Reference Books - Page 2

Don't Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training

Karen Pryor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 111 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A Better Way to Better Behavior

Karen Pryor's clear and entertaining explanation of behavioral training methods made Don't Shoot the Dog! a bestselling classic. Now this revised edition presents more of her insights into animal—and human—behavior.

A groundbreaking behavioral scientist and dynamic animal trainer, Karen Pryor is a powerful proponent of the principles and practical uses of positive reinforcement in teaching new behaviors. Here are the secrets of changing behavior in pets, kids—even yourself—without yelling, threats, force, punishment, guilt trips...or shooting the dog:

•The principles of the revolutionary "clicker training" method, which owes its phenomenal success to its immediacy of response—so there is no question what action you are rewarding
•8 methods of ending undesirable habits—from furniture-clawing cats to sloppy roommates
•The 10 laws of "shaping" behavior–for results without strain or pain through "affection training"
•Tips for house-training the dog, improving your tennis game, or dealing with an impossible teen
•Explorations of exciting new uses for reinforcement training

Learn why pet owners rave, "This book changed our lives!" and how these pioneering techniques can work for you too.

Kaplan GMAT 800, 2008-2009 Edition (Kaplan Gmat 800)

Kaplan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Honest Review of GMAT Books! 4 out of 5 stars.
14 of 17 people found this review helpful.

After going through all the GMAT books, here is my honest opinion about some of the most popular GMAT books:

Official Guide:
Pros - Excellent source of GMAT questions. Very well organized with real test like questions.
Cons - No review of any math content or test-taking strategies. Not enough explanations of practice questions.
Overall, the Official Guide is a must have for all test-takers. It will give you a good idea about the type of questions to expect on the GMAT; however, if you need more than just a bank of questions, you need to look at some other source.

Kaplan:
Pros - Good for additional practice questions as a supplement
Cons - Review of math content is not thorough but just the very basics. Not enough explanation of test taking strategies. Full of guessing techniques with no real mathematical solutions. Not good enough explanations of practice questions. Unrealistic questions.

Princeton:
Pros - Good for additional practice questions as a supplement
Cons - Review of math content is not thorough but just the very basics. Not enough explanation of test taking strategies. Full of guessing techniques with no real mathematical solutions. Not good enough explanations of practice questions. Weird sense of humor.

Barrons:
Pros - Good math review. Big list of questions. Good test taking strategies. Very well organized. This is by far the best of the all-in-one kinds of books.
Cons - Although the book has a good math review, it doesn't go deep enough into each concept. Not enough explanations to practice questions. Does not have a good section for logical reasoning (permutation, combination, probability, etc) questions, which is one of the most important question-type. Does not break down the concepts/questions step by step.

EZ Solutions (set of 9 books):
Pros - Thorough math review from A to Z. Effective test taking strategies. Abundant solved examples. Numerous practice exercises. Great practice question bank in basic and advanced workbooks.
As with most books, you are expected to already have a good knowledge about the various match concepts, but with these books, you can literally start from scratch and reach the most advanced level of the GMAT.
Cons - To get the best result from these books, you have to invest in buying several books (set of 9 books), but if you compare the cost and benefits, the benefits outweigh the cost, or you can buy a few not all. Missing the verbal section. This is not a good option if you are looking for a mediocre score or just looking for a very basic brush-up. Recommended for serious test takers only.

Some of the other books has no real content; whereas, there are some other books that I haven't yet had an opportunity to review, but may be some of them are good supplementary aids.

I hope my review will help some of you in making the right decision.

Editorial Review:

GMAT 800 offers high-achieving students the toughest practice questions, hardest concepts, and strongest strategies to help them prepare for the GMAT. The guide includes:

* NEW! Online companion with intensive math concepts review and practice drills!

* Hundreds of the toughest practice questions with strategic explantions

* Tips for getting the questions right on test day

* Focused guidelines for tackling each question type

* Proven strategies for getting a perfect score

* Special step-by-step methods for special question types

Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation

Edward Chancellor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 59 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The longest bull market in history" is a term that gets used a lot these days. Since 1990, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen some 8,000 points, from around 2,700 in January 1990 to nearly 11,000 today--a boom by anyone's standards, including Edward Chancellor's. In Devil Take the Hindmost, Chancellor takes an entertaining, albeit sobering, look at the history of speculative manias and the mass delusion that surrounds them.

Beginning with the "tulipomania" that gripped Holland in the 1630s, Chancellor chronicles the formations and irrational euphoria that can inflate markets, from shares of South Sea stock in England in the 1720s to real estate in Japan in the late 1980s. He characterizes the speculative spirit as one that

loves freedom, detests cant, and abhors restrictions. From the tulip Colleges of the seventeenth century to the Internet investment clubs of the late twentieth century, speculation has established itself as the most demotic of economic activities. Although profoundly secular, speculation is not simply about greed. The essence of speculation remains a Utopian yearning for freedom and equality which counterbalances the drab rationalistic materialism of the modern economic system with its inevitable inequalities of wealth.

But it's precisely such inevitability that always seems to win out, when "sharply rising prices followed by sudden panic without cause" bring speculative excess to an abrupt end.

Chancellor makes Devil Take the Hindmost especially relevant to today's U.S. investors by using his analysis of past speculative manias as a lens through which to view the current bull-market binge. No matter what his or her current investment outlook is--bull or bear--anyone with capital to invest would do well to spend a thoughtful weekend with this book. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards

Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School

Philip Delves Broughton

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Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

As One L did for Harvard Law School, Ahead of the Curve does for Harvard Business School—providing an incisive student’s-eye view that pulls the veil away from this vaunted institution and probes the methods it uses to make its students into the elite of the business world

In the century since its founding, Harvard Business School has become the single most influential institution in global business. Twenty percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are HBS graduates, as are many of our savviest entrepreneurs (e.g., Michael Bloomberg) and canniest felons (e.g., Jeffrey Skilling). The top investment banks and brokerage houses routinely send their brightest young stars to HBS to groom them for future power. To these people and many others, a Harvard MBA is a golden ticket to the Olympian heights of American business.

In 2004, Philip Delves Broughton abandoned a post as Paris bureau chief of the London Daily Telegraph to join nine hundred other would-be tycoons on HBS’s plush campus. Over the next two years, he and his classmates would be inundated with the best—and the rest—of American business culture that HBS epitomizes. The core of the school’s curriculum is the “case”—an analysis of a real business situation from which the students must, with a professor’s guidance, tease lessons. Delves Broughton studied more than five hundred cases and recounts the most revelatory ones here. He also learns the surprising pleasures of accounting, the allure of “beta,” the ingenious chicanery of leveraging, and innumerable other hidden workings of the business world, all of which he limns with a wry clarity reminiscent of Liar’s Poker. He also exposes the less savory trappings of b-school culture, from the “booze luge” to the pandemic obsession with PowerPoint to the specter of depression that stalks too many overburdened students. With acute and often uproarious candor, he assesses the school’s success at teaching the traits it extols as most important in business—leadership, decisiveness, ethical behavior, work/life balance.

Published during the one hundredth anniversary of Harvard Business School, Ahead of the Curve offers a richly detailed and revealing you-are-there account of the institution that has, for good or ill, made American business what it is today.

The Official LSAT PrepTest 52 (Official LSAT PrepTest)

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Mastering the Trade (McGraw-Hill Trader's Edge)

John F. Carter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 95 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Mastering The Trade 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I was excited to receive this book because it is written by a seasoned professional and as such carries a lot more credibility than one from someone who never actually managed money. I am a money manager and systems developer myself and have managed huge positions and had many hundreds of clients. The first few chapters of the book cover some basics particularly those relating to psychology and setting up to trade. All of it is good. The section on computers is as would be expected for a book published in 2006. Then the book gets into some areas of trading. Chapter 5 is excellent and covers various breadth and/or market internal measurements. I found this chapter to be worth the price of the book as I have always traded with breadth and it was very nice to catch some differt viewpoints and ideas. John Carter is not a systems trader and I am. I code everything and test it extensively. Mr. Carter is a discretionary trader and as I started to code his methods (Part two) I found them to not hold up very well to the scrutiny of computer analysis. The concepts are still of value though, so I still recommend it as excellent reading and a wide array of excellent trading ideas that could be built on. Many times it is the process in the thinking that is of more value that the content itself. So, if you are inclined to purchase the book to find instantly useable trading ideas, you might come up short. But, if you want something that might inspire some of your own brilliance, of course, you may just find a jewel or two. Section three of the book covers more on planning, psychology and the game of trading. This is an excellent book for any level of trader.

Editorial Review:

Expert tactics to become make the most of every swing trade

In Mastering the Trade, veteran trader and educator John Carter shares his hard-won five-point technique for successful swing trading. In addition, Carter helps you move to the next level of confidence by explaining how markets really work and detailing behind-the-scenes market mechanics.

The Ultimate Math Refresher for the GRE, GMAT, and SAT

Lighthouse Review

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 55 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A great warm-up! 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

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.

Editorial Review:

A comprehensive math review for the GRE, GMAT and SAT. This math refresher workbook is designed to clearly and concisely state the basic math rules and principles of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry which a student needs to master. This is accomplished through a series of carefully sequenced practice sets designed to build a student's math skills step-by-step. The workbook emphasizes basic concepts and problem solving skills. Strategies for specific question types on the GRE, GMAT, and SAT are the focus of the Lighthouse Review Self Study programs.

How To Get Into the Top MBA Programs, 4th Edition (How to Get Into the Top Mba Programs)

J.D., Richard Montauk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 118 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

huge book, worthwhile and seems complete 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a huge book, worthwhile and seems complete. I also have the Your MBA Game Plan: Proven Strategies for Getting into the Top Business Schools, and this book is ten times the size. I have yet to read the whole thing and probably will never; however it is easy to find the data I need for my search. I also like the discussions about why and where to go, not just the how like in other books.

This book helped me get into a top school! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I used the previous edition of the book in 2006 (green cover) and it helped me get into a top 5 business school. In fact I got into both the top 5 schools that I had applied to.

My advice to applicants is to pay special attention to essays and recommendation letters. If the writers are too busy, write one up for them (call it a template) and let them edit it. That way you can get them to say what you want them to say more or less.

Spend a LOT of time on the essays, they can make or break you more than the GMAT. Read them over and over again, read them aloud, have someone read them to you and have them reviewed by someone who got into the school you want to get into. The sample essays in the book were great to know what kind of information the admissions committee would look for. I took as much as 30 days of every day work to get my essays in the form that I was happy with.

Montauk's book guides you through this process and that was the only book I used.

Editorial Review:

Now updated and revised.

Now with new and expanded information on Executive MBA programs, the most up-to-date school rankings, new interviews with admissions officers, and more detailed advice for younger applicants, Montauk offers an up-close and candid view of what leading MBA programs look for in an applicant.

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 85 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Your life could depend on reading this book. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Hey folks,

If you're out there considering buying this book, please know that it might prove to be one of the most important books you'll ever read.

You might realize that our government isn't always straightfoward with us. You might even have noticed the lack of objective and complete news reporting that is prevailing with the media these days. This book will show you how our government, large corporations, and the media work in concert to keep Americans in the dark about things that affect our most vital interests. It sounds like a conspiracy theory, I know--because that's the reaction we've all been conditioned to have about material like this. However, every fact in this book is verifiable. Please take the time to read it!!

I also highly recommend Blowback by Chalmers Johnson.

Read these books--learn to see past the propaganda we are inundated with daily!

Editorial Review:

An absolutely brilliant analysis of the ways in which individuals and organizations of the media are influenced to shape the social agendas of knowledge and, therefore, belief. Contrary to the popular conception of members of the press as hard-bitten realists doggedly pursuing unpopular truths, Herman and Chomsky prove conclusively that the free-market economics model of media leads inevitably to normative and narrow reporting. Whether or not you've seen the eye-opening movie, buy this book, and you will be a far more knowledgeable person and much less prone to having your beliefs manipulated as easily as the press.

Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean

Karen Berman, Joe Knight, John Case

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Companies expect managers to use financial data to allocate resources and run their departments. But many managers can't read a balance sheet, wouldn't recognize a liquidity ratio, and don't know how to calculate return on investment. Worse, they don't have any idea where the numbers come from or how reliable they really are. In "Financial Intelligence", Karen Berman and Joe Knight teach the basics of finance - but with a twist. Financial reporting, they argue, is as much art as science. Since nobody can quantify everything, accountants always rely on estimates, assumptions, and judgment calls. Savvy managers need to know how those sources of possible bias can affect the financials - and they need to know that sometimes the numbers can be challenged.While providing the foundation for a deep understanding of the financial side of business, the book also arms managers with practical strategies for improving their companies' performance - strategies such as "managing the balance sheet" that are well understood by financial professionals but rarely shared with their nonfinancial colleagues. Accessible, jargon-free, and filled with entertaining stories of real companies, "Financial Intelligence" will help nonfinancial managers be smarter and more confident in their everyday work.