<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Nice Math Review, Poor Test Questions
Review: After scoring a 690 on the PowerPrep, I figured I should tackle the Kaplan Book and take the practice tests. The math review is comprehensive, and quite thourough, so I was quite confident that I would score well above 690 on the first Kaplan Practice Test. To my dismay, I scored a 600. So I took another test, and this time it was a 590. After contemplating quitting my studying altogether, I checked the reviews here and felt a thousand percent better. Thank you to all the reviewers who took the time out and explain their problems, which seem to be common among many test takers. This book is great for its math review, but be forewarned, the whole review is long, so allow yourself a large chunk of time if you feel your math skills are lacking. Take the practice tests to get down timing and get a feel for how long the actual test is, but take the test results with a grain of salt.
Rating: 
Summary: These tests scared me...
Review: I am applying to the top schools in the country. I had a GREAT time as an undergrad (read- awful undergrad GPA), and I decided that I needed to score really well on the GMAT to make up for it. So I looked at all of the sites, scoped out all of the books, and settled on the Kaplan. I scanned the book and took the diagnostic test - 630. Not bad, but not good enough. So I went through the customized study plan, worked the practice test, and gradually convinced myself that I was not as smart as I thought I was because the tests were HARD! Math was kicking my a**, and I thought I had my math wired. Verbal was tricky, too. When I moved to the practice CATs, I scored 650, 730 (!), 590, and 610. I started getting worried, but I attacked the powerprep CD about a week before the test... and scored a 750 on the practice CAT and a 710 on the actual test. The problem with the Kaplan materials (as noted here by others) is the awkward wording of a large number of the questions - data sufficiency questions are wordy, logic questions in the verbal section are clumsy. I recommend the software, but keep the ETS stuff on standby for a morale booster right before you take the test.
Rating:
Summary: Good Practice... but unrealistic scores
Review: I often wondered how Kaplan could GUARANTEE that you will score higher after using this book... Well it is simple.. They artificially lower your score on all their practice tests... you can't help but score much higher on the actual GMAT.
That being said, the Kaplan CD was very well laid out. I am not as convinced that the Kaplan tests are so much harder than the real GMAT as I am convinced that Kaplan uses the wrong scoring guidelines. On the Kaplan Diagnostic Test, I scored 570. On the Full-length practice tests, I scored 530, 560, and an all time high of 590. I skipped the 4th test.
I will say this, the Kaplan tests made me study harder... Before I read all these reviews stating Kaplan's scores were bogus, I thought I was a dumb-arse scoring 530, so I studied pretty hard. After I read these reviews, I switched over to Arco's review book with CD. Although it wasn't put together as well and as pretty, on all three practice tests I took, it gave me a score range of 640-660. My actual GMAT score was 650, so Arco was a much better indicator of where I stood.
Although the Kaplan prep got me to where I needed to be, I don't think it really helps anyone to make you think you're not as smart as you really are...
Rating:
Summary: Don't believe your Kaplan test scores.
Review: I think Kaplan makes its CAT cd tests much harder than real ETS tests so that people will get scared and take the Kaplan courses. I got a 570,610,560 on the Kaplan tests and didn't take the fourth one because I didn't want to get depressed. This is pretty consistent with other reviewers as well.
I got a 690, 730 on the powerprep and 750 on the actual test - ie practice helped drive my scores up using the powerprep software which is free but such a pattern didn't emerge on the kaplan tests I took.
Apart from not being reflective of the difficulty level, the Kaplan CD(I hardly looked at the book because the real material is on the CD that comes with the book) is reasonable.
I liked "The Insiders guide to the GMAT cat" a lot more though and nothing beats the Official Guide as long as you make sure you do the last 50-100 questions in each math section(ie the first 100 or 200 are very easy but then they get realistic)
Rating:
Summary: Nice Math Review, Poor Test Questions
Review: The Kaplan book/CD is a good study tool to help you with your ability to tackle the GMAT. It guides you through basic test-taking skills and GMAT-specific techniques and practice problems. The practice exams provided by Kaplan, however, are a very poor gauge of your actual ability on the test. The Kaplan test questions are not written as well as the actual GMAT questions, so the ambiguity and confusion will probably lower your score. My rule of thumb is to add a little over 100 points to my test result from the Kaplan tests. Don't get frustrated when you get a low score from Kaplan, just keep practicing and you'll be pleasantly surprised. I got a 590 on Kaplan's Diagnostic, then I got a 580 and a 560 on the first two practice exams--I quit taking Kaplan exams after that. On the PowerPrep tests from ETS I got a 680 and a 740. I scored a 710 on the real GMAT.
Rating:
Summary: Good practice for HARDEST problems / score is a joke though
Review: The Kaplan GMAT prep book is not without it merits however its practice tests scores are totally unrealistic. The best thing about Kaplin is that it teaches you aggressive clock management and MAKES you guess in order to finish. When I first took the practice test I managed to get a 580. After 2 months of study I took the final test the night before the real GMAT and got a 560 My GMAT score on test day... 740. I'm sorry but a 180 point margin of error renders the practice tests worthless for anything but reviewing the material. Get the Princeton Review GMAT book if you only plan to buy one prep book for test taking strategies and to brush up fast on the basic verbal and math. I recommend Kaplin if you intend to devote more than 50 hours reviewing for the test and really want to get back into all the math and English you at one point thought you could safely relegate to the trash heap of highschool history.
Rating:
Summary: Good practice for HARDEST problems / score is a joke though
Review: The Kaplan GMAT prep book is not without it merits however its practice tests scores are totally unrealistic. The best thing about Kaplin is that it teaches you aggressive clock management and MAKES you guess in order to finish. When I first took the practice test I managed to get a 580. After 2 months of study I took the final test the night before the real GMAT and got a 560 My GMAT score on test day... 740. I'm sorry but a 180 point margin of error renders the practice tests worthless for anything but reviewing the material. Get the Princeton Review GMAT book if you only plan to buy one prep book for test taking strategies and to brush up fast on the basic verbal and math. I recommend Kaplin if you intend to devote more than 50 hours reviewing for the test and really want to get back into all the math and English you at one point thought you could safely relegate to the trash heap of highschool history.
Rating: 
Summary: Skip Kaplan, buy the official guide
Review: This book is almost useless. As everyone pointed out, it does not give you an accurate indication of your expected performance at all. The questions are on the tricky side, the math problems are not necessarily harder than the actual ones, but they definitely need more work (hence more time), the reading comprehension passages are much longer, and the questions are more detailed than the real ones, in fact, they are the LSAT level questions (yup, I studied for that, too), so you are extremely pressed for time. It scares you, demoralizes you, and it doesn't really help you prepare. I took the first diag. test w/o any prep, and got a 620, then after considerable amount of practice with the official guide (got at least 93% of the questions correct in every section), took more of its CATs, and scores began to drop like a rock, 590, 570, 550. So I said what the hey (or something to that effect 8-)), took the test anyway, and got a 740!! I even had 10 minutes to spare on the math part. Go figure. But I do believe the high actual score is consistent with all my works. The verdict, buy the official guide, and do every one of the problems (it took me about a week to go through all the problems, but it was time well spent). Skip this Kaplan guide. But you might want the Kaplan GMAT Verbal Workbook.
Rating:
Summary: Demoralizing...and can break u down
Review: Well, first, I have to say thank you to each and every person who has written a review on the Kaplan book telling us not to take the scores into consideration. I used the book to study and it was a good start; when it was time to do the first test on the CD, I scored 550...I studied more and I got another 550. It was devastating, thinking that the CAT test is about determining the test taker range....after taking one powerprep test where I scored 680, I decided to tackle the third Kaplan CAT test; guess what??? another 550; this was crushing. Before the test, Kaplan demoralized me, but the reviews on amazon kept me going. I studied for two days in the ETS official guide which proved to be of great help and I mean invaluable help. I took the test a couple of days later and I scored 730, YES, 730 (97th percentile). THIS IS A 180 DIFFERENTIAL between my KAPLAN SCORES AND MY REAL SCORE. So a serious note for future test takers, buy the KAPLAN, if you have time to read for tips and math review, but dont do the tests unless you have the time and the knowledge that they are not indicative at all. I got three 550s, this is consistent, but to score a 730 on the real test with those 550s in mind, it was great. Keep it up, get powerprep and the official guide with the ton of questions in it and solve them.
Good luck
<< 1 >>
|
