Customer Reviews

GRE Math Workbook (Barron's Gre Math Workbook)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I took the GRE earlier this week and scored 760 on the math section. I owe a lot of that score to this book. For background, my undergrad is in computer science with a minor in math. I wanted a review of GRE specific topics and also to get familiar with the question style on the GRE. This book helped with both. Yes, there are some mathematical errors and yes, this book really should have been edited much better. I still gave it five stars because if you do read the book (full disclosure, only read the actual math content chapters), you will get a refresher on the topics you need to know and you will be given a lot of good tips and tricks. I used a lot of the tricks this book mentioned on the GRE and the review reminded me of a lot of small details I had forgotten. To be fully honest, almost every question on the test brought to mind something this book said, which I used in answering the questions, apparently most of which I got right.

I'm an engineer whose been out of school for two years. I bought two books in order to get a refresher on the Mathematics used in the GRE. One was Barron's regular GRE prep book, the other was this Math Workbook. I just want to quickly say that Barron's regular GRE prep book has a great section on the Math portion of the GRE and I highly recommend it.

I noticed several errors throughout this book. (It has been somewhat re-assuring that others have noticed these errors as well and it wasn't just me!) Examples include: saying that even numbers are odd, grammatical errors galore, incorrect answer keys, etc. etc. etc.

The problem, unfortunately, doesn't simply end with mere errors. I did my intial review of all the Math chapters in the original Barrons GRE Prep book, did some review tests, and in order to do more review with different problems, began to go through this Math Workbook. As a number of people have already highlighted, this book leaves out several details and steps that are very critical to understanding. I felt WORSE off after reading a few chapters in this book. The other Barron's GRE prep book laid out every important step/rule/guidline/concept in bold print every chapter. This book will sometimes omit important concepts and try introduce them in the practice problems in hopes that the reader will pick up on them there. The author's approach simply does not work out.

If you are reviewing for the GRE: AVOID THIS BOOK.

The Math Workbook is okay. The teaching style is very much like middle school math. Certain things are not really explained at all, while other things that are absolutely a given are fully described. There are also a bunch of typo's in the book which are a little distracting, but it's obvious that they are typo's and shouldn't teach you incorrectly. I wonder who edits these books. Overall it does the job for the price.

Nothing annoys me more than working on a problem for 15 minutes, being completely frustrated at not being able to get the answer, and then looking at the answer guide in the back to find that a.) the numbers in the answers & practice problems don't match or b.) the answer they list in the front is not the answer they list in the back.

Seriously, did anyone work on these problems? They're pretty glaring. And I'm only in the third chapter.

The problems that they don't screw up on aren't bad.

Lousy with typos. It's like they didn't even edit it. You've got enough headaches, right?
Poorly organized.
Answers to exercise questions difficult to locate, poorly labelled.

I have the GRE in 5 days, and the material in this book is all over the place. Ill finish reading their refresher section on fractions and in the respective problem set there is an over the top diameter geometry problem; geometry is the last chapter in the book!

Furthermore, there are errors everywhere. A good page or two where equal signs turn into ?'s in the answer key, worsening an already long and confusing string of numbers in the solutions. The concepts are good, but even in the explanations sometimes the responses are like, "Im not sure what the problem is asking here, but this is how id solve it!" Then their rationale goes beyond anything discussed prior to the problem sets. I am disappointed, but have too little time to change books, I gotta deal with what Ive got. Dont make the same mistake, go with something different, for the love of all that is holy!!

It's pretty hard to prepare for the math section of the GRE. It helps to memorize a few formulas and methods, but the GRE test makers always add a twist to throw you off. If you have a math block to any degree, this book WILL NOT HELP YOU a lot. Try another book. I think the Princeton Review book was better because it generalized problems a little more clearly. This book had no discussion of lines and figuring y-intercept. Sounds easy until the your math block stymies you. Now, unrelated to this book, commenting on the GRE itself, if you'll excuse my diatribe (LOL), the entire GRE is a complete waste of time and a meaningless assessment tool. The reading comprehension and vocabulary expectations are ludicrous. When preparing for the reading section, make sure you memorize a list of at least 300 words from one of the preparation books. This test typifies what is wrong with academia and America -- if you'll pardon my obstreperous execration ... at the risk of being soporific (LOL). Not very dispassionate or taciturn, am I? This rancor may last a few years...just being jocose, and a bit doughty. Note: my comment is on the the pre-8/2011 GRE Barron's Math Workbook.