I just finished my GMAT exam yesterday and not found this book helpful. I like the layout of all the contents and the exercises are great. However, this book is only good for "refresh" my rusty memory. I need something more advanced. Besides, this book was published in 1999 and GMAT has gone a little more difficult than it was before. So, if you are like me who is preparing for GMAT, you can definitely get this book for a easy start, but make sure you get aother book that is more updated and more advanced.

this book is great, takes you from the most basic concepts to geometry and beyond. If you haven't done math in a couple of years then this is a great start for you.

this book is great, takes you from the most basic concepts to geometry and beyond. If you haven't done math in a couple of years then this is a great start for you.

Dear Reader,

It's been a while since I've written a review,but this time i felt compelled.
The ultimate math refresher promises a lot and delivers very little to none. I bought it for an upcoming GMAT test. GMAT math is still substantially 'below' GRE levels, so I really don't understand how this book can claim to prepare for higher levels, when it doesn't even cover the full spectrum of GMAT necessities. While it will explain how to add fractions in almost painfull detail, proper treatment of nasty word problems, algebra- and ratio questions has been almost completely neglected.
I was extremely disappointed. I read a couple chapters and discarded it in favor of an EZ solutions practice book together with the official orange book. Even the Kaplan titles bring more to the table then this thing. All in all disappointing.

Wow, this book is awesome. I am already trying to study like 1000 subjects with the GMAT, but this book breaks it down. First it test you on your problem areas, then gives you a page number to reference if you missed a question, then you just fix the problem areas and move on. Great book!

This book is perfect for those who have a) not had a math class in a while or b) little confidence in their math skills. As one of the mathematically crippled myself, I felt I needed a brush up on my skills. This is a great entry-level book with wonderful step-by-step instructions, both of methodology and practice problems.

This is a "leg up" book, though. You definitely need to couple this book with more advanced practice to be successful on the GRE. Try the Barron's comprehensive study aid.

This book is perfect for those who have a) not had a math class in a while or b) little confidence in their math skills. As one of the mathematically crippled myself, I felt I needed a brush up on my skills. This is a great entry-level book with wonderful step-by-step instructions, both of methodology and practice problems.

This is a "leg up" book, though. You definitely need to couple this book with more advanced practice to be successful on the GRE. Try the Barron's comprehensive study aid.

I think this is a good book to go through before you jump into the official exam books. I really liked the Geometry section since that was where I was feeling the pinch when I started looking at the GMAT books. However I think you would get away by not doing the Algebra & Arithmetic since they were pretty simple.

I bought this book based on amazon reviewers comments and I was wrong. This book is so simple it's not even funny. Just skimming through it, I can not even say that it will help with the GMAT in the slightest way.

For a far better math review guide for gmat preparation, I would reccommend the Arco Gmat/GRE Math review book. This book assumes you know how to add and multiply (unlike the "Ultimate" refresher) and goes through topics in great detail. I am almost done with the entire Arco book and love how it introduces new topis and gives you problems that range in difficulty - from easy to hard. This is how you build up a mathematical skillset.

Not to mention, the Arco book covers the bredth of math-related topics which are likely to appear on the GMAT.

Anyone looking to get a serious score, steer clear of this waste of $. Your $ is better spent on the Arco book.

It gives an okay overview of the basics, but it is not challenging enough for the GRE.

This book starts you off with very basic math, building up to the more complicated mathematics that are included in the GRE (geometry, arithmetics, up to logorithms, etc.). Step by step, you fill the exercises right in the book. Simple and very useful. Helped me out a lot personally

Its Very Basic Book, though it says refresher for GRE etc. It starts with 2+3=5 and continues with only very very basic details with the most complex formula in the book being "Area of Circle=Pi*r**2".

I bought this book as a Math refresher for the GRE. For its price it's a good bye, and includes practice problems and answers. This guidebook is geared towards the General GRE, the GMAT and the LSAT. The same publisher has more specific refresher books for each test individually, my advise would be to go with that. Other then that, very folksy and easy to read.

This is book is only useful for reviewing fundamental concepts. This book is NOT useful for learning and practicing time-saving strategies. Most of the problems are solved with a step-by-step process. Time-saving strategies that I learned elsewhere online allowed me to solve the problems FASTER than using the time-consuming step-by-step methods found in this book.

This offers a decent review. It moves slowly in the beginning, but picks up the pace almost too fast in the end. Also, much of the terminology was different than what I learned in school, so I had to translate much of the book. It did give me a good review, though, and I did much better on the math portion of the test than I would have without it.

This book is very useful, very organized in presenting and showing solutions. It is easy to understand. I highly recommend it to everybody who wants to refresh their math.

This book is very useful, very organized in presenting and showing solutions. It is easy to understand. I highly recommend it to everybody who wants to refresh their math.

This book provided a good refresher in terms of math skills that have not been used for a while. It had good explainations and questions, however I would use this early on and study actual math tactics in a GRE math book specifically, because you do not have enough time on the actual GRE to do the math questions as explained by this book.

The concept reviews and practice sets were easy-to-follow, focused and extremely helpful. I highly recommend this book.

I'm awful at math, and bought this book to help me prepare for the GRE. I was not very impressed with it. Since the GRE is multiple choice and you have limited time to finish, you need help on how to cut corners (e.g. work backwards, guesstimate etc), which this book does not provide. I found the math chapters in the GRE-specific manuals much better. That said, if you need a short refresher on math -and- have plenty of time to prepare for the GRE, this might help you out. For me, the Princeton Review "Cracking the GRE" and the Kaplan GRE comprehensive edition worked better.

This was a very good review for me. I used to be good at math, but haven't used it in so long. This was a nice refresher, with a good amount of practice problems. The only thing, is that they don't go over word problems in depth. Also, if you are using this for the GRE, you also need to learn the tricks for taking the test at a faster pace. This book does not do that. I still recommend this book to use, initially.

I found out about this book by reading reviews of the Barron's GRE Prep manual. (which I did use and do endorse) Still, Math was not a strength for me and I'd forgotten so many little things. UMR brings these forgotten things back to memory in a simple and non-intimidating way. This really helped me to get back into the Math groove so that I could be successful on my GRE.

This book is good. To the point and well explained with no extra fluff, it is exactly what it says, a math refresher especially useful for those of you, like me who haven't taken a math course in 8 or 9 years. This book is helpful. I reccommend it.

** UPDATE - I got a 780V and 670Q on the GRE. Couldn't have done it without this book. Spent two weeks after review below playing around with "tactics" in the Barron's book...I would have benefitted more by mastering every one of the concepts in the Ultimate Math Refresher. Then again - I'm not a math person. I can see where math people would find the book too easy and not helpful. To the math people go the tactics - to B.A. folks like myself - bone up on the basics with this easy-to-use book. Good luck! **

I spent about a month doing every single problem in this book - there are 33 sets of problems, 10 - 20 problems each set. Total time invested...maybe 20 hours? My practice scores on the math part of the GRE have gone up somewhat. But the point is, I'm no longer mystified by the problems. NOW I'm ready and equipped to study the GRE books and learn tactics, etc.

The Math Refresher really is a pre-course for GRE math study. It starts with prime numbers, fractions, decimals, etc...all the basic stuff you learned before 8th grade but have long ago forgotten. The best part of the book walks you through percentages (part = whole X percent) and ratios. Toward the end there is a decent section with 20 or so typical word problems, and it was nice to see me finally getting most of those questions correct. (After bombing them repeatedly on practice tests.) There are also good sections on geometry, factoring, variables, proportions, work problems, distance problems.

Having said all that - be prepared to BEGIN your GRE study after this refresher. That's where I'm at. I now have 2 weeks to prepare, with practice test scores at 770 V and 660 M. (ha, I don't really believe that...my math scores vascillate between 520 and 660 - my V is usually around 660. But I did log that score over the weekend following completion of the Ultimate Math Refresher.)

This is a good workbook, written simply with step by step instructions for solving math problems. There are no multiple choice answers...this is a workbook that makes you work out each problem yourself. Want several hundred math problems that get you up to speed on basic math operations? This book works. THEN start studying the GRE prep books. Good luck!

I spent about a month doing every single problem in this book - there are 33 sets of problems, 10 - 20 problems each set. Total time invested...maybe 20 hours? My practice scores on the math part of the GRE have gone up somewhat. But the point is, I'm no longer mystified by the problems. NOW I'm ready and equipped to study the GRE books and learn tactics, etc.

The Math Refresher really is a pre-course for GRE math study. It starts with prime numbers, fractions, decimals, etc...all the basic stuff you learned before 8th grade but have long ago forgotten. The best part of the book walks you through percentages (part = whole X percent) and ratios. Toward the end there is a decent section with 20 or so typical word problems, and it was nice to see me finally getting most of those questions correct. (After bombing them repeatedly on practice tests.) There are also good sections on geometry, factoring, variables, proportions, work problems, distance problems.

Having said all that - be prepared to BEGIN your GRE study after this refresher. That's where I'm at. I now have 2 weeks to prepare, with practice test scores at 770 V and 660 M. (ha, I don't really believe that...my math scores vascillate between 520 and 660 - my V is usually around 660. But I did log that score over the weekend following completion of the Ultimate Math Refresher.)

This is a good workbook, written simply with step by step instructions for solving math problems. There are no multiple choice answers...this is a workbook that makes you work out each problem yourself. Want several hundred math problems that get you up to speed on basic math operations? This book works. THEN start studying the GRE prep books. Good luck!

I bought this book looking at the product details and the content. I was expecting it to have some tips and trips to save time in calculation or computation. I must say that I was very disappointed with it. 10th graders perform more complicated math than what is shown in the book. It is oversimplified and gives a false sense of confidence to the test taker. Returned the book immediately.

In preparing to retake the GRE, in an attempt to finish my PhD, I was very nervous about the algebra section, since I haven't used any of this for many years. I found the "Ultimate Math Refresher" and have been really thrilled with its explanations and step-by-step exercises. The one little flaw - at least for me - is that each section has very few exercises with which to practice the problems, then it just jumps to the next level. I needed more practice and ongoing reviews of what I had learned in earlier sections. Again, the explanations are excellent, so I purchased an old college workbook and combined the instructions from the "Math Refresher" with the exercises in the workbook. I highly recommend this book, but if algebra is a special challenge, or if it's been quite awhile, and you feel you need more practice, this book may not be enough alone.

I've been out of school for over 25 years and needed a refresher for the GRE. This book has been great. Everything just started coming back to me.
The authors show how to do each type of problem without assuming prior knowledge. I feel much more confident now.

This book has been such a tremendous help in my preperation for the GMAT. I'm taking a $800 prep course but this book has taught me many tricks that even my instructor is unaware of. My score has gone up by 50 points because of this book. Buy it!

This book has been such a tremendous help in my preperation for the GMAT. I'm taking a $800 prep course but this book has taught me many tricks that even my instructor is unaware of. My score has gone up by 50 points because of this book. Buy it!

I bought this book to prepare to take my GREs for a PhD program. I am an English teacher and all of my students know that I can't "do math." I didn't have to take math in college or grad school and I've been out of high school for 15 years, so I was panicked about the math section on the GREs. I bought this book and started working on it during downtimes at school, evenings, etc. It turned out to be a lot of fun. I enjoyed the problems and practice. The pages leave lots of room to work out the problems right beside them. It starts out with very basic math - fractions, percents, etc, but it was just what I needed. It was easy to understand and very helpful. My students even helped me with the hard ones!

I use the customer reviews to make purchase decisions often but have never felt compelled to write one until now. I also have the Kaplan GRE Exam math workbook fifth edition and like most of the math prep books I found, they assume a very brief review of a concept will trigger your memory and you will be able to work practice problems. The Ultimate Math Refresher is for those who truly need to relearn the concepts. It doesn't have practice problems like you will find on the GRE but it has practice sections to demostrate the concepts and make sure you understand them. The sections are also short enough for people who find relearning math tedious. I suggest this book for the mathematically challenged and then move on to one of the typical prep books with GRE style problems.

It has been 20 years since i got my undergrad degree. I needed the GREs to get into grad school and was told I needed a 550 on each portion. I was most worried about the math section so I bought this book. Wow. I forgot how much I had forgotten. After cruising through this book, I destroyed the math section on the GREs! There were some problems that were identical to the ones I had practiced on. My only regret...that I did not buy the similar book on the Comprehensive/English/Reading portion. While I ended up doing ok on that section, the results of this book really made a huge difference on the math portion. A great investment!

It has been 20 years since i got my undergrad degree. I needed the GREs to get into grad school and was told I needed a 550 on each portion. I was most worried about the math section so I bought this book. Wow. I forgot how much I had forgotten. After cruising through this book, I destroyed the math section on the GREs! There were some problems that were identical to the ones I had practiced on. My only regret...that I did not buy the similar book on the Comprehensive/English/Reading portion. While I ended up doing ok on that section, the results of this book really made a huge difference on the math portion. A great investment!

This is one of the best books I've ever purchased. I bought it to help prepare for the Graduate Record Exam because I'd been out of school for some time. This book really takes you through the basics. Great Refresher! You won't go wrong with this one.

i have not taken a math class in almost 12 years and decided that I wanted to go back to graduate school. This boobk was great because it goes over everything from the very beginning. I was suprised at some of the math laws I had either completely forgotten or felt like I had never known. I had a full month to study and made it through the whole book. If you feel very insecure about your math skills, get this book. But also, get a Princeton Review's "Cracking the GRE" if you are taking the GRE, becuase it gives you a lot more information on the actual test and how to approach it. Very valuable.

This is one of the best books I've ever purchased. I bought it to help prepare for the Graduate Record Exam because I'd been out of school for some time. This book really takes you through the basics. Great Refresher! You won't go wrong with this one.

I'm using this book to prepare for the GRE after being out of college for more than 20 years. This is a good review of basic math and algebra. The explanations are clear and concise. All samples and exercises have the answers explained step-by-step.

There are some areas that I needed more practice in so I relied on the internet to find more exercises.
The Barron's book for GRE prep gives many exercises that are specifially in GRE format.

This book was really helpful in remembering the basics. Plenty of practice exercises.

I ordered this book to brush up on some basic math that I haven't used in many years. I got it in order to do better on my law enforcement exam. This book covered everything that I needed. It was just right! It walks through the basics and works one up to more complex problems. It includes clear explanations on how to solve the problem and then provides a practice test for each area covered. It even offers some tricks to keep in mind when encountering certain problems. Perfect for a refresher!

I bought this with hope to get my brain used to solving complicated problems quickly. However, the quality of excercises in this book is very very low. I could have made up any of the excercises in the book. Unsatisfied, I returned it in 2 days. Do not buy it if you are very good or even avarage at math. This will not help you.

Very good book...if you want to refresh the basic math, algebra and Geometry...before you start with the real problems...this is your book...

This is the best book to start with. It gives you the foundation to work the GRE books with ease.

I didn't take any math during my years in collegue...so this book help me to remember everything i was taught in high school.

I was faced with the frightening prospect of taking GREs again, some thirty years after the first time I took them, since I'm now applying to grad school for a second Master's degree. I expected that I'd have no problems with the written portion of it, but frankly the math portion terrified me.

This book provided succinct and clear explanations of the basic principles I needed to do well on the math section. I am sure I would have scored in the 10th percentile without it; with it, I got a very respectable (for a humanities major) 650.

I have since passed it along to my daughter, who was preparing for her SATs. Her comments mirrored mine. I look forward to seeing how her scores improved over her first administration of the test.

I would recommend it highly.

My problem is math doesn't stick with me unless I practice it over and over and over. This book does well at explaining concepts, equations, etc., but it offers very few practice questions. I especially needed help on probability, coordinate geometry and combination problems, and this book leaves much to be desired.

If you only have a few days to study for the test and you need to brush up the math skills; this is the book for you. It reviews all the concepts at a lightning fast pace.

It's obvious that I've not paid much attention in math class. Ever. But, studying for the GRE, I found this book the most helpful of all. I've taken the MCAT twice and the GRE once already. All scores mediocre, and I decided that this final time of taking the GRE would be no holds barred on studying and study-book buying. Having gone through the Princeton Review twice, and used Kaplan books, Princeton Review books etc, I can say that the best math book I've found is this one -- FOR REFRESHING SKILLS. This book does not give you problems like you'll have on the GRE though, but it's great for those little things you forget (or in my case, never learned). For instance, roots and exponents, distributive rule of exponents, addition of roots etc -- it's a very straightforward book, but combined with enough practice problems that you get some diversity in learning, it's not all memorizing. If you want problems like those on the GRE, try a small book called Barron's Pass Key to the GRE. They have good problems, and quite helpful. If you're a girl with a big purse, this book is great to take with you everywhere and study on the fly.

I have always struggled in math. This book presents all the basic concepts you'll need for test taking. The main problem is that the book is not always detailed enough. Several explanations are not very satisfying, and sometimes leave more questions than answers. However, the book is a good way to refresh your memory on basic mathematic concepts. Despite it's lack of detail, it is still a worthy investment.

I aced the GRE, after studying 3 months while taking 12 credits in undergrad.
I'm now addicted to standardized tests because I have found a system that works.
I've taken a non academic Professional Liscense exam and ACED it using a system
that I've found. I took those two standardized tests within six months, and now
i'm going to be ready to take another within 3 months. THAT'S 3 standardized
tests within NINE Months. Check out http://grevsgmat.blogspot.com


IT's ALL ABOUT THE DIFFERENT BOOKS.

Barron's
Thomas Petersons
Princeton Review
Kaplan

IT"S ALL ABOUT USING 3 MONTHS per TEST.

It's called DIVERSIFICATION. If you're interested, or wondering how it works..
simply buy all the GMAT or GRE books you can..

FIRST study the drills
SECOND study the practice sets
THIRD study the Sample Tests

But switch up between math & verbal alot, and take great notes.

I'm telling you THIS WORKS.

FEW know about this system, and it's hard to find out other details.

Come to my forum, and let's talk about GRE vs GMAT!

http://grevsgmat.blogspot.com