GMAT Study Materials?

DVG

My lady is looking to take the GMAT with aspirations of getting into Harvard Business School. She's currently looking for what study materials to invest in.

Basically, I was wondering if anyone here had taken the test, and might be able to recommend some good study materials / online courses that you found success with.

Note: I know almost nothing about the test myself

Quoth

Kaplan or Princeton Review should have decent materials. She should head down to her local big bookstore and peruse the selection, see what is the most accessible to her.

DJ-99

I strongly recommend avoiding anything made by Kaplan or Princeton Review until you have read every single thing put out by the actual GMAT people.

Unlike almost every other standardized test, GMAC does NOT allow Kaplan to use real questions. Only the Official GMAT guides have real GMAT questions. This is what you want.

Here's what you do: learn the format of the questions, then download the two practice tests off the website. Take one of them to see how well you will do. Then, study hard, doing all the Official GMAT stuff. Take the second test. If you're still not doing as well as you want, then you try the Kaplan/Princeton Review stuff.

The questions in Kaplan/Princeton Review are generally poor quality, and often the answers are simply wrong.

EDIT: link: http://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide-GMAT-Review-12th/dp/0470449748/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244498033&sr=8-1

Grundlestiltskin

I read the Kaplan book for a month. I read all the review materials, did practice questions every day, and took a practice test the week before the test. On the practice test I did really poorly (I think around a 560 or so). I spent the next week reviewing the parts I had done poorly on, worked on my timing, and ended up improving my score by over 100 points on the actual test.

I found it helpful, but ymmv. I'm generally a decent test taker, and for me the Kaplan book was more useful for the general review and getting used to the CAT format and timing than anything else. You probably would not get into HBS with my score =P

DJ-99

Grundlestiltskin wrote: »

I read the Kaplan book for a month. I read all the review materials, did practice questions every day, and took a practice test the week before the test. On the practice test I did really poorly (I think around a 560 or so). I spent the next week reviewing the parts I had done poorly on, worked on my timing, and ended up improving my score by over 100 points on the actual test.

I found it helpful, but ymmv. I'm generally a decent test taker, and for me the Kaplan book was more useful for the general review and getting used to the CAT format and timing than anything else. You probably would not get into HBS with my score =P

I agree that Kaplan is probably helpful for test taking strategy, actually. I admit I didn't really think about that part of the studying. However, I would not sit down and do the actual Kaplan practice questions until you have already done the questions in the official guides. Essentially, there are two types of practice GMAT questions:

1. Real GMAT questions (official GMAC guides)
2. Pretend GMAT questions (everything else)

I prefer 1 over 2. But, I definitely agree with you about the studying tips. Totally forgot about that.

Grundlestiltskin

Yeah I'd say the actual computer practice tests were almost worth the price of the Kaplan book alone. The CAT is a really bizarre format if you're not used to it. You do not want to sit down for the actual GMAT and have it be the first time you've dealt with that format, on a computer. This is truer, I think, the longer you've been out of school, because academic (well, math in particular for me) skill aren't as reflexive as they used to be, and you can very easily run out of time if you're not managing it well.

Shazkar Shadowstorm

Can I just ask when is a good time to take the GMAT if you're thinking of going to business school, but obviously after working a bit (like I'm going to be a senior this year, but won't go to b-school for 2 years after I grad... should I take the test soon anyway?)

(Obviously this assumes I am not trying to do the get into HBS early for deferred admission because damn that is too much effort and I don't feel accomplished enough for that)

Gooey

Use the official guides. GMAC also has some old tests you can download as .pdf's and a practice test application that mimics what the real test looks and behaves like. I found the test application thingy to be the most beneficial.

Also, Harvard MBA? Make sure she visits and talks to alumni/current students before she accepts. While Harvard is an absolutely fantastic b-school, when I visited and spoke with some current students/alumni I realized it wasn't the school for me. An ultra-competitive dog-eat-dog environment wasn't what I was looking for in my MBA.

Quoth

DJ-99 wrote: »

Grundlestiltskin wrote: »

I read the Kaplan book for a month. I read all the review materials, did practice questions every day, and took a practice test the week before the test. On the practice test I did really poorly (I think around a 560 or so). I spent the next week reviewing the parts I had done poorly on, worked on my timing, and ended up improving my score by over 100 points on the actual test.

I found it helpful, but ymmv. I'm generally a decent test taker, and for me the Kaplan book was more useful for the general review and getting used to the CAT format and timing than anything else. You probably would not get into HBS with my score =P

I agree that Kaplan is probably helpful for test taking strategy, actually. I admit I didn't really think about that part of the studying. However, I would not sit down and do the actual Kaplan practice questions until you have already done the questions in the official guides. Essentially, there are two types of practice GMAT questions:

1. Real GMAT questions (official GMAC guides)
2. Pretend GMAT questions (everything else)

I prefer 1 over 2. But, I definitely agree with you about the studying tips. Totally forgot about that.

Actually, I would recommend:

1) take an official practice test on a computer to see what score you get and what your weak areas are,
2) use the Kaplan or Princeton Review or Manhattan GMAT or whatever books to get the appropriate test-taking strategies for the weak areas,
3) practice using the real GMAT questions and the aforementioned strategies.

The problem with the official materials is that they have absolutely no useful strategy coverage. They're great for practice questions and terrible for everything else, really.

Gooey

Shazkar Shadowstorm wrote: »

Can I just ask when is a good time to take the GMAT if you're thinking of going to business school, but obviously after working a bit (like I'm going to be a senior this year, but won't go to b-school for 2 years after I grad... should I take the test soon anyway?)

(Obviously this assumes I am not trying to do the get into HBS early for deferred admission because damn that is too much effort and I don't feel accomplished enough for that)

Your scores last for 5 years or so.

Honestly, the GMAT score isn't as important as it used to be. It's really used these days as a way to weed out candidates who really have no hope of making it in. In most schools, anyway.

What's more important is your work experience. You need at the very least a couple years of good experience, management experience is a big plus. Also promotions and career advancement are a good thing. MBA schools care where you are when you're going in, but they also equally (if not more so) care how you're going out.

DJ-99

Shazkar Shadowstorm wrote: »

Can I just ask when is a good time to take the GMAT if you're thinking of going to business school, but obviously after working a bit (like I'm going to be a senior this year, but won't go to b-school for 2 years after I grad... should I take the test soon anyway?)

(Obviously this assumes I am not trying to do the get into HBS early for deferred admission because damn that is too much effort and I don't feel accomplished enough for that)

I took mine when I was a senior in college, for two reasons.

1. I was very much in the studying/test taking mode, so taking a test just felt natural. My colleagues who take it while they are working a job struggle to find the time to study and are not in the habit of taking tests. They all wish they had taken it while in college.
2. Assuming you do well, you can put it on your resume for job applications. Nobody is going to give you a job just b/c you did well on the GMAT, but it definitely can't hurt, and taking the test demonstrates your interest in a business career.

And as mentioned, it is good for 5 years, so there's really no downside to taking it sooner rather than later.

Septus

I took a Princeton Review class(hells of expensive) and used the official GMAT book as well as a Princeton study guide. Both were very useful, if you can get the study guides separately, I strongly recommend it. The Princeton book was for strategies, and the GMAT book was to apply those on real questions. People might say otherwise, but I would hate to use the GMAT book alone. So many of the answer explanations in that one just plain suck at helping you to understand the answer.

Then take as many computer tests as possible. I took 5 tests, two times each, and I think it helped a ton to give me a sense of the pacing I needed.