Customer Reviews

GRE Computer Science (Graduate Record Examination Series, Gre-21)

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The honor of the worst book should belong to the one with the most totally negative reviews, and I may be the first to review this one. As an advisor of CS students taking the test, I am interested in finding materials that will support preparation. I cannot recommend this book.

This book consists of 4 disconnected components: a section on advice for taking the GRE/General or SAT or who knows what, the major chunk called Examination Section, a piece on Boolean algebra, and a glossary. #1: wrong test. #2: the exams are not numbered, bear little resemblance to GRE/CS questions, dwell on IS from the 1960s and 70s, use COBOL, Basic, a little Pascal, a little Lisp, no C, no C++; there's a bonus unrelated math test. Some tests use questions with "(E) All of the above," an alternative inadmissible in a true multiple-choice exam. #3: gives parallel development of some basic B.alg identities with tt, logic gates, switch circuits, and some Venn diagrams; an obscure review, not a tutorial. #4: want to know what a "chute blade" does in a sorter? NO... it doesn't say it's in a sorter! For cognitive dissonance compare "chip" and "chip box." "Cache," "RISC," "Java," "IDE"? Wrong century!

Good points: Section 2 contains a lot more questions than the other books I've seen, and I did not find errors in a quick glance, only obscurity at worst. Some of the questions are useful, but if you know the difference, you don't need this book.

It has nothing to do with the actual GRE CS subject test. What's worse, it is especially harmful as a test preparation book. Don't be midled by it!!!

This book has a shiny cover and copyright date of 2003, but it is severely outdated, and completely useless for the GRE.

The answer to one question claims that MOST hard disks contain "millions" (or megabytes) of storage -- needless to say I got that question wrong, since I answered "billions" (gigabytes).

I only bought this book because of utter lack of reference in this category, but do NOT buy this book. Get the subjects covered by the exam, and buy Schaum's outlines series and study those areas. I bought "operating systems", "computer architecture", and another PASCAL book. Along with my old textbooks, they help much more than this old piece of junk.

Questions are from the 60s. Very disorganized book. A Nightmare.

Wanted to use the book over the summer...what a joke, arrived after school started. Why did this book take 2 months to ship?Maybe one should order this book a year before needed...really disappointed in logistics of getting the book. Sorry, didn't get a chance to even look at it, just venting...