Best GMAT Resources (Top 10 Recommendations)

This post helps those who are looking for a list of books to use for GMAT preparation. If you’re wondering what books to buy for GMAT then this list provides you with an idea of what types of resources are out there, and which ones might best suit your needs.

Here’ a List of the Best GMAT Resources

I have used the resources listed here to improve my GMAT score from 650 to 710 in 60 days; and from 710 to 750 in a few months. And in other articles, I’ve shared the strategy, study plan, and learning techniques I used to achieve the 100-point improvement.

So, this is a list I put together from personal experience and I am confident you’ll be well served by these recommendations.

Manhattan Prep All the GMAT (Best Study Guide)

Let’s face it – when was the last time you took a standardized test? Chances are – you don’t remember.

On the bright side, GMAT does not test you on college-level quantitative reasoning or verbal reasoning skills.

You learned the knowledge and skills you require to score 700 or more on the GMAT before you graduated from high-school.

But here’s the problem: you’ve forgotten most of what you learned.

This is why you need a study guide to help you re-acquaint yourself with the terms, concepts, formulas, rules, methods, approaches, and techniques relevant to the GMAT.

The best study guide is the Manhattan Prep All the GMAT strategy guide.

But there’s a lot of confusion about the Manhattan Prep strategy guides. (You’ll soon see why)

When I took the GMAT, Manhattan Prep published 3 verbal strategy guides and 5 quantitative strategy guides. These guides covered the following topics:

Verbal Reasoning

• Reading Comprehension
• Critical Reasoning
• Sentence Correction

Quantitative Reasoning

• Algebra
• Fractions, Decimals, and Percents
• Geometry
• Number Properties
• Word Problems

Although I bought all theses guides, I liked the guides could be purchased individually. But now, they’re starting to combine these guides.

Now, Manhattan Prep combined the 3 verbal reasoning reasoning guides into one book called GMAT All the Verbal.

They also merged the 5 quantitative reasoning guides into one book called GMAT All the Quant.

But the combining doesn’t stop there…

Finally, they bundled the GMAT All the Verbal, GMAT All the Quant, and GMAT Integrated Reasoning & Essay into one bundle called All the GMAT.

Phew…

So, here’s my recommendation.

If you have the budget for it, buy All the GMAT so that you get all the Manhattan Prep GMAT strategy guides at the best possible price.

But if you don’t want to spend that much at one go, I recommend you buy the GMAT All the Verbal guide first and the GMAT All the Quant guide later.

As of this writing, you can still purchase the individual guides on Amazon. But I’m not sure how long Manhattan Prep will keep it on the market.

Pros

• GMAT-Specific Content: These strategy guides have the best GMAT-specific content on the market. Experienced instructors who have scored in the 99th percentile created the content for these books.
• Computer Adaptive Practice Exams: When you buy any of the Manhattan Prep strategy guides, you get access to 6 Computer Adaptive Practice Exams. These exams are the best full-length practice tests I’ve seen. Access to these tests alone is reason enough to buy these guides.
• Works Well with the Official Guide: After you buy the guide, you get access to many online resources. One such resource links the content in the strategy guides with the corresponding questions in the GMAT Official Guide. This makes it easy for you to use the Manhattan Prep guides with the Official Guide.

Cons

• Expensive: The only gripe I have with the Manhattan Prep strategy guides is that it’s expensive. I’m not saying its not overcharging. The guides do provide more than enough for what you pay. What I am saying is that the price may put it out of reach for people who are on a tight budget.

GMAT Official Guide (Best Question Bank)

Reading books on swimming is not enough to learn how to swimm – wouldn’t you agree? I hope so…

The Manhattan Prep strategy guides are amazing. But if you’re aiming for a 700+ score on the GMAT, the strategy guides aren’t enough. You need a question bank to develop your problem-solving abilities by applying what you learned from the study guides.

A question question bank is a collection of question along with the answer key and solution for each question. In addition to providing the key and solution, a good question bank must also organize the questions by section, topic, question format, and level of difficulty.

The GMAT Official Guide does all this and more.

The current edition of the GMAT Official Guide has 998 questions. The question bank organizes these questions into five sections:

• Problem Solving
• Data Sufficiency
• Reading Comprehension
• Critical Reasoning
• Sentence Correction

At the end of each section, you will find the answer key for all the questions in the section along with solutions.

The book also has a question index that sorts the questions in the above section by topic, sub-topic, and level of difficulty.

In addition to all this, you get access to 150 additional questions online.

The latest edition of the book also gives you access to the questions online. So, you don’t have to carry the book around with you. You can access it from your mobile, pc, or mac.

If there’s one book that I would insist on buying, it’s the Official Guide.

Pros

• Authentic GMAT Questions: Every other source of GMAT questions reverse engineers the questions in the GMAT Official Guide. The GMAT Official Guide is the only question bank that has questions that have previously appeared on the GMAT. In addition to that, all the questions the solutions in the Official Guide have been authored by people who create questions for the actual GMAT.
• Well Organized: The Official Guide organizes the questions by section, topic, sub-topic, question format, and level of difficulty. The organization makes it easy for you to structure your practice sessions around a section, topic, sub-topic, questions format, or level of difficulty.
• Access to Online Portal: The online portal allows you to create a custom practice session by section, topic, question format, and level of difficulty.

Cons

• Inadequate Theory Coverage: Although the Official Guide makes an attempt to cover topics tested on the GMAT, the coverage is not enough for anyone looking for a 700+ score. You will need a study guide.
• Not Enough for 750+ Score: If you’re aiming for a 750+ score on the GMAT, you’ll need to buy another book – the GMAT Official Advanced Questions.

Manhattan Prep Computer Adaptive Practice Exams (Best Full-Length Tests)

Have you ever noticed this:

You’re done with the test and you step out of the exam hall. Suddenly, you remember answers to questions you couldn’t answer on the test.

It’s a face-palm moment. But why does this happen?

In my experience, this happens because you didn’t test your abilities to find out gaps in your preparation.

After you go through the study guide and solve all the problems in the question bank, you got to put your abilities to the test.

Tests reveal areas of improvement. In discovering these areas of improvement, you get the chance to plug the gaps preemptively.

That’s why you need to take many full-length practice tests before appearing for the GMAT.

The best full-length practice test in my experience is the Manhattan Prep Computer Adaptive Practice Exam. Here’s why:

The number one reason why I’m a raving fan of these tests is the assessment report. The assessment report tells you the following:

• Accuracy across sections and topics
• Individual and average time spent per question
• Average level of difficulty per section and topic

You can use this information in the following ways:

• Discover areas where your accuracy is below 50% and work on those areas.
• Figure out issues with your pacing and time management
• Correlate level of difficulty with pacing and accuracy

After each full-length practice test, I spent 1-2 hours analyzing my performance. This analysis helped me improve my performance from 620 in the first test to 690 in the last one.

Now, no practice test can accurately predict how much you’ll score on the acutal GMAT. But from my experience, the Manhattan Prep practice exams come very close.

But I do admit that the Manhattan Prep practice exams are a little tougher than the actual GMAT. So, you can expect a 10-20 point gain on the actual GMAT.

Note: If you buy any of the Manhattan Prep strategy guides, you get access to 6 full-length computer adaptive practice exams. However, they are available for purchase separately.

Pros

• Adaptive: Some of the tests claim to be adaptive. But you can really experience the Manhattan Prep practice tests changing as you take them. In comparing the assessment reports, I could see the average level of difficulty for each topic increase as my abilities developed.
• Assessment Report: The in-depth assessment report reveals critical insights regarding your accuracy and pacing. Without this information, I could have taken months to achieve the improvement I achieved in weeks.
• Works Well with the Strategy Guides: The assessment report presents the data according to the sections and topics in the strategy guide. Since the report and the guides follow the same structure, you’ll find it easy to work on your areas of improvement after you identify them.

Cons

• Slightly Inaccurate: To be fair, I haven’t seen any other test that can accurately simulate GMAT’s scoring algorithm. So, you can expect some variability between your practice scores and the actual score. But on the bright side, the Manhattan Prep tests undervalues your abilities. So, you’re likely to score better on the actual GMAT.

GMAT Club Tests (Best Sectional Tests)

I recommend you take 6 full-length practice tests before you take the GMAT. However, you must space these full-length practice tests 4-5 days apart. Here’s why:

After you take a full-length test and analyze your performance, you will discover a few areas of improvement.

So, it doesn’t make sense to take another full-length test before you work on those areas.

This is where you’ll find the sectional tests useful. Unlike a full-length test, which can serve questions from any topic, a sectional test serves questions from a specific topic.

The best sectional tests I’ve seen are the ones on GMAT Club.

The GMAT Club tests allow you to create a pracice test based on the topic and/or question format.

In taking these sectional tests, you can improve your performance in areas where your accuracy dropped below 50% in the full-length tests.

Pros

• Large, Well-Organized Question Pool: The GMAT Club Test has a pool of over 1000 questions. These questions are categorized according to topic, question format, and level of difficulty. So, these tests can cater to all your testing needs.
• Comprehensive Analytics: At the end of each practice test, you receive a comprehensive report on your performance.
• Affordable: You can get 3 month’s access to the GMAT Club Tests at a very affordable price.

Cons

• Unofficial GMAT Questions: Although the quality of the questions is high, the questions aren’t GMAT-authorized questions. But they are enough for sectional practice.

Pro Tip

You can get the GMAT Club Tests for free. Here’s how.

GMAT Club has a system called “Kudos.” A “Kudos” is similar to a “Like” on social media.

If you share useful information with the people in the community, they will award you “Kudos.”

Once you have 25 Kudos, you can redeem them for 3 month’s access to the GMAT Club Tests.

Here are some ways you can earn Kudos:

• Write explanatory answers for questions posted by other members.
• Create a GMAT journey thread to share your preparation plan and progress.
• Answer queries posted by other members.

I used many of these methods to earn more than 300 Kudos. I need only 25 for the GMAT Club Tests. In fact, I’m getting Kudos to this day from my GMAT Journey thread.

Official GMAT Practice Test (Best Benchmark Tests)

The Manhattan Prep full-length practice tests and the GMAT Club sectional tests are great resources to find weaknesses in your preparation and address them.

However, these tests cannot tell you how well you are likely to do on the actual GMAT.

The best way to benchmark your performance is using the Official GMAT Practice Exams. I say so because of three reasons:

1. Firstly, the Official GMAT Practice Exam uses questions that have been created by people who have created questions for the actual GMAT. In fact, some of the questions have appeared on the actual GMAT in the past.
2. Secondly, these tests use the same scoring algorithm as the actual GMAT. So, if you simulate physical test conditions accurately, you will get an accurate estimate of what you’re likely to score on the actual GMAT.
3. Lastly, the user interface for the Official GMAT Practice Tests is similar to the user interface on the actual GMAT. So, you’ll have the chance to get used to the look, feel, and navigation of the actual test.

But the issue is that you get only 2 practice tests for free. That’s why you should save these practice tests for the last.

Pros

• GMAT Algorithm: The Official GMAT Practice Exam uses the same algorithm as the actual GMAT. So, you get an accurate estimate of your performance.
• Official GMAT Questions: You get questions that are very similar to the ones you’ll see on the actual GMAT.
• User Interface: The tests give you the chance to get used to the user interface and navigation of the actual test.

Cons

• Only 2 Free Tests: GMAT offers 6 practice exams. But only 2 of them are available for free. The other tests are over priced.

NOTE: I used the next three resources while I was aiming for a 750+ score. If you are not looking for a 750+ score, then you don't need these resources.

Doing Grammar (Best Resource for Sentence Correction)

I always found it easy to learn quantitative reasoning topics because I could reduce everything to formulas.

Applying the formulas was easy. Figure out the known values. Plug them into the right formula. And voila, you get the unknown value!

But when it came to grammar, there were no formulas. Grammar has only rules. And many rules have exceptions.

For example, subject-verb agreement says the subject must match the verb in number. Pretty simple, right? No… here’s a test for you:

The committee is/are voting on the bill as we speak.

What’s the right verb? Will you go for the singular verb “is” or the plural verb “are”?

Well, in this case the answer is “are” because each person in the committee is voting.

Now, look at another example:

The committee has/have passed the bill.

What’s the right verb now? Is it the singular verb “has passed” or the plural verb “have passed”?

In this case, the committe as a whole passed the bill. So, the right answer would be “has passed”.

So, in one situation committee behaves as a singluar whole and in another it behaves as a plural community.

It’s things like this that drove me nuts. But when I found Doing Grammar, I saw that the book didn’t approach grammar as a set of rules. Instead, the book provided formulas.

Doing Grammar teaches grammar as a set of forumlas than a set of rules. Using the formulas in this book, I was able to solve 700-level sentence correction questions in less than 30 seconds.

The book forever changed the way I looked at grammar and it transformed my performance in the sentence correction section.

Pros

• Formulas: The book teaches grammar as a set of formulas rather than a set of rules with many exceptions.

Cons

• Expensive: The book is very expensive. The price will not make sense unless you’re obsessed with scoring 750 or more.

Powerscore GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible (Best for Critical Reasoning)

The Powerscore GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible helped me maintain 100% accuracy even when I was answering 700-level critical reasoning questions. And I could solve most of the questions under 90 seconds. Here’s how the book helped me do this:

The book categorizes GMAT Critical Reasoning questions into different types. And then it offers strategies to tackle each type of question.

Once I developed the skill to correctly identify the type of question, applying the strategy was easy.

In addition to this, the book also shows you several ways to identify incorrect answer choices. I found these tips extremely useful when using the process of elimination to find the right answer.

Not only that, the strategies I learned for critical reasoning, helped me do well in reading comprehension and analytical writing assessment.

Pros

• High-Quality Instructions: The strategy recommended in the book really work. If you take the time to learn the different types of questions and the corresponding strategy, you can get 100 percent accuracy for 700-level questions without spending more than 90 seconds per question.

Cons

• Expensive: Again, you will not find the price justifiable unless you’re fanatically devoted to scoring 750 or more.

ReadTheory (Best Resource for Reading Comprehension)

When I decided to got for a 750+ score, I knew that the key to getting that score would be to do well on the verbal section.

And, I knew that doing well on the verbal section requires that I do well in reading comprehension.

So, I made it my hobby to solve reading comprehension passeages. But the problem was that I didn’t have access to high-quality reading comprehension passages.

I used up all the passages in the GMAT Official Guide and the practice tests. So, I didn’t know where to find fresh ones. I started searching, and my search lead me to ReadTheory.

ReadTheory is a reading comprehension passage goldmine. Here’s why I am a fan.

When you join ReadTheory, the algorithm gives you a few passages to solve. After you solve the passages, the algorithm estimates your reading level on a scale of 1 to 12.

Thereafter, the algorithm gives you reading comprehension passages from your level. These passages come from a wide variety of topics and of varying lengths.

You keep getting passages at your current level until you are able to consistently maintain a high accuracy. Once you are able to maintain high accuracy, the algorithm increases your reading level.

The process continues until you reach level 12.

If you are able to stay on level 12, you’re more than prepared for 700-level GMAT reading comprehension questions.

Another thing I love about ReadTheory is the explanatory answers. After you answer the questions, ReadTheory gives a full explanation for why the right answers are right and why the wrong answers are wrong.

Reading the explanatory answers helped me understand the various ways question creators frame incorrect answer choices. This helped me a lot with the process of elimination.

Pros

• Adaptive Reading Level: The algorithm increases the reading level of the passages as your comprehension improves.
• In-Depth Explanatory Answers: The explanatory answers help you understand the logic behind the right answer choice and the wrong logic behind incorrect answer choices.
• Free: ReadTheory is free.

Cons

None

Quantum CAT (Best Resource for a 51 Score in Quant)

If you’re looking to score 51 in the Quant section, the questions in the Official Guide are not enough.

After scoring 710 on the GMAT, I found the questions in the Official Guide were not challenging enough.

So, when I started my preparation for 750+ score, I needed tougher questions. I started searching and I found Quantum CAT.

Just the level 1 questions in this book will make your brain hurt.

But fortunately, the book has thorough concept coverage, plenty of solved examples, and in-depth explanatory answers.

Solving all the level 1 problems in the book can almost guarantee a 51 score on quant.

Pros

• Tough Questions: The book has the best collection of hard math questions.
• Comprehensive Concept Coverage: Quantum CAT discusses all the topics in great detail. If anything, I think there’s too much concept.
• Solved Examples: The book has plenty of solved examples for you to learn.
• Explanatory Answers: Many solutions offer alternative solutions and shortcuts. The solutions in the Official Guide and other resources don’t come close. But, you need a firm grasp on the fundamentals to see how the shortcuts work.
• Affordable: The book is meant for the Indian market. So, unlike other resources, this book is very affordable.

Cons

• Grind: You might be wondering, if this book is so great, why didn’t I recommend it earlier. Well, here’s why – it takes a lot of time and effort to go through the book. I did it. But it took a lot out of me. So, if you’re not committed, don’t buy this book. It’s not for the faint-hearted.

Anki: Open-Source Flashcard Program (Best App for Revision and Notes)

This is an app I wish I had when I was preparing for the GMAT. When I was preparing for the GMAT, I used 3×5 index cards to create flashcards that I reviewed multiple times every day.

Without knowing it, I was using powerful study techniques called active recall and spaced repetition to improve my retention and recall.

I didn’t realize that my revision technique was scientifically proven to be highly effective until I saw Ali Abdaal’s video about studying.

And it was in the same video that he talked about Anki.

When I checked the app, I realized that the app allowed me to do what I did with greated ease.

Here’s how Anki works:

While you’re going through your study guide or reading explanatory answers, you can turn any new information you find into a flashcard on Anki.

You can also organize all the information you capture into decks.

Later on, you can review the decks. As you review the decks, you’ll be asked to rate each card as easy, medium, or hard.

The cards you mark as easy will show up less frequently in your revision deck as the cards you mark hard.

This way, you can utilize spaced repetition and active recall to improve your retention.

I’ve written a full tutorial on how to use Anki for your GMAT preparation in my article on how to study for the GMAT. You can check it out for more details.

Pros

• Create Flashcards: Anki allows you to create and organize flashcards with ease.
• Spaced Repetition: Helps you review hard information more often than easy information.
• Free: The app is free to use.

Cons

• None

Conclusion

Well, this is the end of the list. From my experience, this list covers everything you’ll need for your GMAT preparation. And I’ve written extensively on how to use these resources to achieve a 700+ or 750+ score on the GMAT. For starters you can check my article on how to start GMAT preparation from scratch.

Also, if you need my help with your GMAT preparation, feel free to get in touch with me via email. My email address is: ask@graduateexams.com. I usually respond the same day because I know you’re on a strict timeline.

Credits

Computer vector created by pikisuperstar – www.freepik.com