GMAT Official Guide 2020: Book + Online Question Bank

I’m a Harvard grad, 99% GMAT scorer and professional tutor/coach since 2002. I have taken the GMAT 5 times, with highs of 770 composite, 50/51 Quant, 48/51 Verbal (1 wrong), 8/8 IR (2 times) and 6.0 AWA (4 times), and I have scored in the 700s all 5 times I have taken the exam.

The GMAT Official Guide 2020 (currently $30) receives my strong recommendation because it provides a great source of over 1000 real GMAT practice questions at a decent price—100 more questions than the previous edition, which had “only” 958. It also includes access to an online version of the questions in the book, as well as free access to the GMAT 2020 mobile app.

This newest edition of the GMAT Official Guide (OG) is still the gold standard for realistic GMAT practice. For optimal results, use it in combination with other learning and strategy guides. If you think that you need all 3 books at once, then go ahead and buy the OG bundle to save a few dollars on the individual books: However, keep in mind that many students buy the bundle and end up only having the time to use this book, which by itself has 1000 questions (the additional 58 Integrated Reasoning questions are accessible only through the companion website, accessible with a code, due to their multimedia nature).

You might also want to consider purchasing the 2019 edition instead. Everyone always wants the newest edition, but sometimes the price difference can be significant, and the questions on the GMAT haven’t changed at all since 2012, so older editions of the OG are still helpful (though the structure of the test has changed slightly).

I recommend the “blind review” method, where you buy two books: one for taking notes and one for keeping blank so you can re-try questions without bias.

Is this book enough for a full preparation? For most students, the answer is no: although the very best source of practice questions, the GMAT OG is lacking from a learning and strategy standpoint. In addition, the answer explanations in the book are often convoluted, overly simplistic and/or incomplete. Thus, it is a good idea to use online forums such as GMAT Club (which provide answer explanations to official questions, as well as question classifications and links to similar practice questions) and other GMAT strategy books such as “Ace the GMAT: Master the GMAT in 40 Days” by Brandon Royal to help you decode this complex standardized test. If you still need more help, then consider a class, an online learning program, and/or a private GMAT tutor.

For my full list of personal GMAT prep recommendations, google "GMAT Action Plan: How to Study and Prepare for the Graduate Management Admission Test."

Best of luck on your GMAT and beyond,

-Brian

If you are just starting out your GMAT preparation and have not purchased any other official GMAT books, then go ahead and buy this book. If you have already bought or own an older edition, say 2018 or 2019 Official GMAT guide, then there isn't a whole lot to gain by buying this book. Also, if you are looking to save money, just buy a used copy of one of the older editions. The additions in the 2020 guide are incremental, and the main purpose of publishing a new guide every year is to further "planned obsolescence" and keep money flowing in to the coffers of GMAC, the writers of GMAT test.

Here is what is new in this guide. In the quantitative section, the number of problem solving questions remains at 230, out of which 6 are new. The number of questions in the data sufficiency category jumps to 230 from 174, and 59 of them are new to the 2020 guide. So there are a total of 65 questions. The largest category of new questions, 21, are in the geometry category. The quantitative diagnostic test in the beginning of the guide remains identical to the last six versions of the official guides. And if you need to refer to my free video explanations to all of the quantitative questions in the 2020 Official GMAT guide, then just google gmatquantum and official GMAT guide.

The following is my general recommendation for starting out your GMAT preparation. If you are new to the world of GMAT test, then start with this book, which consists of official GMAT questions and accurately reflects the style and content of the test. Start by reviewing the first thirty problems of each category, this will give you a feel for the format of the questions. The first thirty questions are the easiest, all of the questions are organized in increasing order of difficulty, however the questions do not strictly follow this rule, but it is a rough enough guideline. Once you have familiarized with the question formats, go ahead and take the diagnostic test in the beginning of the book. The diagnostic test is on the hard side, which is a poor design for a diagnostic, but it will give you a good idea of what the real test will be like. If you performed really well on the diagnostic test, then I would recommend you to take the free GMAT Practice Exam 1 or 2 available from mba.com. If you didn't do well, say below average, then you need to first strengthen your foundations and concepts before proceeding to full length practice tests. At this stage you can either choose to buy additional books to strengthen your fundamentals or subscribe to one of the online courses. Either way the first step is to strengthen your foundations, before proceeding to timed test. If you just follow the above path, you would at least started your GMAT preparation the right way. The subsequent steps would need to be tailored based on an individual's target score and timeline available for preparation. Best wishes.

If you are new to the GMAT, get this book BUT you will need others to make Official Guide (OG) helpful.

The book does not contain any strategies, tips, or techniques to help you learn content. It is only a collection of highly valuable questions. Don't think you can just get this one book and nail the test - you will need review and refreshers for quant and grammar as well as strategies. It can be books, a course, a tutor, etc. If you own a previous edition, and evaluating ROI, getting a Question Pack from GMAC's site is a better value ($30 for 404 questions in QP1). In case you are wondering about the question level/difficulty in this book - it is Medium on average with mostly easy and medium questions and about 15% harder ones. If you want to know the exact difficulty of each question, search for "Official Guide Directory 2020"

~~~ Strengths ~~~
1. Real GMAT questions retired from past tests - 1,006 real GMAT questions retired from past tests.
2. Difficulty of questions listed at the back (though it looks like they split the questions into 3 groups - easy, medium, and hard, just by pure even distribution, not real difficulty)
3. Online quiz engine allows you to build practice sets using the OG but it is very weak and cumbersome (more below) but the engine is flawed at the moment - it will be updated later in the year
4. Practice questions follow actual GMAT test patterns (it's great to have one's ear trained, esp. in verbal)
5. Overview of the Integrated Reasoning section (74 questions online)
6. Mobile app version but hard to get (In case you are like me and searched the App store to only find nothing, you will need to download the Wiley Efficient Learning app and login with your online account at Wiley to get access to the OG Question bank on your mobile device). Seems more hassle than it is worth.

~~~ Weaknesses ~~~
1. The quiz system is too simplistic and cumbersome. For example I have no idea how to start working on question 10 or take only assumption questions for example, though it is an upgrade from the previous version... Perhaps I have been spoiled with good GMAT Prep and other CAT Test interfaces. I am struggling here.
2. Questions are EASY/MEDIUM difficulty in general (only about 5 questions are really a 750 level) based on GMAT Club member feedback.
3. Does not include any test-taking strategies. Though it has a few short review sections for each area, they are weak and very unfriendly
4. We really could have used some new questions. The official Guide questions are generally on the EASY side.
5. There is a 90% overlap with previous edition.

~~~ Contents (number of questions per section - has remained unchanged since OG 2019)~~~
1. Diagnostic Test - 100 questions
2. Problem Solving - 230 questions
3. Data Sufficiency - 230 questions (up from 174)
4. Reading Comprehension - 150 questions (up from 139)
5. Critical Reasoning - 149 questions (up from 124)
6. Sentence Correction - 149 questions (up from 140)
7. Integrated Reasoning - 74 questions online (not included in the 1,006 count)

~~~ HOW DO I STUDY WITH THIS BOOK? ~~~
In case it was not clear, you don't really study with it. You need other books to study and then you use this book for practice/quizzes. For example, you can get the Manhattan GMAT Set of Guides or the Veritas Prep Guides. These book sets come with 8-15 books that are targeting specific Math and Verbal areas. You have a much better chance getting a 700+ with those book sets but they also do require at least 2.5-3 months to cover them. The MGMAT Books come with 6 adaptive online tests. If you only have a month, you can get the Kaplan book set (Premier and Verbal/Quant workbooks - they can do the job but not as luxurious with tips and strategies as MGMAT or Veritas Prep).

~~~ What are some of the good study suggestions? ~~~
- Start with a practice test (diagnostic test)
- You need quality time. It is really the quality time (morning for some and evening for others) that provides the most retention and results
- Don't skip or move past a section until you're able to solve 90% of the questions correctly (timed of course). That is if you want 700+
- Never solve questions without timing yourself (unless it is quick drills)
- Don't jump into the hardest areas first - build confidence instead with what you know and can demonstrate progress at
- Start every new day with the review of what you have learned the day before
- Make notes for everything you cover - it helps tremendously to retain what you have learned even though you may never read them. The process of making notes is a very helpful learning experience. If nothing else works - use it
- Finally, your practice tests are a usually a very good indicator of your performance. If you are getting 600 on your practice tests, there is about a 2% chance that you will get a 700 score. Believe in yourself but also - be realistic with yourself not to waste $250 test registration fee.

Let me know if you have any questions - i reply to comments
BB, Founder of GMAT Club
750, q49, v42.

The book is used... I bought the new version yet got a used one.soooo very disappointed!

If any book can help me this is the one. I have several, but this one has the best breakdown of the material and digital access to materials which is a nice plus.

I paid full price for this *new* GMAT study book and it was delivered with this crusty, sticky substance on the bottom of the pages. None of the pages are ruined but EW!!

Great book that was easy to follow and provided endless examples. Each set of examples had not only an answer page, but a detailed set of explanations that clearly went through each question step-by-step. Both the book and online platform worked well together to answer questions similar to the test. It brought my score up by at least 100 points.

Great resource

Lots of helpful material that will help any skill level. Comes with online questions as well.

Great book! In great condition! Really helped me for the gmat.