GRE Math Workbook (Barron's Gre Math Workbook) [Paperback]

Blair Madore (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764141740 | ISBN-13: 978-0764141744 | Publication Date: August 1, 2009 | Edition: Workbook

Graduate Record Exam test takers who feel the need for extra help with math will value this brand-new workbook. Opening chapters present a general description of the GRE's General Math Exam, explaining its structure, questions types, and scoring, and advising on strategies for problem solving. Following chapters present detailed practice and review with hundreds of problems and solutions that focus on numbers and number theory, algebra, data analysis, and geometry. The workbook concludes with two full-length math sample sections followed by explained answers.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

(back cover)

A solid review of math basics emphasizes math topics that appear most frequently on the GRE

Hundreds of questions offer practice and review in numbers and number theory, algebra, data analysis, and plane and solid geometry

Two full-length sample math sections reflect actual GRE discrete quantitative questions, quantitative comparison questions, data interpretation problems, and fundamental math questions

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series; Workbook edition (August 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764141740
• ISBN-13: 978-0764141744
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #358,909 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This book couldn't be worse, September 9, 2009

By 

Bezdomny "Bezdomny" (Moscow, Russia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: GRE Math Workbook (Barron's Gre Math Workbook) (Paperback)

As someone who is preparing to do graduate work in a field not related to mathematics, I can say avoid this book at all costs. There are several reasons for this, which I'll try to enumerate.

First, the formatting is terrible. Often times when looking up an answer all I see are a string of numbers compressed together. This has tended to cause confusion because the steps of the problems are not clearly demarcated and you often have to stare at and reread the information multiple times to avoid confusion.


Secondly, many example problems use concepts that have not even been presented in the book yet.

Thirdly, the problems presented after each section tend to be a good deal more complicated than the example problems given in the respective section. I've often found that obtaining the right answer often requires you to do a step that is not explained. I think in a book like this nothing should be assumed about the learner. I've spent the last several years developing my fluency in a foreign language and I have not looked at most of these math concepts in 10 years. For someone like me, a step by step dissection of each problem type is necessary.

Fourthly, I've often found myself trying to ignore techniques used by the book. At times I've been able to answer certain questions correctly using techniques I'd garnered from the Princeton Review, but when I check my answers I actually got confused trying to figure out how they'd solved a problem that I'd just gotten the correct answer to! After I worked through the Princeton Review, I felt confident because I understood the mechanics of every problem presented and the concepts involved. This book has done a great deal to undermine that sense of confidence.

And last but not least, all of the mistakes in the book have made me lose faith in the book itself. The mistakes are so legion there are times when I don't know if the book is to blame for my inability to understand a problem or if I have simply made an error.

I'm sure for someone with a background in math most of these problems won't be as relevant to you. But for someone who needed to be walked back into these concepts with clear, concise explanations in an easy to read format, stay as far away from this book as possible. 133 pages in and I'm starting to think that it has been counterproductive in my learning process.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Solid Math Supplement With a Few Typos, August 28, 2009

By 

D. G GREENE - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: GRE Math Workbook (Barron's Gre Math Workbook) (Paperback)

If you are like me then you are not going to purchase just one book to prepare for the GRE, but you are likely going to work through several books from a variety of companies. As I write this, I have already worked through Kaplan's GRE Premier Edition and Princeton Review's How to Crack the GRE for the general idea of the test, and now I am turning my attention to the subject specific GRE books for further refinement. Barron's GRE Math Workbook was first on my list of such books, and I am happy to report that despite a few typos this book is well worth the time and the energy to work through it.

The two general review books I mentioned above from Kaplan and Princeton Review focused mainly on how to identify trick questions or how to implement peculiar strategies, such as dumping the possible answer choices back into the question statement to find the answer, rather than satisfactorily reviewing the math you are supposed to know to solve the problems directly. The great thing about the GRE Math Workbook is that it reviews the math directly while at the same time it introduces you to problem specific tricks that will help you solve problems faster. It does this by first focusing on the straightforward way to solve certain math problems, and then it adds in the tricks once you have already reviewed the basics. At the end of each small section you are given a small quiz of about 8 fairly straightforward problems to solve. These make sure you grasp the basic math concepts. These problems are usually followed by about 10 GRE level problems that use the same math, but are now a bit trickier to solve. I have found the format works well for the most part, with the only criticisms being that some of the more obscure topics (such as permutations and combinations) were left out and that the problems as a whole seemed a bit too easy in most sections (but maybe this just means that I am getting better at solving them?).

A lot of the tricks introduced in this book are very useful. They really helped me solve certain types of problems that I was still having trouble with even after working completely through the other two books. For example, I have never seen any other book mention that you can factor an exponential number such as 10^8 into two terms such as (2x5)^8 which then distributes to (2^8)(5^8). Now that I know that this is an option I use it all the time to cancel quantitative comp questions that deal with large exponents. These problems I was really struggling with before reading this book; I used to have to resort to multiplying things out to get the answer which simply wasted a lot of precious time. Example problems always follow each new idea that is introduced, so you can immediately see how some of these strange new approaches to math can be applied to solve a GRE question.

The only major gripe is that a few typos pop up here and there throughout the book as you work through it. These are usually related to the wrong symbols being placed in between numbers, and they very rarely affect the final answers. For that reason the mistakes are usually very easy to spot, or at least they are if you are indeed merely reviewing a subject that you already have studied which I assume to be the case. They will not really confuse you much if you think about the context clues. For example, on page 24, it tells you that an example of multiplication is 3+4=12 where 3 and 4 are factors and 12 is the product. It is easy to spot that what they meant was for a multiplication sign to be between the 3 and the 4. It certainly appears sloppy whenever you find these typos, and at times it might even cause you to laugh (as was the case on page 64 where the author solved the same problem twice and got two different answers thanks to a typo in his second approach). Thankfully, the answer choices for the problem questions and problem examples appear to have been more carefully proofread. I am currently almost done working through the book (I am on pg. 202 at the moment), and so far I have only found one problem where I wasn't able to choose the right answer out of the available choices due to a typo (pg. 114, #14 should have a 3 next to the root for choice B), and I have yet to find a problem where the letter for the answer in the solutions section was wrong (though the written explanations for the answers have had a few typos here and there along the lines of those described above).

In the end the typos do spoil the fun a bit, but the math in this book is still solid and the techniques involved are useful and different enough to recommend this as a supplement for serious students who plan to work through multiple books when preparing for the GRE. I wish companies would spend more time ironing out these typos before releasing their books, but to be honest, in the time between when I started buying these cheap academic science and math help books in 2002 to the present, I have seen the number of typos in books of this type skyrocket from all the companies involved. For instance, the early Dummies books I have (such as Calculus for Dummies and Chemistry for Dummies) have very few errors in them whereas recent books I have purchased in the Dummies series (Quantum Physics and Biochemistry) are simply loaded with typos to the point where these books are unreadable at times. I don't know if it is a side effect of a situation where so many more companies are now competing with each other in the academic help book market that companies feel that they have to rush things out to get ahead of the other guy or what, but it is a little disappointing to see a great help book become merely a very good one simply because it was rushed out with a bunch of careless typos in it. Such was the case here.

17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Numerous typos, mathematical errors, and I'm only on page 36, August 25, 2009

By 

Cayce Pollard - See all my reviews

This review is from: GRE Math Workbook (Barron's Gre Math Workbook) (Paperback)

I have not taken a math class in five years. Historically, I have always done well in math, but I definitely needed a refresher for the GRE. Barron's has a good reputation, and this book was just recently published, so I figured it probably had a good chance of being the most up-to-date. However, I was not expecting rampant errors throughout the book.

Before I even get to the real page 1, on page xi, there is a clear mistype:

"Chapters 3-6 review the all the mathematics..." -- Not a good sign.

Later, in an explanation on page 31, it states:

"As x + 3 < 0, subtracting 6 from both sides we see that x - 3 > -6..." Whoa, hold up. I'm pretty sure that the inequality sign doesn't flip when you subtract. I know that when you divide or multiply by a negative number, the sign flips, but in this case, I'm -fairly- certain that the sign doesn't flip. Maybe I'm just misremembering, but if not, this is a pretty glaring error.

Then, a mere TWO pages later, in an explanation on page 33, it states:

"Now we need to calculate. 100 lb in 1995 is about $16 so 20 lb is about $16/5 or $5.33." Um, when I divide $16 by 5, I get $3.20, not $5.33. Another glaring error. Also, when referring back to the data chart on page 22, it actually looks as if the dot is halfway between $16 and $18, so in my opinion, $17 should be used for calculations as opposed to $16. This is more debatable.

Page 36:

In an explanation of operations, the following example is used to illustrate factors and a product in a multiplication equation:

"3 + 4 = 12 <-----product"
(3 and 4 are labeled as "factors")

Wait... 3 + 4 = 12? Don't you mean 3 x 4 = 12? Come on! This is ridiculous. Yes, it's true that I have not read the book in its entirety, but I'm feeling really discouraged at this point. Someone must have REALLY dropped the ball on this one. If I am wrong in my accusations, I apologize, but the fact that I have to question this book's integrity every few pages is seriously disconcerting. I bought this as a supplement to some general GRE books I bought as I am concerned with the math section in particular. Let me say that this book is not making me feel any more confident in the slightest. If I were you, I would steer clear.