GRE: Practicing to Take the General Test (Practicing to Take the GRE General Test) [Paperback]

Educational Testing Service (Author)

Book Description

Series: Practicing to Take the GRE General Test | Publication Date: September 1992

These practice workbooks and guides contain essential information for those preparing for GRE subject tests, including practice questions, full-length practice tests that were actually administered at international GRE subject test administrations, answer sheets, correct answers, score conversion tables, and performance data for students who took the tests.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Educational Testing Service (ETS) is the world's premier educational testing organization and the only publisher of GRE and TOEFL test preparation materials containing authentic test questions from start to finish.

Product Details

• Paperback: 511 pages
• Publisher: Educational Testing Service; 9 edition (September 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0886851866
• ISBN-13: 978-0886851866
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,107,322 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

188 of 191 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paper test scores are an accurate reflection of the CAT, December 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: GRE: Practicing to Take the General Test (Practicing to Take the GRE General Test) (Paperback)

Since I was studying for the GRE on a shoestring budget, I skipped the expensive test prep courses and bought this book, along with 2 others, to help me prep for the test. My initial concern when I ordered this book was that it wouldn't be able to accurately predict what kind of score I would get on the computer based test, since the entire book is (obviously) full of paper based tests which are set up in a totally different format than the CAT. Yup, I was pretty skeptical of ETS's claims that scores on the paper test should correlate with those of the CAT.

When I finally took the GRE, I was surprised to find that my scores on the CAT were pretty close to how I had scored on the practice tests in this book. (within about a 30 point margin - the only exception was my quantitative score which was about 70 points higher on the CAT... still fairly close, though)

I would recommend this book for people who are studying for the GRE themselves (without the help of prep courses) and would like to get an idea of how they might score. (Having some idea of how I might do made me less nervous about taking the real test.)

Be warned though, that the soul purpose of this book is to give an indication of your possible performance: it won't help you pinpoint where your weaknesses are or give you lists of vocab words, practice problems, etc. It is simply a book of practice tests. Be sure to buy a few other books which can isolate your weaknesses and provide practice problems on the sections you need the most help with.

Good luck!

454 of 480 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Helpful.....Sort of, October 2, 2002

By 

Morris (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: GRE: Practicing to Take the General Test (Practicing to Take the GRE General Test) (Paperback)

So, you want to take the GRE. You think to yourself "Gee, I should take a lot of practice tests", so now you want to buy this book. Well, it's somewhat helpful, but you'll find that the real test, taken on the computer, feels much different.

I had much more trouble finishing on time for the real test than I did in these practice tests- particularly for the analytical section. The questions on the real test seemed harder than these practice tests. All my friends who have recently taken the GREs and studied with practice tests agree with that, so it's not just me. You also cant go backwards, look ahead, omit questions, or sketch notes on the paper [i usually like to draw on the diagram in the math section]

Rather than paying money for this book, just go download ETS's powerprep software. It's free, and it has two practice tests exactly the way you'll see them when you take it for real. Take one test, identify your weakness, study that part, take the other practice test, and then you're ready. Besides, the GRE is so similar to the SAT, you dont need to study too much for it.

In short, dont treat this as a collection of practice tests, but treat it as a collection of practice problems, and that makes it less helpful for test preparation.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the second best thing, January 22, 2002

By 

n_g "n_g" (Bay Area, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: GRE: Practicing to Take the General Test (Practicing to Take the GRE General Test) (Paperback)

I recommend spending time on the free Powerprep software that ETS sends you after you register for the General GRE as the first study method. This book is probably the second best thing (though if you anticipate you will have time to study for both, I recommend saving the best -- the Powerprep software -- for last). This study guide is very helpful, but the tests are in the old paper-based format, so they seem quite different from the actual CAT. The CAT test questions seem to be considerably more difficult (particularly in the analytical section), and fewer but longer sections. Even the testing fashion of the CAT is quite different from that of the paper based tests. Nonetheless, the more different types of quiestions you see (that are close to the real thing), the better off you are. Furthermore, it seems that if you test yourself with the paper-based testing scheme using this book, your scores will be very close to your scores on a CAT test taken around the same time.