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66 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
More like Edition 4.1 -- updated after I took the test, September 20, 2005
This review is from: Cracking the GRE Literature Test, 5th Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation) (Paperback)
I spent about an hour looking through this book and found that not only is the sample test (still only 1) the same, but so is 95% of the book. Granted, I would not expect the publishers to change their study methods, but if you release a new edition there should be something worth the new cover. Shouldn't there? At least provide a 2nd test to go along with the other one -- it's not like they spent money reusing the old one...
There are some alterations to the study info. Homer has his own section. There are family trees for the major Greek tragedies (with a note stating that the test won't ask specific questions about who is related to whom). Other than that, there is still a lack of emphasis on minority writers of the 20th century & lit theory.
There is a new section that has grammar vocabulary that is probably very helpful for those "Identify the gerund" questions. Except that, in the sample sentences, the gerund is not specifically identified with boldface or an underline or an arrow. (Of course, gerunds tend to stand out, but some of the more obscure ones don't).
Despite all of this, if you don't have the 4th edition, this edition is quite helpful. This is why I have to give the book 3 stars -- it covers alot of ground, has some helpful tips, and is a good foundation for your two months of studying. I wouldn't rely on it alone to get a great score, but there are lists of names that you should know in here and the more practice tests you can take, the better. Good luck!
UPDATE! I took the test last weekend. This guide is not enough to prepare you for the test anymore. Increases in 20th century lit crit/theory and decreased use of the 'obvious' pieces that this guide hinges on made the GRE Lit exam tough. Questions on the big authors used obscure passages and emphasized comphrehension as much as identification. So, while the test is more fair in some sense (you don't need to recognize a passage to be able to comprehend it), this guide spends most of its time prepping you for identifying authors and passages that the test-writers seem to be avoiding because of this very book! Anyway, this is not to say the guide isn't helpful, but it was not nearly as helpful as I'd hoped.
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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Qualified praise, November 5, 2006
This review is from: Cracking the GRE Literature Test, 5th Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation) (Paperback)
This study guide was certainly helpful inasmuch as it allowed me to focus my studies for the GRE Lit. in English subject test--helped me, in other words, follow some line of preparation that was more pointed and purposeful than simply reading over the Norton anthologies.
But after taking the exam, I feel much less confident in the spot-on accuracy of this study guide than I did about the *Verbal Workout* guide by Princeton Review for the GRE General Exam. Of course there's just much more material to cover for this exam. But more importantly, *Cracking the GRE Literature Test* rests on several crucial assumptions, assumptions that I adopted myself in studying for the test, but which now appear to me a little questionable.
First, this book assumes that the large bulk of the exam involves identification--overt or covert, open or implied. Thus it emphasizes the study of basic titles, character names, and (to a lesser degree) plot contours of canonical Western works. While this was in some measure helpful, I found that the test focused much more on passage interpretation or analysis (grammar, style, definition), and that the passages themselves were drawn from sources other than those emphasized by the PR study guide. Look to the periphery and not to the center of the canon for these works, I guess I would tentatively advise. Not what one wants to hear after extensive reviews of *Canterbury Tales* and *Paradise Lost*, but such was my experience. The good news is that the interpretation questions rely on material that's technically provided in the exam; the bad news is that, on a 230-question test, one just doesn't have the time necessary to do justice to all such questions.
Second, the study guide assumes that a novice-level familiarity with literary theory suffices for the purposes of the Lit. in English subject test. If my recent experience is at all representative--and who knows if it is?--I would recommend that potential test-takers review, not only the study guide's encapsulation of various theoretical schools, but also the work of some *specific* theorists. I suppose that the (what else?) relatively new Norton anthology on criticism & theory would be a good resource here.
Third: some final thoughts on what this guide explicitly told me NOT to study, including Shakespeare and the Bible. I took an undergraduate Shakespeare course, so I was happy to follow the former instruction. And I don't regret doing so. But there were several more Bible-as-literature questions, posed in much greater detail, than I was expecting--and this in addition to the several Bible-allusion answer choices to questions on literary works. (Most of this stuff was, granted, in the passage-analysis zone, but still.) Not sure if this represents ETS's effort to rebuke the Princeton Review's disciples--but perhaps I'm just spinning a story where there's none to tell.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Useful but limited, November 11, 2005
This review is from: Cracking the GRE Literature Test, 5th Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation) (Paperback)
Having recently taken the GRE Literature in English subject test, I feel that a great deal of the information provided by this book is useful and got me quite a few marks that I would otherwise have certainly missed.
The first section - "The Big Picture" - gives some basic information about the test and describes the various types of questions on it. The second section - "Cracking the System" - includes some standard advice about time-management, and explains how the test is scored. It also provides a general overview of the philosophy behind the test and what kind of authors and works are likely to be on it. There are also a bunch of general tips and techniques for answering questions, the most important of which is stressed in the book - learn names!
"Cracking the System by Cracking the Books" - the third section - is the most useful, but also the most incomplete. On the positive side, the sections on Greek epic and tragedy cover the most important aspects (i.e. names and plot) of several classical works likely to appear on the test, and the Chaucer section (with summaries of the major stories in the Canterbury Tales) is also well done. While not all the authors and works listed as sure-shots in the study guides provided were on my test, enough of them were to make using these guides worthwhile. Although I have to say, along with reviewers of the earlier edition of this book, I saw no Herrick Julia poems! The glossary of literary terms, verse forms and stanza types, while brief, did include a number of terms I had never seen before that proved useful. The summary of critical schools and their 'buzz words' is very basic, but would be useful to someone who hasn't done a critical theory course of any breadth (or who was enrolled but asleep...).
While all this makes this book probably worth buying for most test-takers, it has some inexcusable weaknesses and omissions. The grammar review does not cover many of the terms one needs to know, and includes only simple sentences as examples that are nothing like the real thing. Worse is the complete omission of Shakespeare, which the author writes off as `assumed knowledge'. Come on, how much time would it have taken to include 50-word summaries of Shakespeare's plays, especially since just knowing the names and basic plots can get you quite a few marks? Also absent is pretty much the whole 20th century and writers who are not "dead white males", both of which ETS draws on substantially. Leaving these important areas out when Princeton Review could so easily create study-guides and summaries for them is just plain lazy.
The test at the end has explanations for all answer choices - a plus - and in terms of question types is fairly similar to the real thing, even though the obscurity of a few of the authors and works on it makes a small number of the questions misleadingly difficult. Unfortunately there is only one practice test; as the real test is difficult to finish in the time available, this is a serious weakness in a prep book.
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