Kaplan GMAT 800: Advanced Prep for Advanced Students (Kaplan Gmat Advanced)

I am not blasting this book - I am giving you a rating based on the expectation that the description of this book sets. It does not live up and you are bound to be disappointed. However, it is actually a valuable book but you need to be aware of what you are buying and probably how to use it best when you buy it:

As a pure guidebook - 1 star

As a question collection - 3.5 stars

What You Will Find Inside:

28 Critical reasoning questions

31 Reading comprehension questions

110 Sentence correction questions

107 Problem solving questions (only 7 of which cover combinations and probability)

37 Data Sufficiency questions

***** CONS *****

* No review of math principles or grammar rules. This book assumes that you have gone through the Kaplan's main GMAT book. If you need help with basics look into getting the Math or Verbal Workbooks before getting this one.

* Illogical...Read more

I strongly disagree with the one-star review given here and feel compelled to give my own take.

This books is tough and painful to get through. But, if you are serious about getting into a Top 10 Business School, then this is the best book you can get. Look, if you are even considering a Top 10 school you probably score reasonably well on the GMAT to begin with. This book is a collection of the toughest questions that can be found. It gives some guidance on how to get through the questions, but the real value is simply going through them all and figuring out the patterns yourself. I was scoring in the high 600's before this book. I then spent about an hour every night going through it until I had done every question in every section twice. It was painful, to be sure, but the 780 I got at the end of it all made it all worthwhile.

This book is not for everyone. If you are an average test taker or student you will simply find this book to be too nuanced and...Read more

The book has 2 parts: First 2/3 verbal and last 1/3 math. There are very FEW questions and no practice tests in this book.

The math part is OK, but do not expect any good tips or examples of difficult GMAT questions. It is NOT any different from regular GMAT books in terms of difficulty of questions. The title 800 GMAT is absolutely and completely misleading. The questions do not resemble GMAT questions. For example, divisibility and mods, which are quite frequent in GMAT, are not covered (I got 2 in my GMAT). Princeton Review's Cracking GMAT book has more difficult questions than Kaplan 800 GMAT. Last but not least, there are duplicate questions in the book.

The verbal section is in complete disarray. The questions are not great and the explanations for answers of some questions are ridiculous, unclear or insufficient. It feels like they just didn't want to put any attention into the content. It feels like it was assembled by a greedy corporation...Read more