Customer Reviews

Cracking the GRE with Sample Tests on CD-ROM, 2003 Edition (Graduate Test Prep)

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This book is filled with "short cut" type strategies that are alleged to aid in determining the right answers to questions without knowing how to actually do the math or define the word. After having taken the real GRE, I must confess that ETS is well aware of these strategies and has taken steps to short cut the "short cuts." In other words, you cannot do well on the GRE verbal or quantitative without knowing basic math and having a superflous vocabulary. In addition, the practice questions are far too easy and are no where near representative of GRE caliber questions, as previous reviewers have stated. And the four practice exams that are advertised on the cover of the book require additional fees....
The workbook does offer solid advice on tackling the written analytic section. The templates the book provides are invaluable guides for staying on track and beating the clock.
The Powerprep software that ETS provides is by far the best prep tool. Use this book as a secondary source for strategy but not as the last word!

I got this book along with Kaplan and the ETS practice tests...

This book is not so great for verbal. There was nothing very different about the tips to solve the questions.

The math section however contained tips which were helpful and not found in most other books.
The CD did not have material that was really challenging.

If you have to make a choice, go for Kaplan and definetely ETS
exam practice.

There is no word list like the Barrons though.

Some tips that helped me during preparation:

Pay more attention to the exams in the ETS book. Your scores might be very similar to the paper test in that book.
Download the free exams from the ETS site. They are very very in tune with the actual exam.

I thought that questions on probability, permutations and combinations are generally not asked, but I was wrong

Best of Luck.

I used both this Princeton Review book and the Barron's "How to Prepare for the GRE" book. This book was much less helpful - having less example problems and less helpful hints/tips. The vocab section was small and didn't have any way to test yourself.

Additionally, the practice CD (and 'online tests') are incredibly repetitive (of the example problems and themselves) and thus are much less helpful. I would NOT recommend this book - there are better ones out there.

I bought this book only because it covered the new analytical writing section of the GRE (gave my exam in October 2002). Qt. and Verbal coverage is not good at all specially for the computer adaptive GRE; its too easy in the book. So also is Barrons. They present a false picture of the Qt. and verbal section of the CAT GRE. I got a qt. score of 790 and a verbal score of 620.

Back to essays, the book is a great guide and I specially liked the argument chapters. I believe that for writing issue essays there could be no set techniques that one could apply but for the argument you could follow the logic given in the book.

And thanks to it I got a 6.0/6.0 on my analytical writing section!!

I read this book. I think this book is short on explantion and does not give many examples. Even the famous "Joe Bloggs" is missing in this edition (the one I have is without the cd).
The vocabulary list is very meager.
I am going to search for another book, which one better do if in dire need of brushing up on skills needed for gre math and vocabulary.

This book was okay for me. This was the only form of study I had, so it may be a limited opinion. Though the vocab. was thought to be too short, i didnt even go through all of it, I suppose if you are diehard this book may not be enough, but for a one or two month book it did enough. They talk to you through the book like a person which was cool.

They didn't have much examples. I didnt like it thateach section was short and succinct in explanation. Never recommend this book.

tests and its way of grading are ... I don't know how to express
Sorry