Two of the world's leading country-of-origin academics have collaborated on this strong work on national image. It is not for the faint-hearted: Profs Jaffe and Nebenzahl have backed up their theories with hard, academically rigorous research. It is not a book for the casual marketer, but for a marketing expert that has an understanding of the qualitative and quantitative analyses of marketing research. Despite the academic foundation, the authors have filled this book with up-to-date examples, including the Rover sale by BMW and the revival of the 'Buy New Zealand made' campaign in late 2000. There are useful lessons for identity professionals applying national branding to not only nations but any product or service making use of a country's image. Those charged with promoting nations will be advised to read this comprehensive and complete work.

I've used Barron's, Kaplan, Princeton Review & the ETS books, and I have to say that either Kaplan or Princeton Review are far more helpful. Not only was this Barron's book out of date (the tests aren't structured like the CATs are!), but it's explanations often lacked depth. In addition, either Kaplan or PR books give you far more helpful tips. In the Quant section of this Barron's, they don't even touch on Probability and Statistics, two areas now far more common since the tests have been getting harder (in response to the huge increase of people taking the GMATs). Get the ETS, Kaplan or PR for more up to date sample tests. This one isn't worth it.

The book may be a little outdated. However, I liked the Essay Writing Review and think that the Math questions are pretty good. As for the critical reasoning, I found that the questions were different from those on the actual GMAT and I sometimes didn't quite agree with the reasoning. The other verbal sections are fine. I bought this book first, then Kaplan and the Official ETS Guide. Barron's was good to develop my skills. Yet, I wouldn't recommend studying this book right before the test. For that, the questions are just not similar enough to the real ones.

As reference, I took the GMATs three times. My score went from 620 to 670 to 710. I believe that practice really helps and recommend the following GMAT books:

1) Kaplan GMAT 2003 (Book & CD-ROM for Windows)
2) Barron's How to Prepare for the GMAT with CD-ROM

The best part of this book is the six practice tests.
Over 800 problems for your to test your teeth on.

Good luck.

This books needs a good proofreading. There are lots of typographical errors and examples where the answer is an answer to a different question. Also, some of the answers in the critical reasoning and sentence correction are just plain wrong! In every set of questions i missed @2 that i believed i had the right answer; and i usually got only 80% right in this book, but when i take the sample tests in the official gmat book (straight from the gmat folks) i get 95% correct, so i think the problem is w/ the book and not me. this may not have anything to do w/ the problems in the book, but i noticed that the authors are israeli, so i'm skeptical they're to be relied on as the authoritative source on idiomatic English, just as i would be skeptical, in the absence of any other evidence, of any Americans who claimed to be the arbiter of idiomatic Hebrew.

nonetheless, this book is good practice and small and portable, but don't take their answers as gospel.

This book does not have current GMAT information. The test is now computer-based and its best advice to you in preparing is to remember to bring plenty of #2 pencils to the test site.

The Barron's pass key does not give you a lot of information on test techniques, which are very critical for the GMAT, I believe. However, it does cover the topics that are relevant for the GMAT. Questions are in a slightly different format from the actual test but get your brain up to speed to what you should know and how to get your mind set on the reasoning of GMAT questions. While I found studying with this Passkey very frustrating - I always got many questions wrong! - I think it paid off in the end (score: 740) because it did focus on the content of the questions more than the Princeton review does. The Passkey does cover material in Maths that you will need for the upper level questions which is not covered in the Princeton Review or in any ETS material.

The Passkey should not be used as the only source as it does not provide enough guidance for the computer-adapted test but the concept behind the question is also covered - from a slightly different, challenging angle.

This book really wastes money because its stuff is outdated and
biased. You will find this book can not improve your scores on actual GMAT test if you are studying GMAT through this book.
In verbal section, SC and RC are very poor because they have
dissimilar with actual test. Really, not buy this book.

Does more harm than good in preparing you to the GMAT. The Math questions are OK and reasonably close to the real thing, but contain a lot of typos. The Critical Reasoning part is seriously flawed and very misleading: in a number of instances the author tends to introduce its own view of what the answer is, with no proper logic. The Reading Comprehension is very bad as well: the texts are horribly constructed and do not match what you will find on the actual test ; the questions are not well formulated and the answers are sometimes not adapted to the question. Sentence Correction is OK.
All in all don't buy this book. Get the Official ETS, the Powerprep soft and either Kaplan or Princeton with CD.

I'll be taking my GMAT in a month and decided to buy a few study guides to raise my score. It's difficult to attribute which book works the best, but so far this one seem the most useless although it does have some merit. As other readers suggested, the problems are either very easy or hard. The math is simplistic and the reading comprehension passages are over a page long. The format is outdated and doesn't consider the new CAT format or e-grader. Some of the questions have no answer because they misprinted the question. This is frustrating, but at the very least it is practice, which never hurts. In the end I'm glad I have this, but if you're looking to only get a few books, I suggest the ETS's book (a MUST!) and Powerprep software (highly recommended). These don't give you any hints, but they are the real deal and I've heard that these practice questions are still in use. Arco, Kaplan and Princeton Review are nice for tips, but they make up the questions themselves and have no way of determining their validity by ETS standards. Still, get at least one of the two, preferably both, and with the CD. The difference between Kaplan and PR is that Kaplan is more methodical and PR is more short-cut focused. Choose one based on which works best for you. I don't know what to say about Arco, but I'm here buying it now because I want more practice questions, even if they aren't official. I'm also getting the PR Verbal Workout and GMAT for Dummies because I heard these are both great references for the verbal section (in which I need the most help).

Some advice if you do decide to buy this: don't buy this with the CD attached. The practice problems and text are EXACTLY the same as in the book with no additional information.

Some more advice: if you are taking the GMAT, practice on something....anything, perferably on the computer. This has helped me tremendously and even though I'm spending upwards of $150-200 on all these books, it's worth it to not have to take the $165 test again because I didn't have the stamina to finish the test or the practice. Just keep in mind that the questions are not hard. They're tricky. The tricks are easier to spot when you've been practicing. I wish I considered that when I took my SAT!