Is GMAT Official Guide Enough? (+Resource Guide by Score)

Written by Amrith in GMAT Resources

The GMAT Official Guide provides hundreds of real GMAT questions. Apart from the questions, the book provides answer explanations, organizes questions by topic and question format, and indexes level of difficulty. Since the makers of the GMAT publish this book, every GMAT aspirant must own this book.

I’ve scored 700+ on GMAT twice. And this is what I think about whether the GMAT Official Guide is enough:

In general, GMAT Official Guide is enough if your target score is less than 500. For a sub-500 score, you don’t need any other resource than the official guide. Solving easy and medium problems in the book, and going through the answer explanations for them is enough for reaching a 500 GMAT score.

However, if you are aiming for a 500+ score, GMAT Official Guide is not enough.

As your target score increases, the number and type of resources you’ll need for your preparation increases. Therefore, in this article, I’ll share my recommendations for the resources you’ll need according to your target total GMAT score, quant score, and verbal score.

Is GMAT Official Guide Enough for 700+?

As a rule, the GMAT Official Guide is not enough for getting a 700+ score. In addition to the GMAT Official Guide, you will need one or more of the supplementary GMAT Official Guides, a GMAT-specific strategy guide and practice tests.

The following table shows you the name and type of resources you’ll need for different target scores:

Name and Type of Resource by Target Total GMAT Score
Name and Type of Resource by Target Total GMAT Score

As you can see in the table you need many types of resources to help you with your GMAT preparation. Here are the different types of resources:

  • Strategy Guides to learn terms, concepts, formulas, rules, approaches, methods, techniques, and principles tested on GMAT.
  • Question Banks to practice applying the knowledge you acquire from the strategy guides. In this case, the GMAT Official Guide and its supplementary guides are the question banks.
  • Practice Tests to identify areas of improvement, benchmark performance, rehearse pacing, and build endurance.
    • Sectional Practice Tests for identifying areas of improvement and practicing pacing for a specific section.
    • Full-Length Practice Tests for identifying areas of improvement, practicing pacing, and building endurance for all sections together.
    • Benchmark Practice Tests for measuring your current skills relative to your GMAT target score.

You may also have some more general questions. Why is the GMAT so hard? How hard is the GMAT? So, I wrote an article explaining how hard is it to get 700 on GMAT. I recommend you read the article for a clear explanation on what it takes to get 700 on GMAT.

To learn more about the different types of resources and how to use them, I recommend reading these articles:

Is OG Sufficient for GMAT Quant?

Typically, for GMAT test takers aiming for a 50+ score in GMAT quant, the GMAT Official Guide is the best source of quant questions used in the real GMAT. But it is not enough. In addition to questions, they would need GMAT-specific strategy guides and practice tests for quantitative reasoning.

I’ve created some reference tables to help you decide what resources to use for a target quantitative reasoning score.

Name and Type of Resource by Target Quant Score
Name and Type of Resource by Target Quant Score

Let’s look at the information in the table for each GMAT quant target score:

  • ≤ 36: A quant raw score of 36 puts you in the 26th percentile. You can achieve this score by solving all the easy and medium problems in the GMAT Official Guide and learning from the answer explanations. For this target score, you don’t need any strategy guides or practice tests.
  • 37-45: A quant raw score of 45 puts you in the 54th percentile. To achieve this score, you must solve all the easy and medium questions in the GMAT Official Guide. Although you can learn a lot from the answer explanation, you will need a GMAT-specific strategy guide to help you go deeper into the topics. However, you don’t need to take any practice tests other than a benchmark test to check your preparedness.
  • 46-49: A quant raw score of 49 puts you in the 74th percentile. To achieve this score, you’ll need to solve all the easy, medium, and hard questions in the GMAT Official Guide. Scoring in this range requires you to comprehensively cover all the topics. So, a GMAT-specific strategy guide is a must. You also need to take many sectional, full-length, and benchmark tests to feel confident in hitting your target score. However, you don’t need any advanced study guides.
  • ≥ 50: A quant raw score of 51 puts you in the 97th percentile. 51 is the highest possible score in the quant section. So, you’ll need to cover all the questions in the GMAT Official Guide as well as the ones in the GMAT Official Advanced Questions. You may also require additional problems for practice, so I recommend getting the GMAT Official Guide Quantitative Review as well. Other than a GMAT-specific strategy guide, you will also need an advanced strategy guide and question bank for learning advanced concepts. Hitting this score range also requires aggressive testing.

To learn more about scoring well in the GMAT quantitative reasoning section, I recommend the following articles:

Is GMAT OG Enough for Verbal?

Typically, for GMAT test takers aiming for a 36+ score in GMAT verbal, the GMAT Official Guide is the best source of verbal questions used in the real GMAT. But it is not enough. In addition to questions, they would need GMAT-specific strategy guides and practice tests for verbal reasoning.

I always tell my students to aim for a verbal score of 36 or more. Getting this score increases the probability of your getting a 700+ score overall.

But to get a 36+ score, you should focus on the individual question formats. The question formats in the verbal reasoning section are:

  • Reading Comprehension
  • Critical Reasoning
  • Sentence Correction

For your GMAT quant preparation, you will usually find all the concepts you need in a single guide. However, for the verbal reasoning section, you will need different strategy guides for each question format.

To help you with your decision, I’ve created a few reference tables to help you choose the best resources according to your target verbal reasoning score.

Name and Type of Resource by Target Verbal Score
Name and Type of Resource by Target Verbal Score

If you want to know more about GMAT verbal preparation, I recommend the following article:

Next Steps

RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

If you’re aiming for a 700+ score, I recommend reading the following articles:

GET IN TOUCH

If you need my help with your GMAT preparation, you can get in touch with me via email. Here’s my email ID:

ask@graduateexams.com

I look forward to helping you on your journey for a GMAT 700+ score. All the best.

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Amrith

Amrith Sudhakaran creates content to help people score 700 or more on the GMAT so that they can apply to top MBA programs in the world. He draws from his experience of improving his GMAT score from 650 to 710... and then from 710 to 750... to craft in-depth how-to guides and informational posts. You can get in touch with him via email. His address is: ask@graduateexams.com.

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