Customer Reviews

Cracking the GRE Literature, 3rd Edition (Princeton Review: Cracking the GRE Literature in English)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book can indeed help you prepare for the test, but if you haven't read the bulk of the 19th century British Lit, the test can still floor you. If you have an extra 6 months before the test, why, then there is still time. I left myself one month to prepare, bought the book and dug right in. I found that the book did help me prepare for a lot of the little things, like Chaucer and Marvel and Marlowe and the like, authors I might not have brushed up on had I not bought the book. Unfortunately the bulk of the questions I had to answer pertained to authors I had never heard of from the Victorian age as well as some Romantics. Stuff I never wanted to read, and still don't. Another point that must be considered when preparing for the test: there are different versions of the exam. Case in point, one reviewer here indicated that his test had many more questions on literary theory than the book had led him to believe there would be. My version of the test had exactly 4 questions pertaining to literary theory . . . disappointing considering I had taken that reviewer at his word and really cracked the theory books in preparation. One thing the book definitely helps with is in the strategy department; that is, it helps you learn HOW to take the test. I am still awaiting my scores, but I am not holding my breath. Good luck to you.

This book describes the way the test "feels" to a tee. The test feels like a cocktail party full of people who haven't actually _read_ any of the books mentioned but have read the Encyclopedia of Literature and know character names, places, titles and authors. I'm a comparative literature major and i blew the test (there's _very_ little of anything but British literature-- it's even skimpy on American literature. The only non-English language literature that you should really know is that Dostoyevsky wrote Crime and Punishment). Anyway, it's really not worth too much effort-- the test is like a serious of inside jokes that you have to pretend to understand. This review guide tells you the basic stuff you need to know to get the ETS' clever little jokes about Milton without ever having opened Paradise Lost. If you're going to review anything other than this guide, I'd suggest reviewing major Shakespearean plays and the more significant of the Canterbury Tales; also for some reason there were 2 questions on Vanity Fair (this is really a major piece of literature?). Get this book, the Norton Anthology, and perhaps an Encyclopedia of Literature (or look over a good time-line online) and you should be perfectly fine.

This book was of enormous help in preparing for the test. I scored in the 97th percentile and, in all honesty, was hoping to be in the 70's. It includes a timeline of authors as well as several really focused (and reasonable) reading lists. I'm incredibly weak when it comes to poetry, so having a list of must-read poets/poems was a godsend. I think the book's tests are a bit harder than the real thing so your actual score will most likely be an improvement on your practice scores. In addition to following the tips in the PR, try to read up on contemporary criticism, and be sure to familiarize yourself with some of Shakespeare's history plays (ETS loves to nail you on those). Other helpful resources include: The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms, Frank Magill's summaries, and the Norton Anthology of Poetry.

Before purchasing this book, I took some practice tests from ETS. The dominant thing I learned was that I was not going to do well.

Upon a recommendation, I bought the Princeton Review to see if there was a "system" for studying for the test and for taking the test. Although the method, the Two-Pass System, seems common sense, after reading through the explanation, you will feel a bit more confident in your abilities and knowledge. Trust me, with 230 questions to go through, any amount of confidence is helpful.

For the recommended studying, this book mentions the "points to page" ratio. This means that if a work will show up in many questions on the test, then you should spend time studying that work. If something might get asked, they will mention it in the explanations on the sample test (there is one and it is very well-done explanations of the answers - correct and incorrect). By reading through these, I immediately recognized many questions that I had taken on previous practice exams. This let me know that this book was a very wise purchase.

I would recommend this book. The list of titles to study listed by other companies, is much too disheartening. The others merely list all the works which might be one there, whereas the Princeton Review ranks them on their A, B, C, and D lists.

I am a doctoral student at a very competitive university. A couple weeks ago I was talking with some other students in my department about studying for the GRE Lit Subject Test. We <i>all</i> used this book. Everybody.

The author formulates what he calls a "points-to-pages ratio" to help readers triage their exam reading lists. For example, he points out that the English Bible is about 3,000 pages long and there will be 2 or 3 questions (out of 230) about it on the test. Good thinking. He also does a pretty good job breaking down the various schools of literary criticism and theory (as the testmakers tend to see them) and his sample test with explanations is a lot more helpful than the sample tests you can buy from ETS.

All in all, this book is well worth [the price] since you already have to pay $150 to take the test!

Not only did I find this book infinitely useful, I loved its comical and patronizing tone towards the test. For anyone who has to take this silly exam, it's nice to have a book which says, "I think it's silly you have to take this too, but lets go over what you need to know anyway." Of course, you'll need your Norton too, but this book helps you figure out what authors to focus on and the explanations to the answers of the sample exam teach you how to dissect questions using what you know. Thanks Doug.

I can't imagine a better way to structure your preparation for the GRE Literature Test than using the strategies McMullen outlines in his book. Although some of the authors McMullen recommends looking at don't appear on the test, almost 85% do. Remember, however, to study your 20th century authors and lit theory as these are appearing in greater quantities on the test every year.

The Princeton Review does a great job of addressing how eclectic and difficult this test will be. Students that are used to breezing through exams are prepared to be surprised and challenged by the extent of material this exam covers. (For example, when was the last time you reviewed your Greek and Roman Mythology? Edmund Spenser? Derrida? Yeah.) Everybody has their own complaints about the GRE, but I think this book gives you a plan of study that will help fill in the gaps with the esoteric bits of information that ETS expects all English scholars to know. Princeton Review won't help you all the way, though -- they give you some good ideas but a lot of it is just on your own. Spend quality time with your Norton (Vol 1 and 2 are standard fare). Be aware that Princeton does not cover much after 1900, yet you WILL need to know that stuff for the exam. I love that this book does not talk down to the reader - it presents a refreshing kind of challenge, as opposed to the General GRE (useless, useless, useless...) For a review book, I think its the best you can expect to find.

I bought this book for a friend, who told me that the book is exactly the same as the second edition, and so I returned it. The book itself is fine. I read through it, and understood it's organization well enough to see that it would help someone prepare for the subject test in literature. Like most test prep books produced by major publishing houses, it does the job. My gripe is that it has not been improved from the second edition in any important way.

The book should have been improved as part of producing the 3rd edition, even if only to make the 3rd edition distinct from the 2nd. Or why bother producing another edition at all?

Thinking back, there does seem to have been a gap between what they claimed would feature on the test and what actually did. Is there any better? I'm doubtful that there is, but it probably wouldn't hurt to look.