Customer Reviews

GRE: Practicing to Take the General Test 10th Edition (Practicing to Take the Gre General Test)

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I'm a GRE and GMAT math prep tutor, and I've gotten 800 on the GRE math section. This book is out of date and misrepresents the GRE entirely. The questions are based on tests of ten years ago, when the test was considerably easier. Today, on computer, the test uses questions of considerable difficulty to weed out students, and this book does nothing to prepare people for that reality. I expect people who study solely from this book to be completely surprised by the difficulty of the test.

If you're looking for a good way to study math on the GRE, I recommend studying the questions from the GMAT book published by ETS - the Official Guide 10th Edition. The questions in there are much more realistic and still legitimately written by the test-writers...

You'll find the book helpful, BUT PLEASE NOTE that all of the review content and most of the book is posted FREE of charge on the GRE website (www.gre.org)--the website published by the same authors of this book. The reviews contained in the book are identical as are the exercises and answers.

The website also provides you with two computer-based GRE's (FREE) and an additional paper GRE (FREE). According to which test (paper or computer-based) you wish to take, you can more accurately simulate the testing conditions with those options.

To navigate to those pdf's, just go to www.gre.org; click on the the "General Test" and find the "Test Preparation" tab (you may need to download Acrobat Reader, which is also...free). The website is provided by GRE, and they've simply posted all the content (besides the particular paper-published exams) on-line. Go figure. *shrug* Of course, you can have all of the website content and the additional exams (if you have money to toss around).

The content unique to the book (and the $14 you paid) are 7 tests including one with full explanations. The test that I have gone through contains some typographical errors as well as some ambiguous asteriks without clear explanations. Though they're not catastrophic mistake, they're a bit disappointing and definitely embarassing (I blush for you GRE). If you wish more than simple practice questions, and more along the lines of vocab words to know, etc., I'd recommend you look elsewhere, or just save the money and invest it on a healthy breakfast before the test, or a hard drink after.

This new book is nothing but a condensed form and repaged version of the already out of print "Big Book", edited by the same ETS a long time ago. And being such, simply just don't waste your time and money if you can have any kind of access to the "Big Book". All of the seven REAL tests of this "brand new" book are already contained in the Big Book (and the Big Book has other 20 tests!).

First of all, this is a stale dated material! The old Big Book, used to disclose the period when the tests were taken: between 1980-something and 1994 (this "brand new" one does not even mention it!). But since then the difficulty level of the GRE Quantitative Section has raised its bar several notches up! So if the reader is purchasing this book with a specific focus on the Quantitative Section, chances are that she or he will feel tremendously frustrated.

However, the same cannot be said of the Verbal section questions. The old Big Book and consequently this new book are good sources of real-type Verbal Section questions, as such Section was already VERY difficult back then and things haven't changed that much as of October 2005. Despite this, it's good to remind the reader that ETS is planning to change the structure of its Quantitative and Verbal Sections of the General GRE Test for 2006, turning into obsolete even the real Verbal Questions of this book. (But likewise, even with such ongoing planned changes, ETS is also considering how to improve the preparation material for GRE).

The only good and really new thing about this "new" book is the Quantitative Section Review material where they mention how to obtain basic descriptive statistic concepts that test takers mention to have been finding so much lately in their real GRE questions. Nevertheless, two points should be raised on this topic. As a matter of coherence, the tests of this book SHOULD contain such type of questions, otherwise test takers can be wrongly misled and feel that including such topic to be revised is nothing but pure ETS terrorism since it is revised but by the new book tests it wouldn't be on the real test. And this is so not true! The other point to make is that, although this is relevant, it is also true that such new revision material can also be downloaded for free from the very ETS website.

Finally, I would say, that this material can only be good reference for other reasons than the above mentioned only if the purchaser is in her or his very early preparation steps, trying to familiarise her or himself with the type of questions. But let's face it. The purchaser could also have a glimpse of what is about to face in the real GRE by studying by whatever other updated book, software or online preparation material.

To conclude with, this book should only be bought if the purchaser really doesn't have access to the old Big Book or if the purchaser intends to buy as much material as possible and this one is only in her or his portfolio of material to be studied. As a solo buy, it is a real waste.

I just took the GRE and did pretty well, considering my vocabulary isn't the best. I wouldnt reccomend this book for its strategies, but because it has 8 old tests so that you can get a feel for how you will do on the test, and be able to determine where to focus your studying on. I found that my actual scores corresponded with the ones that I got after taking these practice tests.

If you want some help with strategy I would suggest something by the Princeston Review, I found them more helpful than Kaplan. Good Luck with your studies.

I needed LOTS of math and quantitative practice, so getting this was mildly helpul. By far, I thought Barrons Pass Key to the GRE was much better for building quant skills. But, realizing that this is paper-based and the real test is computer-based, unless you seriously need boot-camp on the math then skip this book and get something else. It's not "better" because it's made by ETS, don't be fooled by that. I got the most help from Barrons and from a book called The Ultimate Math Refresher. The ETS book was really just more sets of practice problems, because I did so many. My first GRE was 55% quant, and second was 71% -- so the practice and studying helped. I think, for me, Barrons was the best because they helped me with my personal albatross -- quant comparison questions.

As mentioned many times, the math questions are extremely out of date.

Furthermore, while the vocab in the verbal sections reflects what is actually on the test, the questions are poorly put together, seemingly by an out of work English Grad Student in need of work who was given a list of vocab words and told to make a practice test with them. It's very clear that the same minds writing the actual GRE were not behind these practice tests, as the book's cover suggests.

Avoid this one. If you need a test-prep book, I suggest looking at other books with better marks in the reviews section.

This book included several practice tests, which are actual tests that were given years ago. The only problem, is that most of the information, and some of the practice tests are exactly the same as what I had already read or done for free online at the GRE website. There is only one practice test that provides explanations with the answers, but this test is also available online for free. Overall, I would not have bought this book had I known that most of the material was exactly what I had already seen, for free.

I've rated this book at three stars not due to the quality of its content, but for its actual benefit per cost.

If you are planning on going through actual paper-based tests to drill and familiarize yourself with the types of questions on the GRE, and don't have any other sources of paper-based tests, this book may be helpful.

As for the other sections, which contain sample questions with explanations, a math review, and information and samples of the new analytical writing section, all of these are also available for free on ETS' website in PDF or html format.

So, realize in purchasing this book you are paying for seven paper-based practice tests.

The quantitative section on the CAT GRE is more difficult than their textbook will lead you to believe. Better to use the cd that ETS sends when registering for the GRE to prepare for the quantitative section. If you rely too much on the paper-format exam questions to gauge your quantitative abilities, you may be quite perturbed by the questions on the CAT. The sad thing is that there is no one book that I can recommend in preparing for the quantitative section of the GRE. Some do not cover slopes and standard deviation (which, by the way, is important) others give examples that are much more difficult and will never be seen on the real exam. Overall, Barron's, Kaplan, Princeton review, and ETS books all have their drawbacks when covering the quantitative section of CAT GRE. Seemingly, no one company has yet been able to give an accurate description of the part of the exam.

I started out my preparation with this book. I needed a lot more prep work than average -- I've been out of school a while.

The math review was good, but the exercises (for the most part) were not like the actual GRE. Meaning, they were not multiple choice -- you had to solve the equation/problem completely. Then if you got it wrong, it wasn't explained to you how to correctly solve the problem. Not a big deal, but it doesn't help you learn how to use the 5 multiple choice answers in order to solve an equation. Other books teach you to use what info IS given to you, to help eliminate answers.

The verbal and analytical writing sections were good, but it helps to have been a lifelong reader. That is the only way the build a vocabulary in order to beat the GRE.

Also, this book is available at many public libraries. So buy Barron's Passkey to the GRE here on Amazon, and use ETS' book for a reference.