GMAT Clarity: The Official Guide for GMAT Self-Study Paperback – May 23, 2013

Wow. If you're planning on taking the GMAT, you need this book. I was living in an area that didn't have Kaplan or Veritas prep classes available, so I was self-studying. I bought the Kaplan Premier book and read through the entire thing. Towards the end of the book, I realized that I didn't retain very much of the lessons early on in the book. You need a guide to scheduling your study schedule.GMAT Clarity did an amazing job of not only scheduling the Learn phase, but also providing opportunities to review past material. It's a must have for anyone that is self-studying. Along with the schedules, it provides a lot of insight into schools, and what kind of program you should be aiming for with certain scores. The only thing that this book won't do, is really evaluate your work. That's on you. You have to be realistic with yourself. It's been eight years since my undergrad, and I'm not used to spending hours a night studying. You really have to do a self assessment on your learning QUALITY. Don't just try to power through the lessons without actually learning.In addition to the Manhattan GMAT Prep, and OG series books you are required to use for this, you should also consider the Powerscore Critical Reasoning book (Amazing book. You may not realize you're getting better at CR, but it'll show on the test), Kaplan GMAT 800, and the GMAT Math workbook.BUY THIS BOOK.

I recommend GMAT Clarity strongly. Last year I tried to GMAT prep without much success.I got the manhattan books and the three official guide books, read some stuff on the forums and went after it pretty hard. Problem was, I didn’t know exactly what to do. I ended up working through several of the quant books and some of sentence correction book and doing practice problems.I didn’t improve much on either section despite putting in some quality time, so I got frustrated and shelved my study wondering if business school was right for me. A few months back, a friend recommended that I pick up GMAT Clarity as she had used it and loved it.I’m midway through my second round of prep and things are going swimmingly. Right from the very beginning I knew this book is what I needed. I worked the first chapters and planned my target score and then planned my course and schedules. All that was very straightforward and made me feel in control and on track for a change.I’m going to complete about 150 hours of prep, looking to go up 100 points. Even just knowing stuff like that is amazing as before I wanted to improve as much as possible but didn’t know the hours it would take. Nor was I organized in my prep each week.The schedules are sweet – they tell you what to do and make sure you prep smart. Taking notes the right way, practicing the right way with the official guide problems, taking sections to reinforce that. Its all really good. Once you see the schedules, you just know they are helping you save time because they are organized and build in prep theory that the author talks about.So, yeah, buy this book. Unless you feel you just have to take a classroom course, this is the perfect thing for prep. Its worth every penny.

I'm currently self-studying for the GMAT using GMAT Clarity. I'm about halfway through the second phase of my course (the book lays out three or four phase courses) and am really benefiting from the guidance here. I've been prepping for about two months now.Its a bit challenging to first understand what this book is for and what it does, so Ill take a moment and walk you through my experience. I knew I wanted to be in charge of my GMAT prep, because I prefer that over watching videos online or going to a course. So, I did some research on forums and elsewhere and then stumbled upon this book. The idea of having someone who knew a lot about the test guiding me through it was appealing.The first five or something chapters got me all set up with prep. I took the diagnostic (620), analyzed it, and planned my course. The course planning chapters are great because they help you see what is important to you in your prep, and what to prioritize (score, when to take the test, how much to prep each week, etc.). For me, score and applying this fall are the biggest things.So, I used all the tables and tools to plan out my specific course. Sometimes I feel like there are a lot of tables to fill in and some aren't as useful or necessary as others, but not a big gripe because it is easy to just skip those tables that seem sort of unnecessary. Through those chapters, I designed my course to be about 4 months long and I'll prep for 12 hours a week. That gives me a 190 hour course and a 130 point expected improvement. I'll be very happy if I score a 750! Based so far on my experience, I think I'll get there, or at least close. I scored a 710 last week on a CAT.Back to the early chapters, the materials chapter was really helpful in terms of getting extra details on all the key materials this book tells you to use - The Official Guides, the GMAT Prep CATs, the Manhattan strategy guides, etc. I knew about a lot of these materials before, but hearing an expert explaining how they all fit into ideal prep was good from an organizational standpoint.Next, there is a Prep Principles chapter that is helpful. It basically forced me to think about real quality for each prep session, and had some good tips on getting the most out of the time I'm prepping. Its nothing groundbreaking, but its solid.After a couple of quick chapters that explain how to use the schedules, you really get into the meat of the book. The schedules are fantastic! They are really flexible for different ability levels, which being a higher scorer was important for me. And they obviously fit the course you build well. But mostly, it is so nice to see exactly what to do, how long it will take for each time you sit down to prep. For planning purposes, they are great. For example this Sunday I have a couple of longer sessions to complete, so I know to start them earlier in the day. The schedules are also full of tips on how to do every different task well. The structure they provide is crazy helpful and the book is worth its price for them alone.As you can tell, I'm really happy with GMAT Clarity so far. I think its a big deal for self-studiers. I'll update when I get my score!

If you want to self-study, GMAT Clarity is excellent. It gives you the advice you need to prepare efficiently. That is what it is designed to do: make everything simple and understandable, so that you do the right things in the right ways to improve your score and avoid wasting any time.I picked up the book not knowing anything about the GMAT or test prep and in a couple of days had a great feel for what I needed to do. The big picture decisions are crucial for GMAT prep and this book lays them out better than anywhere else, including the forums. I raised my score 70 points in about a month of prep; I had a tight application deadline for various reasons. I doubt this would have been possible without GMAT Clarity. Certainly recommended.