Fresh off the presses: our friends at GMAT just released the 2nd edition of the GMAT Verbal Review. This time, they've switched to a sexy blue theme. Much nicer than the lavender on the 1st edition. Aside from the color change, not a whole lot is different. Most of the verbal questions are the same, but they supposedly removed 75 questions and replaced them with 75 new ones. But actually... they removed 82 questions and replaced them with 82 new ones. You get 7 more real GMAT questions than they promised! Isn't that exciting?
If you're looking for some extra verbal practice material, it probably wouldn't hurt to have an additional 82 "official" questions, especially since the book is so cheap (about $13 on Amazon). But do the lords of the GMAT give us any special hints in the new edition? Are there any systematic changes that might hint at a new composition of the actual test questions?
Unfortunately, not really. I spent a good chunk of time poring over the new questions, and I can't say that all that much is substantially different. It's not as if the new GMAT verbal guide is suddenly covered with, say, parallelism questions. It is, however, covered with balsamic vinaigrette. At least my copy is. (A little salad accident happened while I was working through the book. That was my punishment for ordering a salad, I guess.)
Anyhow, here's a breakdown, by question type:
Reading Comprehension
Questions removed from the 1st edition: 13, 22-28, 55-63, 91-97, 98-105 (32 questions removed)
Questions added to the 2nd edition: 1-6, 18-23, 45-49, 64-70, 91-97 (31 questions added)
Random edits: a few typos were fixed (missing punctuation on 1st edition #40 and #51), indentations were added at the beginning of each passage, and line references were changed as a result (#48, #50, #74, #76, #102). Yes, I'm that anal. Want me to edit your MBA application essays?
Useful conclusions: none, really. I thought it was interesting that they removed a pair of random questions (1st edition #13 and #65) while keeping the rest of the passage intact, but I don't think that leads us to any stunning conclusions about the makeup of the test. The five new passages include two science readings, two "business-y" readings, and one social science-y passage about W.E.B. DuBois. These replaced four passages, including one science reading, two business-y readings, and one social science-y passage about Florence Nightengale. As a tutor who spends way too much time with these books, I have to admit that I'll miss Florence.
Brutally honest conclusion #1: anybody get the feeling that GMAC released this new edition just to sell books?
Brutally honest conclusion #2: I'm not serious about missing the Florence Nightengale passage.
Critical Reasoning
Questions removed from the 1st edition: 1, 2, 5, 8, 13, 15, 19, 22-23, 29, 35, 42-43, 46, 54, 55, 59, 60, 66, 68, 77, 82 (22 questions removed)
Questions added to the 2nd edition: 1, 3, 6, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37, 40, 45, 48, 51, 54, 59, 62, 65, 70, 74, 78, 81 (23 questions added)
Random edits: underlining was removed from questions 24, 26, 27, 49, and 79 in the 1st edition. Not that you care, but it looks like some editor at GMAC had to work overtime once or twice.
Useful conclusions: actually, I do see a few semi-significant changes in the critical reasoning part of the test. There are now two (wow!) of the "boldfaced" questions, compared with one in the 1st edition. In the 1st edition, there were six "paired" questions attached to a single passage; all of those have been removed, or at least converted to single questions.
More generally, I think that GMAC has been experimenting with a broader range of question stems for critical reasoning. Once upon a time, CR didn't go much beyond some basic "strengthen" and "weaken" questions; other phrasings (see 2nd edition #70 and #78) are a little bit more common than they used to be. This doesn't radically alter the test, but it's interesting nonetheless.
Sentence Correction
Questions removed from the 1st edition: 3, 14, 17, 18, 21, 24, 27, 28, 33, 36, 38, 43, 47, 50, 52, 54, 55, 58, 59, 69, 74, 75, 77, 81, 83, 87, 89, 90 (28 questions removed)
Questions added to the 2nd edition: 1, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 22, 27, 31, 36, 42, 45, 50, 53, 57, 61, 65, 69, 73, 79, 84, 88, 92, 96, 100, 104, 108, 112 (28 questions added)
Useful conclusions: none, really. For the past couple of years, I've theorized that the GMAT is trying to make their sentence correction questions more "test-prep proof" by inserting more questions that involve some sort of tricky logic, unusually difficult comparisons, or funny forms of parallelism (i.e. false parallelism traps or opaque parallel structures). I also think that we're starting to see more idioms, and fewer questions that can be solved just by knowing simple grammar and usage rules.
Although my students continue to tell me that the sentence correction questions on the real test are much harder than in the GMAT official guides, the 2nd edition of the Verbal Review gives us pretty much nothing. The new 28 questions don't seem to be significantly harder than the 28 that were deleted from the 1st edition. The last few new ones aren't exactly a walk in the park, but they're still nowhere near the difficulty level of some of the evil stuff I've seen on the real test.
So there you have it. If you're being really aggressive about your GMAT prep, you might want to buy both books, and then use the question lists above to cherry-pick the non-redundant questions out of one of the books. Other than that, there's no particular reason to think that the 2nd edition offers anything all that special. If you're confident with your verbal skills, there's no need to race to the local bookstore for the 2nd edition--if the 1st is already in your hot little hands, you probably won't need to bother with the 2nd.