Most good students in school review their class notes and books while they study for an upcoming quiz or test. Since you are preparing to take the GMAT, you must own The Official Guide for GMAT Review. Unlike other GMAT study guides, The Official Guide for GMAT Review contains former questions that appeared on the actual GMAT.
Understand the Structure of The Official Guide for GMAT Review
The Official Guide for GMAT Review has earned its title as the “GMAT Bible.” To get you pumped up for studying for the GMAT, The Official Guide for GMAT Review, the 12th edition contains a separate diagnostic quiz for both the verbal section (52 questions) and quantitative section (48 questions). The purpose of the diagnostic quizzes is to indentify your problem areas. Some people have difficulty understanding number properties, while others have difficulty understanding idioms. Do not be discouraged or boast because of your diagnostic score. You still need to finish the entire book, which contains many more questions.
Once you complete the diagnostic test, review the answer for each question, even if the question was easy for you to solve. Sometimes the book will provide you with an alternate way to solve quantitative questions. In addition, the question answers are a learning tool for you to check your problem solving logic. Sometimes you may get the correct answer, but your logic is flawed. On test day, you want both your logic and answer to be correct.
Next, each individual section of The Official Guide for GMAT Review has over 100 practice problems for you to solve. The individual sections include the following: problem solving, data sufficiency, reading comprehension, critical reasoning and sentence correction. Questions in each of the 5 sections are written in order of difficulty; therefore, the test makers believe that questions at the beginning of each section are easier than questions at the end of each section. After you finish each section, review each question’s answer, regardless if you thought the question was easy to solve. If you have enough time before you take the GMAT, you may consider completing the book’s questions for a second time. Remember, the questions that you find in The Official Guide for GMAT Review were once questions on the actual GMAT.
A Final Note about the GMAT
If your goal is to do well on the GMAT, you need The Official Guide for GMAT Review, for this study guide allows you to practice retired GMAT questions. As a result, studying from The Official Guide for GMAT Review will give you a sense of the type of questions that you will probably see on test day. Study hard, but give yourself a few days to rest before taking the GMAT.