Customer Reviews

Cracking the GRE Psychology Test, 6th Edition (Graduate Test Prep)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I spent a solid three months studying for the exam, and I used this book as well as the Kaplan one. They are completely different! If you're a rock star psych student fresh out of college, perhaps this book alone will suffice. But if you need to actually learn some or much of the material, you should use both books (don't rely solely on this one)! This one gives a very surface-like (NOT in-depth) summary of information. It helps you direct your attention towards those areas that are tested most frequently. It provides a really great last-minute review, for AFTER you've studied. I also used it FIRST, to kind of help me focus my studying. The Kaplan book, on the other hand, actually teaches you the material, if you don't know it or don't remember it. I took only two undergraduate psychology classes, and I'm several years out of college, and I feel like I learned almost everything I needed to know from the Kaplan book. The reviews that say Kaplan has lots of typos and errors are right. Some of the mistakes are appalling. But there aren't a lot of better options out there, and it is really helpful despite the errors. If it means anything to you, I scored a 690 (86th percentile). I also took four practice tests under real conditions: the ETS one, the two in the Kaplan book, and the one in the Princeton Review book. I think practice tests are KEY. Good luck!

I recommend this book to anyone studying for the psychology GRE, just keep in mind that it is not perfect and is not sufficient on its own to prepare one fully for this exam.

The Good: It organizes a huge amount of information clearly and effectively. It is incredibly concise, which makes it easy to study from.

The Bad: From my experience, the practice test was not very helpful. (I took it, then took the official practice test offered for free from ETS a week later. My percentile score was 37 points higher on the real exam.)

Of course I cannot judge how I would have done without this book or using some other study aid, but by memorizing much of the information in this book, reviewing a social psych text and an intro text, and taking the official practice exam, I was able to do very well on the pscyh GRE despite having taken only 6 psychology courses over 3 years.

One final note, look for current articles and info about the exam itself. It seemed to me that that it was less fact and name intensive than I had expected. Do some research and know what to expect.

This book was a disappointment, especially since it's coming from Princeton Review. I took someone else's advice and studied from the Kaplan GRE Psych Review. Kaplan is MUCH better. After making my own personal condensed study guide of all the terms reviewed in Kaplan, I then went to the Princeton Review book. Princeton Review had way less than Kaplan, and they also missed out on really important topics. For example, the cognitive psych chapter is only 4 pages long and includes problem-solving (i.e. definitions for schema, scripts, etc.), information-processing (i.e. semantic model), and emotion. Meanwhile, the Kaplan book goes into all the types of memory, people associated with terms, intelligence, language-- a better representative of my cognitive psych class.

I'm glad I didn't waste too much time on Princeton Review.

I CANNOT believe that there are claims below from people asserting that they bought this book, studied it, and STILL did not do well on the Psych GRE. This is an absolute must have for any undergrad considering applying for graduate study and it DOES work.

I just finished my first year in a Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program and know that my Psych score (680) was one of the reasons why I was accepted. My advisor indicated that even though my other GRE scores left something to be desired (UGH...don't they all????), that he was impressed with my Psych subject test score. That score is due to studying this book!
I promise you that if you buy this, really hit it hard and know it inside and out, that you will most assuradly do well on the exam.

***One caution: The test in the back of the book is NOTHING like the real GRE subject test. Use it to assess how you are progressing through the book, but not as a gauge of how you will fare on the actual test. Concentrate on the material itself.

This book is indispensable for the serious psychology graduate applicant. I took the psych subject test for the first time in April and scored a 530. After reading through this book a few times and taking time to absorb the information, my score zoomed to a 660 when I re-tested this past December! The material is well organized and very straight forward...I actually ENJOYED reading it! Please consider this book if you buy no other review materials. It really is a must have!
(Note: The practice test contained in the back of the book, though a good confidence boost, is NOT like the actual psych GRE. Use the practice booklet that ETS sends you when you register to get an accurate depiction of how you may fare on the 'real' examination)

I am a psychology major at the University of Washington. When I first considered taking the psych GRE I was a little scared and I felt ill-prepared. I bought a whole bunch of books and this one was by far the best. When I first started taking practice tests I scored around 540. After going through the whole book and making flash cards of every term (even cramming all of them into my head in a few days) I scored 710. 710 is 90th percentile (85th persentile in Social psychology and 95th percentile in the experimental section). I think this book does an excellent job of perparing you for all question types and it familiarizes you with a lot of different concepts that a student may not have learned in class. I would recommend this book to anyone. I would also recommend that you take as many practice tests as possible, but avoid buying a huge book full of tests. I did and I never really used any of the tests.

This book is a decent general reference--a nice enough outline or a last-minute refresher--but if you're looking for the level of detail that will be actually demanded from you on the GREs, you'd be a lot better off rereading your texts obsessively (assuming you actually kept them, which you'd better hope you have). I used this book for a solid 3 weeks, and after taking the test today I can tell you that there's plenty it doesn't go over, or even mention. The chapters dealing with the brain (learning, cognition, physiopsych, and ESPECIALLY sensation/perception) are woefully deficient, and as for a good look at research on gender differences, forget it--you won't find it here. These are just the most glaring examples; many of the major theories are given exceedingly short blurbs, with no meat or understanding to them. How can we know our Piaget when the entire theory is presented in two small tables? It's all well and good to know that Melanie Klein founded object-relations theory, but the theory isn't even defined, just described as an offshoot of psychoanalysis! You get the idea. If you're desperate for some help, and don't need that high a score to get into the programs you want, then this is probably a good choice; if you're heading for a competitive field and want something that actually prepares you for the real GREs, look elsewhere.

I used this book as my primary study resource and ended up getting an 800 on the test! I should qualify that by admitting that I was a psych major, but I really felt that this book covered essentially everything I needed to know. I consulted other psych GRE preparation books but found that they often had many errors or included a great deal of information extraneous to the test (esp. REA's The Best Test Preparation for GRE Psychology--stay away from that one!). I basically memorized Princeton's Review's book and I believe it really made a difference! Just don't forget to get your hands on as many old psych. GRE's as you can find!

It had been 7 years since I had a psychology course when I decided to apply for graduate school. This book made it possible for me review every area of psychology quickly by presenting material in a very succinct and useful format. There were people and topics covered on the test that were not in the book, but I was able to eliminate incorrect answers from the information Meg did include. This was the ONLY study aid I used and I was able to score in the mid 700's!

After reading all these incredible reviews of people boasting 99th percentile scores after studying this book (even after only a couple days of studying), I had high expectations for Princeton Review. However, After taking the exam today I realized that Cracking the GRE psychology is no miracle study guide and that the reviews posted here are overly optimistic and misleading.

I studied this book throughly for over three months. I knew the material inside and out and felt very prepared going into the exam. Howevever, after taking the exam, I realized that this book does a very poor job of preparing you for the actual test. This book is entirely composed of definitions (and small facts here and there) which do little in helping you on the exam, as the psych GRE is more interested in seeing if you can actually apply these defintions rather than recite them. With the very general two sentence blurbs provided in this book, I don't see how any in-depth understanding of the material is possible.

Although I feel like I did OKAY on the exam, I know that I could have done better had I focused on studying the Kaplan book. Because of the easy reading this book provides and its less intimidating size, it's easy to want to just focus on this book and do away with the others. However, you're missing out on very valuable material by taking the lazy way out. There were many questions on the test straight from Kaplan and I felt as if I had wasted valuable time by focusing my efforts on this book when I should have been studying Kaplan. If I decide to retake the exam I won't make the same mistake twice, I will be sure to read through Kaplan very thoroughly.