Rating: 
Summary: CD is lousy, book tactics are helpful
Review: I needed to prepare for the GMAT and wanted a Mac Friendly CD with sample tests. I got the book, read through the chapters, and instead of taking the Princeton Review test, I took one of the two free PowerPrep tests. I scored 710. "Cool" I thought, I still have three weeks before the real test. I'll work through the ETS book problems, take the Princeton tests, and the final PowerPrep test. Then my score should be great.
So, the next few days I worked through some ETS problems. Took my first Princeton Review test: 550. 550!?!? Gees, what happened. Now I got a little scared. I spent the next few days working more problems. PR test #2: 590. Still far away from 710. Repeat working problems. PR test #3: 640. More problems. PR test #4: 680. Getting closer. More problems. Took the last PowerPrep test: 710. Same as the first time I took it.
I took the GMAT and as you could guess, I got a 710.
So, not sure if any of the studying helped. I did think that the test tactics in the Princeton Review was good though...
Rating: 
Summary: Anyone Know?
Review: Does anyone know if they improved the CD rom for the 2005 edition?
Rating:
Summary: Getting Most out of This book
Review: I bought this book as my first GMAT prep guide because I had heard a lot about Princeton Review series. From the very beginning I felt that writers of this book hate ETS. They kept talking about how ETS doesn't care about real intelligence or capabilities but only about money.
That said, the book was helpful, even though a little inconsistent at times. Here are all the positives and negatives:
Positives:
1) Great Quantitative section. You will learn all high school math quickly and efficiently.
2) The tricks and tips described in this book really work. The POE and Joe Bloggs become part of your problem solving strategy.
3) Covers all aspects of preparation, from the day you buy the book, to the application strategy
Negatives:
1) Seriously flawed AWA section. Everything they said about writing a great essay goes contrary to what ETS suggests. I would rather trust ETS than Princeton.
2) Inconsistencies confuse the reader: Sometimes they talk about moving on as quickly as possible. At other times they advice spending enough time on some questions.
3) Wrong answers: A number of answers provided by them are wrong confusing the reader even further.
4) Illogical explanations are provided for some of the concepts. It seems the writers were in a hurry to finish the book.
CONCLUSION: Worth Buying but you cannot rely upon this one book alone. For top 10 schools, score of 700 is average today. This means you cannot afford to make many errors. Princeton is not sufficient to gaurantee that. You must download the free material provided by ETS at www.mba.com and buy a few other books like Kaplan's.
Rating:
Summary: Bad Review - Bad Grammar
Review: I find it funny that the bad reviews for this book are rife with grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors. I found one good review for this book and it was well written and easy to read. I guess that means I should order the book.
Rating:
Summary: Best GMAT book on the market
Review: I flipped through all the latest GMAT books at the bookstore before coming here to Amazon...the PR book is definitely the best. Well-written, easy to follow, and the strategies are very good, especially for verbal. The tests are excellent. They break down your results by question type so you can easily spot your weaknesses, and they have full answer explanations for every question. Keep track of your mistakes in an error log so you can improve even faster. I have already seen a lot of improvement in my practice scores and would recommend this book to anyone taking the GMAT (also be sure to get the Official Guide).
I haven't had a single problem with the CD - it runs perfectly on my machine. If it hung up your computer for that long, it's your computer, not the CD. Make sure you don't have a bunch of other programs running in the background (shouldn't be multi-tasking while taking the GMAT anyway!), and make sure you have enough virtual memory available. If you have problems like that, you should call tech support for whatever CD you're using - they can help you adjust the settings on your PC so that it performs properly. That's almost always what it takes.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Strategies, so-so tests
Review: I really like PR's overall layout and presentation. It made the Strategies easier to understand and absorb. The practice questions are good, but the tests are sub par when compared to Kaplan's. If I could buy 3 GMAT books, the third book would be this one.
Here is my strategy:
1) Use Princeton Review to study the basic strategies.
2) Apply those strategies to the 10th edition.
3) Take the Kaplan Test for the hardest tests on the market.
4) Enjoy your 750, 99 percentile score. =)
Rating:
Summary: bugs in the software
Review: I waited till june 15 to but the new edition 2005 of this book.The software seems to have bugs. To review the tests they provide a new feature where we can upload results to the website. I thought it was a good strategy to get people to the website. But good strategies also need be well implemented...After completing my first test I chose an option "upload results later"
Without uploading the results I was not able to see my score.I could review the questions and see where I had gone wrong but the software doesnt give you a score. Unfortunately I couldnt "upload results later" as I couldnt find out how to. After completing the second test I chose upload options now. The software ftp'ed my results and mentioned that I will be recieving an email and that I can check my results online. I still waiting for the email. Although I was able to log in to the princetonreview web site I cant find a test result section on the website.
Rating: 
Summary: Software is horrible!
Review: Like many of the other users, I took a test using the enclosed cd. When I had finished sitting for 3 hours, I waited eagerly for my score. Unfortunately retrieving my score pinned my CPU at 100% for about 20 mintues. Multiple attempts at this throughout the day didn't help. I never did receive my score. So I went and bought Kaplan's book which has the answers included on the CD.
Rating: 
Summary: Inconsistent Data Sufficiency Questions
Review: The data sufficiency portions of this book are incredibly inconsistent. Specifically the geometry problems. The drawings for these questions are not to scale. Sometimes the answer-explanations remember this, sometimes they forget this. In some questions, the explanations make assumptions that do not exist in the diagram, in other questions if you make these assumptions, you are told that you should not.
There are a few typos in some of the questions that lead you to make the wrong answer selection.
Overall, the multiple-choice math questions are correct. Find a different source for data sufficiency problems.
Rating:
Summary: Practice exams the only saving grace
Review: The strategies in this book are some of the worst I've ever seen in my life. They make stupid recommendations like, "If you think the question is difficult, you can rule out the obvious answer as being correct." The entire strategy they present is based on second-guessing what the writer of the quesiton was thinking. If you want to play psychologist during your exam this might be right up your alley, but I'd rather spend my time studying to be able to arriving at the correct answers on my own.
The questions in the book are far too easy. If you want practice questions stick to the offical GMAT guide.
As the title of my review indicates, the exams are the saving grace of this book. Why? They let you practice taking a 4 hour long test using software similar to that used for the real test.
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