In an effort to provide some guidance and assistance for those who are looking to go for their MBA, I will try and document the process as much as I can. This might include what I find out online, from talking to people, and book reviews. Here’s the first in a series of what I hope will be useful book reviews for your enjoyment.
A graduate degree in business or management can transform your professional life, opening the door to promotions, new opportunities, and new careers. For better or for worse, which business school you attend depends to some degree upon how well you do on the GMAT. 
I picked up an electronic (PDF) copy of GMAT Exam Success in Only 4 Steps. Please don’t let the title fool you. There is no book that I am aware of that outlines “only 4 steps” in 416 pages. That’s right. Over four hundred pages to show you four steps. Once I got past that, I was pretty impressed with the book.
The GMAT exam is broken down into three parts: The Analytical Writing Assessment, The Quantitative Section, and the Verbal Section.
The first chapter tells the reader all about the GMAT exam. It gives an over view, explains how the test is scored, how to get your scores to the school, and how to pay for the exam. One thing I did notice is that when the book was published in 2003, the cost of the exam was only $200.00. I do believe that the current price is $250.00. Other than that, I didn’t find any outdated or irrelevant information.
The second chapter focuses more on GMAT study skills. It suggests starting points, advises the reader on how to develop a study plan, and addresses test-taking techniques. These are basic things that anyone should know, but is a very helpful chapter none the less. This is especially true for those of us who have not taken such an intensive exam in many years.
Chapters 3-12 concentrate on the verbal part of the exam. Comprehension, critical thinking, reasoning, sentence structure and other things are covered at length. Again, these are basic things in many ways, but for those of us who have not been to high school in many years, this will be a great refresher. I was unaware of how much I had forgot over the years.
Excerpt:
The third and final part of the GMAT exam is the Verbal section. You will have another 75 minutes to answer 41 multiple-choice questions. These questions cover three areas: reading comprehension, critical reasoning, and sentence correction. Approximately one-third of the questions will fall into each category.
Chapters 13-17 focus on the writing assessment portion of the exam. As anyone who is active in distance education knows, writing is the foundation for the educational process. At Kaplan, for instance, there is at least one writing assignment per week, and we must take part in the message forums. These message forums usually consist of three questions relating to the assignment for the week. Being able to write effectively is one of the absolute, indisputable factors to success in online education. These chapters go over things that are key points related to this task.
Excerpt:
The first part of the GMAT exam, the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA), is designed to measure your ability to analyze ideas and to write clearly and effectively about those ideas. The student is asked to write two separate essays: one that analyzes an issue and one that analyzes an argument. You will have 30 minutes for each essay.
Chapters 18-24 concentrate on the quantitative section. In layman’s terminology, this is the part that covers math. This part is scary to me since math is my weak point. Just seeing 2+2 gives me a headache. But it’s a requirement, so I will have to bite the bullet, I suppose. This section covers arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. There are also some practice tests available in the book to test your skills.
Excerpt:
The Quantitative section is the second part of the test and includes 37 multiple-choice questions covering two areas of mathematics: data sufficiency and problem solving. You will have 75 minutes to answer these questions.
This is a good book for someone who is completely unfamiliar with the GMAT (like me). It provides a comprehensive perspective on what to expect on the test. It gives the reader some great study tips. Most of all, I think this book is very well suited for people like me who have a large gap in the time between high school and college. There are some essential things that everyone needs to know, and when we “get on with our daily lives”, we tend to forget some of the basics. This book is a good refresher for some of those.
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
