Kaplan GMAT 800

Rating:
Summary: The good thing about this book is the title
Review: ... and nothing else unfortunately.
The theory is insufficient.
The strategies aren't better than regular and are chaotically presented throughout the book.
The questions are not that though unless they are just written badly.

On the other side it has a nice foreword and an ambitious title, so I was stupid enough to buy it as I hadn't seen the reviews. No more Kaplan for me EVER.

Rating:
Summary: ADOBE EBOOKS WON'T WORK AFTER YOU REINSTALL YOUR SOFTWARE!!!
Review: Don't buy this eBook!
I bought it last year, but decided to take the GMAT this year.
Everything was ok, but when I needed to format my hard drive and reinstall the software, the ebook reader (Adobe Reader) wouldn't let me activate it.
Now I can't read the book...

Rating:
Summary: A STAR BOOK FOR STAR ACHEIVERS - STILL NOT MUCH DIFFERENT
Review: Finally, the star is here!!! Or so I thought.

For a long time, GMAT takers, especially the high-scorers, were thirsting for really good questions to work with. Kaplan, the #1 test prep company, has now come-up with this excellent book for the advanced preparation. However, there is more hype to the text than reality.

This book covers all the question types from the CAT sections of GMAT. In my opinion, the coverage for Critical Reasoning, Reading Comprehension, Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency is barely sufficient. The only saving grace of the book is the examples related to sentence correction.

In general, there are about 321 questions in the book (A steal - compared to $99 which Kaplan charges for 500 question bank). The break-up is - 35 Critical Reasoning, 12 Reading Comprehension Passages with 4 questions each, approximately 60 Problem Solving questions, 38 Data sufficiency questions and about 110 sentence correction. All the questions are explained well. However, the book is filled with pseudo-reasons about why the question is considered to be tough. There are, in addition, general tips throughout the book for adapted to give the additional edge needed for an 800 scorer.

Since this is the first edition, there are, expectedly, a few typos and formatting errors. That should not stop you on your march to the perfect score.

All in all - give it a try, if you wish, you 800-SCORERS!!!

Rating:
Summary: Not significatly different from Kaplan GMAT 5th edition
Review: I just finished working through this book and took the actual GMAT yesterday. Essentially, this book does not differ substantially from Kaplan's GMAT 5th edition in the difficulty of its problems or strategies. Kaplan has taken previous material and remarketed it in an effort to appeal to those who wish to score very high on the GMAT. While the marketing is compelling, the material is not worth the purchase. I would stick to Kaplan's GMAT 5th edition, which includes a CD of workshops, drills and practice tests that are very helpful(and include a broader array of advanced material than this book).

Rating:
Summary: Good buy
Review: I took the Princeton Review prep class which provided a good foundation. Then I honed my GMAT skills with an earlier edition of the Kaplan 800 and once I resumed taking the "regular" practice tests I saw my score improve. I ended up scoring 760 the 1st time I took the GMAT

Rating:
Summary: Disappointment
Review: This book is a disappointment. I agree with the previous reviewer that you are better off sticking with the Basic Kaplan stuff. If you really want to get practice with 800-style questions, go to the back of each section of the Offical GMAT Guide. They put the most difficult questions at the back. Those are far better than anything offered here.

Rating:
Summary: Poor editing, not so challenging math examples
Review: This book was truly disappointing. This was the last book I used in preparing for the GMAT and it was so riddled with errors and poor explanations that it made me want to pull my hair out. The math problems were easy in the book but the actual problems I saw on the GMAT were much harder (and I'm a freakin' engineer!) I would recommend the Official GMAT study guide with over 1400 questions and irrefutable explanations (they wrote the test so they should know). My score was 740 and I think the Official Guide was the most helpful. I also used the Princeton Review book but it was not nearly as bad as this Kaplan trash.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: This is a great book for prep on hard questions. It has a good selection of questions and great strategies - goes beyond the basic stuff other books talk about. I do think this book offers something the others don't, and has a very realistic set of questions - I found some other books didn't quite hit the mark in terms of offering GMAT style questions. I would recommend this for anyone shooting for a 720+. Look at this book after you have prepped a little with the more basic materials. I got a 770 and I think this book helped.