSAT books to practice for the GMAT. Somebody brought that up in another thread on here. It worked well for me, at least.

[yraza]

So I think I've made the decision to follow the 3 month plan, then purchase the manhattan books to focus on the sections I need to.

If you have any thoughts let me know.