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96 of 98 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
NOT the right book for math prep, good otherwise, November 7, 2008
This review is from: Cracking the GRE with DVD, 2009 Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation) (Paperback)
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.
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42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Does not reflect actual test, November 22, 2007
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!
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41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best Strategy Guide, February 13, 2008
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.
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