Kaplan GMAT Premier Program, 2009 (Book & CD-ROM),   ISBN:9781419552045

Customer Rating: 

The book was delivered promptly and was in perfect condition as advertised. Very happy with the service

Customer Rating: 

This review is strictly about the Kindle version of the book, not about the content, which I find fairly good.

1. The Kindle version of the book does NOT include the code for the online tests. This was my number one reason for purchasing and now I'm getting a refund from Amazon.

2. The Kindle version is poorly formatted, and the Kindle format in general is not very conducive to reading and answering the questions. Perhaps it would read better on Kindle DX, but after a second try with a study guide like this, I think the paper format is more suited for situations when you must take long quizzes.

The formatting issues include the following:

* All tables are shown as poorly scaled pictures. I.e. the answer matrix is impossible to read due to this.
* The questions do not fit on a single page or sometimes even on two pages. This, combined with general Kindle sluggishness on page turns slows you down significantly when you must re-read the question.
* Kaplan's side notes which look very nice on the printed book are inserted haphazardly in the Kindle edition, reducing readability and impact.
* Questions designated as Master Q are shown on a distinct grey background in the book. No such designation in Kindle. In fact I didn't even realized that some questions are designated differently until I got the paper book.

Bottom line, Kindle is good for fiction, newspapers and magazines, but is not really there as a textbook substitute. Since I study mostly during my commute on the NYC subway, I would really LOVE to be able to use my Kindle, yet I think it is really not suited for this type of text. The lack of the online access code makes the Kindle edition entirely worthless.

Customer Rating: 

I really like this book/cd. But, I've read multiple times that the scores for the CAT tests are much lower than you would actually get on the GMAT. I haven't taken the actual exam yet, but I'm hoping that is the case.

Customer Rating: 

I found out that there is a lot of coding errors in the CD-ROM. It seems that the CD cannot show the "-" sign. It is irritating to such errors. When I see these errors, I immediately do not want to do the problems.

Customer Rating: 

Customer service at Kaplan is terrible. I called 3 times and waited 20 minutes each time, only to be told that "The phones are too busy. Please leave a voicemail and someone can get back to you within 2 hours." It's been 3 days and I still haven't heard anything. My online service didn't work and email after email hasn't gotten them to budge. Worst customer service I have ever had from a prep company. Buy someone else's instead!