Customer Reviews

Cracking the GRE with DVD, 2008 Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT violating my commitment to privacy to ETS. Read carefully: the following information makes NO mention of specific GRE questions, nor of categories of questions, nor of ANYTHING related to specific test content. Rather, it compares what I believe to be the test's difficulty to this particular book. So, ETS, don't whine: you're not being cheated.

This book provides excellent preparation for the GRE General Test as a whole. It is particularly strong on the verbal and analytical sections. However, its coverage of quantitative contents (math/algebra/geometry) is greatly underdeveloped and seriously troublesome.

The strengths of "The Princeton Review's Cracking the GRE" lie primarily with its techniques to, well, CRACK the GRE. It suggests very many tips that apply to test-taking in general and to the GRE in particular. For example, can you eliminate up to three possible answers (out of five) just with ballparking, or with a little bit of common sense? The book tells you how. Can you answer a question about a word that you have no idea what it means? Sure! How do you write an essay on a topic that you have never heard before? Again, the book tells you how.

Also, the verbal workout section is quite strong. Many words on my GRE exam I had learned from this book. I might have been lucky, but I don't think so: this book's word bank is impressive and thorough, yet easily accessible.

Where this book SERIOUSLY lacks is in the math/quantitative section prep. The questions on my exam were NOWHERE near the sort of questions, or even topics, that this book contains. Only after getting very many questions wrong did the test "adapt" to me and started giving me easier questions, as per standard procedure. I ended up with a score that I did NOT like.

Truth be told, my quantitative score was still higher than the national average, but let's face it: the national average is LOW. Like, amazingly low, retardedly low. You get 200 points just by writing your name. To score as high as I did (which would be a barely passing grade in college) is nothing to brag about.

I blame this primarily on this book, which gives A TOTALLY UNREALISTIC IDEA OF THE QUANTITATIVE/MATH QUESTIONS FOUND IN THE ACTUAL GRE. Once again, the verbal and analytical parts are just fine, great, fantastic. But this is a serious shortcoming, and if math isn't your forte you should definitely look elsewhere.

From the good reviews here, I decided to buy this book with DVD. However, it's really not worth the money or the time.
1. the book is too short to have enough useful information
2. the online practice questions have almost no relation to the actual test....also, the online practice questions are doggy, once I did a CAT, the quantitative questions did not have any geometry questions in there, I got only 700, yet only got 1 question wrong (in the ETS CD, I got the 2nd question wrong and was able to get 800)
On the other hand, it does contain some useful hints, but they are better covered in the Kaplan book.
Yes, I've done the GRE, got >1400, no help from this book though.

I suggest for people who want to do well in the GRE to buy Barrons (very good for math) and Kaplan (good for verbal). More importantly, practice the free material that ETS sends you!

I received a 750Q, 600V on the GRE, and I wouldn't have been able to do it without this book. It is an excellent resource for making the GRE palatable and conquerable. It is organized efficiently, and it offers unique and helpful strategies. There are, however, some caveats:

1. I found that it makes the math seem easier than it often is on the real test. While this is good for low-scorers, I wouldn't have gotten my 750 if I had only used this resource.

2. The online practice tests are much harder than the real test. Take your practice scores with a grain of salt. I barely broke 620Q on several of the practice tests.

3. While it is excellent, it works best in concert with other prep guides such as the official ETS book (though beware of this book's deceptively easy math sections, which have barely any hard problems) and Powerprep software and Kaplan's DVD guide. My roommate and I found Barron's book to be terrible: It made the math more complex than it had to be, it was poorly organized, and the narrative style was not as captivating as those of the other guides.

For the record: In most of my practice exams, I was getting mostly the reverse of what I ended up getting. This goes to show you how hit-or-miss the GRE can be. If you want to score high on the verbal, memorizing the entire hit parade is necessary (I did it), but not sufficient. The only way to get a high verbal score is to become accustomed to reading dense articles in literature, history, and the natural sciences. Getting a high math score is a function of learning to be comfortable without calculators, memorizing all of the rules and formulas, and practicing math in your head.

There are two kinds of people who take the Graduate Record Examination. Well, three, actually: Those who don't study for the GRE, those who take a course costing several hundred dollars, and those of us buying a book or two. Buy "Cracking the GRE." It is what you need.

I suspect those who take the courses get their money's worth.

However, "Cracking the GRE" is a much cheaper, quicker solution. It cuts to the chase, tells you what you need to know, and shows you how to figure out those algebra problems better than your high school freshman year teacher.

They teach you how to be organized during the test. And you'll learn how to draw sensible charts for the logic portion. This will save you precious time as you realize you have no clue how to answer number 27. It teach you how to effectively guess.

With the DVD, you will endure (it is a tough exam, after all), test conditions, and receive video tutorials. The greatest benefit, however, and where you might find yourself studying the most is the book. Plow through word lists, key types of questions and testing suggestions.

I took the GRE. I used the Princeton Review. I crammed. Sure, sure--not the best approach for an important exam, but the fact remains, I'm not alone. Effective cramming involves knowing what to jettison, and what to keep on board. That is, knowing what is important to focus on. The Princeton Review folks know this.

I dreaded the math portion. If I told you how low my high school grades were for math, and then told you my GRE score, you'd likely believe neither. But it is true. My score rocked. Why? The easy teaching style of "Cracking the GRE." The MIT admissions people wouldn't be impressed with my score, but for a guy with a literature degree looking to get into a marketing communications program, the "Cracking the GRE" helped me get the math score I needed.

Have I convinced you? No more delaying. Hurry up, get on with it, and buy "Cracking the GRE." You'll get the best results cramming can bring you. Oh, and be sure to get to the exam early. There is a long form to fill out beforehand.

I fully recommend "Cracking the GRE."

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

Having just sat for the GRE today and obtained a satisfying score, I decided to review all the GRE prep books I used. Firstly, I have been out of college for 13 years and hated Math [I was an English major]and so I was quite apprehensive in preparing for the GRE. Three books helped me get through the GRE - Barron's, Kaplan's and the Princeton Review, in that order.

In short, I found Barron's to be the most useful in terms of preparing for the verbal and quantitative component, Kaplan's for the quantitative component [though they really need better editors, there were many typos], and finally the Princeton Review for the essay prep. Of the three, I got Kaplan's and the Princeton Review with the CD-ROM and DVD. I really found Kaplan's CAT tests to be challenging and helped me prepare for the CAT. However, the Princeton Review falls short in this aspect. Though the CAT tests were generally good, to access them, you had to register online, and manouvering around the site was time-comsuming and very user UNfriendly. It took at least an hour before I got to actually do the tests. If you have the patience, then go for it. Otherwise, just get the book without the DVD and save yourself some hassle.

The four online practice tests are useful for familiarization, but don't expect the questions to match with those on the actual exam. There is not test prep book that knows what's going to be on the exam. I memorized a lot of vocabularies, i.e. all the Hit Parade and more from various websites, but still there were some vocabs I wasn't sure with. I got only 560 verbal on the actual test, while I got 660 on the practice test. Know your vocabs and know how to read the passage for GRE.

The math however was very helpful. I'm a physics major, but I still couldn't finish the math part. Left two questions and scored 700. If a question is too long, skip it. Don't get stuck on the POE too much; that's just the guideline. Go as fast as you can.

If you don't take the online practice tests, you will not do well. I recommend buying this book, just for the online practice tests. (It's a little tricky to access it. You have to click on the very first word in the link at the center.)

The book contains very useful information, a set of vocab lists, and a lot of practice. I believe this is what helps the most. My only complaint is that in certain types of math problems, they teach you how to find the right answer without actually solving the problem. This bothers me- even if it takes longer to solve that way, I'd like to be able to do it. That said, I feel much more prepared thanks to this book.

The computer administered GRE exam has changed with the November 2007 administration, and the practice exams in the new 2008 edition of Cracking the GRE do not appear to include the new question types. That's defensible in one sense because for at least the first administration in November, the new questions will not count in the final score. However, the new questions may start to count with the next or subsequent administrations, provided GRE can "validate" the scoring for the new format questions. Thus, if you are thinking of taking the test after November, this book is not quite enough. You'll also need to go to the GRE website and examine the format of the new questions if you want to be fully prepared and avoid any unpleasant "surprises." (I'm also hoping that Princeton Review will offer the new question types online at its website at the appropriate time.)

In case you were wondering, the new Verbal question type is a text completion question that requires the test taker to fill in two or three blanks within a passage from separate multiple-choice lists. Currently, the Verbal section contains text completion questions that require test takers to fill in one blank within a passage from a single multiple-choice list. The new Quantitative question type will be a numeric entry question that requires test takers to type their answer as a number in a box, or as a fraction in two boxes. Test takers can review sample questions and additional information about the new question types on the GRE website.

That said, this book is still quite useful, as the paramount element of this book is the wide-ranging vocabulary review. Princeton Review has included several hundred words that they feel crop up frequently on GRE exams. I unquestionably feel that reviewing the vocabulary part of the this book helped me come back with a few questions that I would not have known.

I also recommend going to the GRE's website and downloading the free PowerPrep software in addition to buying this book. It includes two full GRE tests and a few hundred practice problems, including the new type in verbal and in quantitative. Additionally, for the essay part of the examination, they include a few sample prompts and responses, so you can see the writing they grade highly.

I really bought this book for access to the online practice tests so that I would be familiar with the format used. Unfortunately, the system they use is extremely slow and clumsy. I didn't really use the book itself so I won't comment on that.

As for the on-line practice: It takes at least a half hour to get started. First you must create an account, yep another username and password to forget. Then you must surrender all your personal information, answer to a barrage of survey questions and marketing junk. Then you have to do a bunch of other crap like set goals and other mumbo jumbo that doesn't really help. Finally when you get to taking the practice tests, they are slow and clumsy. Not because of my internet connection (I tested loading other pages which came right up). Their server is extremely slow, sometimes making you wait several minutes for the next stage to load. Question submissions often fail, making you think you should wait for the question (while time ticks away) then you realize that you need to re-submit your answer to get the next one to load, only to find your wait indeed did tick away time from your test. Furthermore, the results are also cumbersome to retrieve, and solutions to the quesitons are also extremely slow to load, often taking several minutes.

When you do get through the test, it gives you a score, so you can see where you stand, and that's a valuable feature. But the practice scores can really only be used to track your improvement relative to each other, they should not be considered a reasonable estimation of your score. I got pretty consistent results on my practice tests, but on the real GRE my score was around 150 points lower than the practice test scores.

In short, if you really want to see what the test will look like and what the screen will be, then go ahead and use this resource, it will help you. But it is slow and cumbersome such that I don't believe it's an accurate representation of how the test will really work, or how you will score on it.

If you're one of those people who needs to know WHY before you can begin, much less complete a task, you'll like how the authors of this guide break down each of the test components, and explain the most important thing about them (i.e. how to get the "correct" answer. What else do you really need to know?)

They acknowldege that standardized tests are not tests of ability or intellect or knowledge base, but merely a test of taking standardized tests. As a result, all you really need to know is how to take the GRE, by ultimately knowing WHY profit-based testing monopoly ETS asks you what they ask you.

This GRE guide covers all three sections of the test, and breaks each one down into their basic parts, tells you how to find the "correct" answer to each type of question you will encounter, and then explains why it is the 'best answer' (ETS refuses to say 'right' answer, because, well, it protects them from liability in case they are wrong. Experts don't write their test questons, after all).

Smart people who dislike standardized tests, and authority figures, wrote this book. I've used several of their study guides and always seek them out first. Theirs in never the most comprehensive guide available, but it's always the the most useful and helpful.

You will need other supplements for building your vocabulary, and accessing practice test questions (which can be found online for free).