This write up highlights the GMAT Quantitative preparation books and material. Read on further to know the best guides and reference books available for quantitative section in GMAT.

GMAT Quantitative Section Preparation Books and Material

The quantitative section in GMAT is one of the most important sections in the test compared to other sections. Having a distinct knowledge about mathematics is very important if you have to take up GMAT.

In comparison with other tests, finding preparatory material for GMAT quantitative test is much easier as the study materials are available are in bulk and in every form whether it is books, CDs, online material etc. It cannot be denied that this section is the most difficult one to deal with and it has been deliberately made this tough to test your intellectual and problem solving skills in quantitative aspect. Although most of the mathematical questions are simple they are made challenging to bring out the best in you.

You need not be a wizard in mathematics to take up GMAT, only practice is required to improve the skills to solve the quantitative problems. Good quality reference books play an important role in your first step of preparation.

It is strongly recommended to buy two books for preparation. The first should be the official book which has official format and problems to solve and the other should be a guide which has many practice problems for everyday practice. The following are the list of preparation books available for the GMAT quantitative section:

Official Guide For GMAT– Quantitative  Section Review

As the name suggests this is the official guide in which you see the format of the problems which is similar to the test day questions. There are 300 questions in this book which have been chosen from the real GMAT questions from previous tests.

Pros:

• As this is the official guide, the practice tests follow the same test pattern as it is followed in real GMAT tests.
• The practice questions are arranged according to the different levels of difficulty.

Cons:

• This book does not contain all the methods of approaching the problems.
• The questions are of medium and low difficulty. So it may not give a complete picture of higher level difficult questions.

Manhattan GMAT Foundations of GMAT Math

It deals with all the basic mathematical concepts required for GMAT, which helps in building your confidence to solve problems of any mathematical concept in GMAT.

Pros:

• It is well structured.
• It is the best book to brush up the forgotten basic mathematical concepts such as fractions, decimals, powers etc.  
• It contains many additional questions for practice.

Cons:

• It has 400 odd questions which does not contain the test pattern of the real GMAT. It is more of a mathematics text book format.
• The number of pages is almost 300, which is too much, so it is advisable to skip the topics which you are already familiar with. 

Manhattan GMAT Guides

It is recommended to use this guide for practice questions to improve the problem solving skills. This book is available online also in the form of 6 tests.

Pros:

• It strikes a perfect balance between the strategies required for test and also the theoretical explanations required for practice.
• There are different guides for each topic and you can choose the book according to your weakness or requirement for a particular subject.

Cons:

• Although the online versions do have some practical questions, they are not upto the mark and the books do not have any practice questions at all. 

Veritas Prep Guide

This book is very useful as it comes as an overall package for the GMAT aspirants.

Pros:

• It has totally 15 guides and also has a book on introduction for quantitative topics and also a test simulation booklet.
• It has some fresh questions which you may not find in any other books of GMAT also.

Cons:

• The price of this book is very high.

Kaplan GMAT Math Workbook 

It is the supplement to the official guide for GMAT.

Pros:

• It fairly covers all the basic mathematical concepts which are important for GMAT.
• The structure of the book is user friendly and it is structured in a way to cover all the previous learned skills too.

Cons:

• Questions given do not exactly resemble the GMAT questions and is designed for expertise in the subject only.
• Permutation/ Combination, Statistics and Probability are not covered in this book.

Veritas Prep Combinations and Probability

This guide is completely dedicated to the topics Probability and Combinations.

Pros:

• Strategies are good.
• Practice questions are aplenty.

Cons:

• It sometimes crosses the non-GMAT sections also but it is not of a major concern.

Giving yourself a satisfactory time for preparing for the quantitative section, benefits you in greater ways. Therefore practicing with the right study materials becomes a crucial factor.

Posted in: GMAT