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GMAC published the 2021 edition of its Official Guide series in late June and we\u2019ve got all of the highlights for the main guide.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Definitely. I wouldn\u2019t study for the GMAT without using at least the main official guide (OG) book. There are four books in all:<\/span><\/p>\n The main OG contains so many problems that I find most students don\u2019t need the Quant and Verbal-only books, but they\u2019re available if you want more. If you\u2019re going for a 700+ kind of score, then you may also want the Advanced OG (but start with the main OG unless your score is already in the upper 600s).<\/span><\/p>\n There are 92 new problems:<\/span><\/p>\n There are no new Reading Comprehension passages or problems. In addition, one Critical Reasoning question was removed from the book, so the total number of CR problems increased by 18, not 19. No other problems were removed from the book.<\/span><\/p>\n GMAC did remove the Diagnostic Test chapter, which contained 100 problems, but you still have access to all of these problems at their <\/span>Efficient Learning<\/span><\/a> online platform (you get access to this platform for 1 year with your purchase of the book). You\u2019ll find the 100 Diagnostic problems in the \u201cOnline Exclusive\u201d problem bank, and you\u2019ll have access to a number of Integrated Reasoning practice problems that are also available only online. And, as a bonus, the online platform contains all of the problems that are printed in the book; you can create problem sets (more on this below), practice time management, and track certain performance metrics.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s one interesting new feature this year: digital flash cards to help you study. I haven\u2019t tried them yet so can\u2019t tell you whether they\u2019re good, but I\u2019m a big fan of flash cards in general. They\u2019re great for anything you need to memorize\u2014facts, formulas, and what I call Know the Code takeaways. These takeaways come in the form \u201cWhen I see _____\u201d (on the front side of the flash card) and \u201cI\u2019ll think \/ do ______\u201d (on the back side of the flash card). For example: When I see a <\/span>comma which<\/span><\/i> vs. <\/span>comma \u2013ing<\/span><\/i> difference in the answers on an SC problem, I\u2019ll think \u201cmodifiers\u201d and figure out what the modifier is referring to.<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re debating between buying OG2020 and OG2021, I\u2019d go for 2021. You\u2019ll have all of the same problems that are in OG2020, plus 92 additional, brand-new problems as well as access to the new flash cards.<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re using our study materials, we\u2019ve classified all of the OG problems by problem type and by chapter \/ content area from our books. Anyone can access these classification lists by creating a free <\/span>Atlas GMAT Starter Kit<\/span><\/a> account on our website. You\u2019ll find the OG problem lists under Official Guide Resources on the left-hand menu bar. (The Starter Kit has a bunch of other free resources as well, FYI.)<\/span><\/p>\n I would also take a look at this blog series on <\/span>creating your own problem sets<\/span><\/a>. You\u2019ll use the problems in different ways during different stages of your studies and that series explains what to do when.<\/span><\/p>\n There are a lot of really interesting new problems! I can\u2019t, unfortunately, show any of them to you (copyright law…), but I\u2019ll tell you what I think about some of them and you can look them up yourself in your own copy of the book.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Overall, I noticed a ton of stories and a lot of opportunities to logic something out or to estimate. There are also some pure math problems, but there is a definite trend around the ability to think logically about math. (And I love that because it makes the test a lot easier to take\u2014once you train yourself to think logically about math. Bonus: That ability will help you in b-school and at work.)<\/span><\/p>\n There were also some beautiful traps\u2014the test writers really are masters at figuring out how to tempt us to go down the wrong path. (Seriously, I consider them artists in this way!)<\/span><\/p>\n Here are a few of my favorite Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency problems that are new to OG 2021. When you have your copy, try the problems first and then read what I thought.<\/span><\/p>\n PS #94<\/span><\/p>\n PS #117<\/span><\/p>\n PS #259<\/span><\/p>\n DS #488: This is my favorite one of them all! This looks like an easier problem but it\u2019s one of the highest-numbered in the chapter…and for good reason.<\/span><\/p>\n In the Critical Reasoning chapter, 11 of the 19 new problems were Strengthen or Weaken. These two types are quite frequent on the real test. My favorite of the new problems is a Weaken (details below).<\/span><\/p>\n Each Sentence Correction problem tests multiple grammar rules, as always. I noticed a lot of sentence structure issues, parallelism and comparisons, and some really interesting issues around meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n Here are a few of my favorite new problems. When you have your copy, try the problems first and then read what I thought.<\/span><\/p>\n CR #707<\/span><\/p>\n SC #854<\/span><\/p>\n SC #867<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s it! But I will repeat what I said at the beginning. Don\u2019t consider studying for the GMAT without getting yourself a copy of the OG. If you already have a copy of the 2020 edition, it\u2019s not necessary to purchase the new edition. But if you don\u2019t yet have a copy, I\u2019d recommend getting OG 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n Good luck and happy studying!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n GMAC published the 2021 edition of its Official Guide series in late June and we\u2019ve got all of the highlights for the main guide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,929,874,930,2,52877,52945,8,1,10],"tags":[289,58349,561,566,58350],"yst_prominent_words":[54040,58347,58339,54401,54398,58343,54127,55209,53704,53787,58344,53674,54407,58340,58345,58338,58348,58341,58342,58346],"class_list":["post-19131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-current-studiers","category-gmat-prep","category-gmat-resources","category-gmat-study-guide","category-how-to-study","category-in-the-news","category-products-and-services","category-quant-on-gmat","category-uncategorized","category-verbal-on-gmat","tag-gmat-official-guide","tag-gmat-official-guide-2021-edition","tag-official-guide","tag-og","tag-og2021"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19131"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19145,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19131\/revisions\/19145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19131"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Is it worth buying?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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How is it different from the prior edition (Official Guide 2020)?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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How should I use the OG in my studies?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Are there any trends in the new problems?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Quant<\/span><\/i><\/h4>\n
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Verbal<\/span><\/i><\/h4>\n
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Anything else?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n![\"stacey-koprince\"](\"https:\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/stacey-koprince-150x150.png\")
<\/a>Stacey Koprince<\/a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California.\u00a0Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT \u00a0for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests.\u00a0Check out Stacey\u2019s upcoming GMAT courses here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"