The Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review 2017 with Online Question Bank and Exclusive Video 1st Edition

Founded by a Stanford MBA, GMAT Genius offers the highest quality GMAT preparation services to GMAT aspirants worldwide. Our mission is crystal-clear: to help you achieve GMAT success. The publisher of the GMAT Official Guides asked GMAT Genius to help it improve the online versions of the Official Guides, and GMAT Genius has worked closely with the Official Guide publisher in the weeks leading up to the release of the 2017 editions. We have thoroughly analyzed the 2017 Official Guides and want to share our insights with you. Feel free to read our detailed analysis or skip down to our conclusions.OVERVIEW of OFFICIAL GUIDEThe Official Guides for GMAT Review contain retired real GMAT questions, and are an essential component of your GMAT preparations. The GMAC places questions in order of increasing difficulty, based on its assessment of difficulty. The Verbal Official Guide has no overlap with questions in the main Official Guide.The 2017 edition of this book contains 45 new questions out of the 301 total questions, representing 15% new content. These are new questions that we have not encountered before; they are not questions recycled from older GMAC resources. One formatting change in the 2017 edition is that all questions are now numbered from 1 to 300, whereas previously each question type was numbered independently.SENTENCE CORRECTIONThis book contains 113 Sentence Correction questions. The GMAC classifies question difficulty into three categories as follows:Easy – 31 (27%, same as 2016)Medium – 51 (45%, same)Hard – 31 (27%, same)The Sentence Correction section contains 17 new questions, with difficulty of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 6 / 7 / 4. This is in lieu of 17 questions from the 2016 edition that have been removed, with difficulty of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 5 / 6 / 6. The GMAC has upgraded the difficulty of one Easy and two Medium questions from the prior edition.GMAT Genius classifies question difficulty into five categories. Our assessment skews slightly further away from the center, but contains notable differences from the GMAC. Our difficulty assessment is only 71.3% correlated with the GMAC’s assessment, clearly showing that there is subjectivity involved in assessing question difficulty. Here’s our breakdown:Super Easy – 5 (4%, 1 fewer than 2016)Easy – 30 (27%, 2 fewer)Medium – 43 (38%, 4 more)Hard – 28 (25%, 3 more)Very Hard – 7 (6%, 4 fewer)Although Sentence Correction questions typically entail multiple grammar concepts (as described on our website), GMAT Genius classifies questions based on our assessment of the primary tested concept. We break down the 113 Sentence Correction questions as follows:Verb Agreement: 7 (6%, 1 fewer than 2016)Verb Tense: 14 (12%, 2 more)Pronoun Ambiguity: 9 (8%, 2 fewer)Pronoun Agreement: 11 (10%, same)Parallel Construction: 32 (28%, 4 fewer)Misplaced Modifiers: 15 (13%, 3 more)Idioms: 10 (9%, 2 more)Comparison & Quantity: 8 (7%, same)Expression & Meaning: 7 (6%, same)Here’s a list of the 17 new Sentence Correction questions: 189, 190, 200, 210, 211, 216, 241, 243, 245, 250, 254, 258, 260, 279, 281, 296, 299Here’s a list of the 113 Sentence Correction questions categorized by question type:Verb Agreement: 204, 230, 251, 267, 274, 277, 285Verb Tense: 202, 203, 211, 216, 219, 226, 227, 228, 229, 257, 258, 273, 287, 294Pronoun Ambiguity: 214, 256, 259, 260, 263, 271, 275, 278, 286Pronoun Agreement: 190, 206, 207, 208, 210, 234, 236, 240, 261, 284, 299Parallel Construction: 191, 192, 194, 195, 197, 205, 212, 213, 218, 222, 223, 224, 225, 244, 245, 246, 247, 249, 253, 254, 255, 262, 264, 269, 282, 283, 289, 290, 293, 295, 297, 298Misplaced Modifiers: 189, 196, 198, 220, 231, 232, 237, 238, 248, 265, 266, 268, 279, 281, 288Idioms: 193, 201, 217, 235, 239, 243, 250, 272, 276, 296Comparison & Quantity: 200, 221, 233, 242, 252, 291, 300, 301Expression & Meaning: 199, 209, 215, 241, 270, 280, 292CRITICAL REASONINGThis book contains 83 Critical Reasoning questions. The GMAC classifies question difficulty into three categories as follows:Easy – 34 (41%, same as 2016)Medium – 26 (31%, same)Hard – 23 (28%, same)The Critical Reasoning section contains 13 new questions, with difficulty of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 6 / 3 / 4. This is in lieu of 13 questions from the 2016 edition that have been removed, with difficulty of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 7 / 3 / 3. The GMAC has downgraded the difficulty of one Medium and one Hard questions from the prior edition.GMAT Genius classifies question difficulty into five categories. Our assessment skews slightly more towards the middle, but contains notable differences from the GMAC. Our difficulty assessment is only 64.9% correlated with the GMAC’s assessment, demonstrating tremendous subjectivity involved in assessing question difficulty. Here’s our breakdown:Super Easy – 1 (1%, 1 more than 2016)Easy – 24 (29%, 5 fewer)Medium – 38 (46%, 2 more)Hard – 14 (17%, 2 more)Very Hard – 6 (7%, same)We have grouped the questions based on the question type categorization that GMAT Genius uses for Critical Reasoning (as described on our website). We break down the 83 Critical Reasoning questions as follows:Weaken: 19 (23%, 2 fewer than 2016)Strengthen: 17 (20%, 1 fewer)Assumption: 6 (7%, 1 fewer)Reasoning: 3 (4%, 1 more)Conclusion: 7 (8%, same)Explain: 7 (8%, 1 more)Evaluate: 6 (7%, 1 fewer)Boldface: 4 (5%, 1 more)Complete the Passage: 14 (17%, 2 more)Here’s a list of the 13 new Critical Reasoning questions: 106, 110, 117, 124, 133, 139, 146, 153, 158, 166, 172, 180, 188Here’s a list of the 83 Critical Reasoning questions categorized by question type:Weaken: 111, 123, 126, 127, 130, 131, 135, 140, 144, 147, 152, 163, 167, 172, 173, 177, 180, 186, 187Strengthen: 106, 112, 116, 122, 139, 141, 142, 143, 145, 149, 160, 162, 168, 171, 179, 182, 188Assumption: 121, 153, 161, 174, 181, 184Reasoning: 125, 156, 158Conclusion: 107, 114, 119, 120, 128, 151, 166Explain: 110, 115, 136, 137, 138, 159, 170Evaluate: 113, 117, 150, 155, 165, 178Boldface: 124, 164, 169, 183Complete the Passage: 108, 109, 118, 129, 132, 133, 134, 146, 148, 154, 157, 175, 176, 185READING COMPREHENSIONThis book contains 105 Reading Comprehension questions across 18 passages. The GMAC classifies question difficulty into three categories as follows:Easy – 28 (27%, 2 more than 2016)Medium – 37 (35%, 10 fewer)Hard – 40 (38%, 8 more)The Reading Comprehension section contains 15 new questions, with difficulty of Easy / Medium / Hard as follows: 6 / 9 / 0. This is in lieu of 15 questions from the 2016 edition that have been removed, all of Medium difficulty. The GMAC has upgraded four Easy questions to Medium, and eight Medium questions to Hard.GMAT Genius classifies question difficulty into five categories. Whereas the GMAC assigns the same difficulty to all questions for a given passage (except for one passage split between Medium and Hard), GMAT Genius assesses the difficulty of each question individually. Our assessment skews easier, but contains notable differences from the GMAC. Our difficulty assessment is only 49.0% correlated with the GMAC’s assessment, in large part due to different difficulty assessment methodologies. Here’s our breakdown:Super Easy – 6 (6%, same as 2016)Easy – 29 (28%, 5 more)Medium – 39 (37%, 2 fewer)Hard – 22 (21%, 3 fewer)Very Hard – 9 (9%, same)We have grouped the questions based on the question type categorization that GMAT Genius uses for Reading Comprehension (as described on our website). We break down the 105 Reading Comprehension questions as follows:Primary Purpose: 14 (13%, 1 fewer than 2016)Author's Tone: 6 (6%, same)Organization: 3 (3%, same)Function: 15 (14%, 1 fewer)Specific Reference: 25 (24%, 2 fewer)Inference: 39 (37%, 3 more)Critical Reasoning: 3 (3%, 1 more)Here’s a list of the 15 new Reading Comprehension questions: 11 to 16, 46 to 54ONLINE INTERFACEThe book includes an access code (see inside back cover) that provides 12-month usage of an online version of this Official Guide. Since the GMAT is a computer-based test, we believe that it is advisable to work though the questions online. We recommend that you use Exam Mode rather than Practice Mode, since we recommend that students practice using timed question sets that replicate test day conditions.The online practice interface has improved significantly from last year’s version. The publishers implemented most of our recommendations. In particular, note the following improvements:1) The test interface more closely resembles GMATPrep.2) Exam Mode is now default mode, and you cannot skip questions in Exam Mode.3) The overview screen shows the number of questions answered and that remain unanswered, for each question type and difficulty level.4) All questions now indicate the corresponding book number, for easier cross-referencing.5) The system now has a significantly longer period before it logs-out your session.6) All session timing is now fully accurate.Our only significant concern with the online interface is that the system limits you to 10 saved sessions. Once you reach this limit, you must delete at least one saved session in order to keep practicing. But doing so puts all the questions from that saved session back into the unanswered question pool. As such, we recommend that you separately track which question types / difficulties you have already completed. Furthermore, complete all Easy questions in a maximum of 10 sessions, advance to Medium questions in max 10 sessions, and focus on the Hard questions in max 10 sessions towards the end of your prep.OTHER NOTESThe Official Guides are for practicing with real GMAT questions, not for learning the underlying concepts. The brief introductions to the concepts tested on the verbal section are highly inadequate. We recommend that you use additional study materials to learn the verbal concepts.Although all questions include answer explanations, many GMAT test takers are far from satisfied with these explanations. Most GMAT test takers consider the Sentence Correction explanations quite cryptic. The Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension explanations, however, are reasonably good overall.CONCLUSIONSThe Verbal Official Guide has two primary weaknesses, in our opinion:1) An insufficient amount of difficult practice questions, particularly based on GMAT Genius’ assessment of difficulty2) Sentence Correction explanations are too crypticDespite these flaws, the Verbal Official Guide is an essential source of GMAT practice, and nicely supplements the main GMAT Official Guide for additional practice questions. We believe that every GMAT aspirant must use this book (or the prior edition). For these reasons, we give this book a 5-star rating. For the best value, we recommend purchasing this book as part of The Official Guide to the GMAT Review 2017 Bundle + Question Bank + Video. If you already have the 2016 edition of this book, however, the replacement of 45 verbal questions is not sufficient to make this book worth purchasing.GMAT Genius provides extensive analysis of the Official Guides on the GMAT Genius blog at GMATgenius.com/blog/. Click on the category Official Guides. You will also find extensive free GMAT preparation advice on the GMAT Genius website at GMATgenius.com/gmat-preparation/. In addition, we offer the highest-quality private GMAT tutoring to students worldwide. We wish you tremendous success with the GMAT!

I'm a Harvard grad, 99% GMAT scorer and full-time tutor who has taught the GMAT for 16 years.This book gets five stars from me because it's an excellent source of official mid-level practice questions for the GMAT, in addition to the free GMATPrep software. For more information, I would also strongly encourage you to read my exhaustive reviews of the 2017 GMAT Official Guide Bundle The Official Guide to the GMAT Review 2017 Bundle + Question Bank + Video, the 2017 GMAT Official Guide The Official Guide for GMAT Review 2017 with Online Question Bank and Exclusive Video and the 2017 GMAT Official Guide for Quantitative Review The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review 2017 with Online Question Bank and Exclusive Video.For those of you who already have the 2016 edition, here is a full list of the 45 new questions in the book:Sentence Correction (17 new questions): 189, 190, 200, 210, 211, 216, 241, 243, 245, 250, 254, 258, 260, 279, 281, 296, 299Critical Reasoning (13 new questions): 106, 110, 117, 124, 133, 139, 146, 153, 158, 166, 172, 180, 188Reading Comprehension (15 new questions): 11-16, 46-54Please note that there is no Kindle version of this book available yet. If you need a Kindle version right away, then I would suggest buying the 2016 Kindle version, which has the same total number of questions: The Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review 2016 with Online Question Bank and Exclusive Video

In my opinion there was no need to release this guide. This new edition is identical to the older version of this guide which is called the Official Guide to GMAT 13th Edition. All of the questions in this guide(I checked every single quant question) are exactly the same as the older version. If you already own the older version, then there is no need to buy this.The only additional thing that comes with this guide is the online access to the same pool of 900 questions. The online database allows students to select the type of problem and the difficulty level(easy, medium, and hard). One can also attempt the problems in study mode or exam mode. That pretty much is the only useful addition to this new release. Other than that GMAC, the writers of the test, are just using this to make more money by making previous editions seem obsolete.I gave it four stars because it is an indispensable source that provides official GMAT questions which are key to getting a sense of the style and structure of the GMAT questions. I teach GMAT and students who would like to access free video explanations to all of the 450 questions in this guide can access them here: www.gmatquantum.com/ogvideos.

Great review material. I recommend getting the actual book rather than the e-book if you want to be more efficient, BC the book is so large that it may take a while to flip through pages electronically. And there are lots of practice questions with answers in a different part of the book, so would be easier to have a physical copy, but with a decent computer, the eBook should be fine. Better than nothing.