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

Educational Testing Service (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0886852129 | ISBN-13: 978-0886852122 | Publication Date: October 1, 2002 | Edition: 10

The Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) General Test consists of verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing sections. This book is the only test prep guide that contains questions and topics from actual tests administered worldwide. It contains verbal and quantitative questions from seven actual GRE General Tests and sample analytical writing topics from the complete pool of topics for the analytical writing measure. It includes information about the structure of the test, answering procedures, explanations of correct answers for verbal and quantitative questions, sample writing responses with scores, scoring information, a math review, and test-taking strategies.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Educational Testing Service is the world’s largest nonprofit institution devoted to measurement and research, primarily in the field of education. It is best known as the developer of admissions testing programs for college and graduate study, including the College Board’s SAT, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), and the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). Educational Testing Service is the only publisher of test preparation materials containing authentic test questions.

Product Details

• Paperback: 443 pages
• Publisher: Ets/Educational Testing Service; 10 edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0886852129
• ISBN-13: 978-0886852122
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #31 in Books > Education & Reference > Education > Test Guides - Graduate & Professional > GRE

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars stay away, December 12, 2002

By 

Ian Simpson (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: GRE: Practicing to Take the General Test 10th Edition (Practicing to Take the Gre General Test) (Paperback)

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 This book is out of date and misrepresents the GRE entirely.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...

104 of 112 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Please consider navigating through the GRE website first, January 31, 2006

By 

MisterMin "MisterMin" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: GRE: Practicing to Take the General Test 10th Edition (Practicing to Take the Gre General Test) (Paperback)

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.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A total waste if you can have access to the out of print Big Book by ETS, October 2, 2005

By 

Y. Une "Yoshi" (São Paulo, Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: GRE: Practicing to Take the General Test 10th Edition (Practicing to Take the Gre General Test) (Paperback)

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.