Customer Reviews

GRE Psychology (Academic Test Preparation Series), 3rd Edition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Man... I have to rewrite this review cause I think that I wrote stuff on my last review that went against the Amazon.com guidelines. That was a REAL LONG review as well. Shoot.

Anyway, this is the best for GRE Psych. Why? Because...
1) Unlike others, this review book is DETAILED (unlike Princeton Review's).
2) The detailed info that it contains is also RELEVANT INFO (unlike Barron's, which u should stay as far away from as u can).
3) Although not so reflective of the real tests, it contains A LOT of practice tests... I think 5 of them (including diagnostic). This is a big plus, cause taking practice tests is one of the best ways to actively review (ppl usu. don't daydream while taking tests, but do when studying, thus missing out a lot of info).
4) The tests' answers are explained
5) It highlights the important terms (although it highlights too many unimportant names as well)

And there's probably more, but this should be enough.

All in all, buy this book, review with it, and if you have time, buy Princeton Review and REA's, but only after thoroughly going over this one, which means redoing your wrong answers until u get them correct.

Oh, and by the way, u all should know, but... GET AS MANY REAL OFFICIAL ETS GRE TESTS YOU CAN

This book (about a month's worth of studying...INTENSE studying) earned me a 95 percentile on the GRE Psychology, and I didn't take a single Psychology class.

My undergraduate classes did not prepare me at all for studying for the Psych GRE. So I memorized this book and referred to the Princeton Review Book (Meg Jay) and scored a 770. The book provides detailed information on every topic (though the clinical section is a little Freudian...) and makes even difficult topics easy to understand. The actual test was very different from all the practice tests I took (this book, Princeton Review and REA) but I felt like I was able to make educated inferences based on what I'd learnt here. Definitely a good buy!

This book feels like it has done more damage than good for my test prep. I was a psychology major and have been in the field for 3 years yet this book made me feel like I was reading a foreign subject. I agree with a previous review that said the content was helpful. Yet, it seems that the authors are trying to cram too much information into too small of a space. The layout of the chapters could be more concise by using a summary of important "to know" tips. There is no major emphasis on the heavy hitters in the field of psychology or on any major studies. The practice tests are absolutely worthless. I have read each chapter twice and continue to fail the practice tests as the majority of questions are not even covered in the material. There are questions about totally obscure studies. The explanations for the answers seem to create more questions. Obviously I would not recommend this book. It could be used as a brief outline, but it should not be relied on for a comprehensive test prep.

There's no comparison next to other books. This book is THE BEST test prep for psych. It covers more of the field and is more up-to-date. I was a little hesitant because I had read some of the reviews here on this website. But I found the other reviews mostly unrealistic. So what if the test questions don't cover exactly the same material as the review chapters! Psych is a big field and no one book can cover the entire subject. Of course the test questions covered new stuff. They're supposed to! I highly recommend this book.

The only reason this book gets three stars is that it provides a large amount of the information needed for review, all in one place. The practice tests were awful. First of all, they give you 195 questions in 170 minutes (2hours, 50 min). That is not the way the real test is administered. ETS' (the people who give the real thing) practice test has 220 questions to complete in 2 hours and 50 minutes. Secondly, I found some errors in language and some flat out wrong answers in the first practice test. For example,

"Incorrectly interpreting a true hypothesis is referred to as: A. Type I error, B. Type II error, C. Type III error, D. the genetic fallacy, [or] E. experimenter bias"

The answer they give is A, type I error. The answer is B, type II error. Type I, the error of rejecting the null (results due to error or chance) hypothesis is not the same as the error of rejecting a true hypothesis. Type II is the failure to reject the null hypothesis, as the hypothesis is true. Other errors include misleading language, or outdated language in the questions. My advice is to buy this for review purposes but not for the practice tests. For a practice test, you should buy the ETS book.

Good Luck!

A fairly good book to use for test prep, as far as it covers a lot of psych tidbits. Granted, it was more indepth than what I actually encountered on the GRE Psychology exam.

This book seems to be the best there is for Psych Gre prep. It contains three practice exams, as well as a pretty good review of psychology topics. It would be better if the answers for the diagnostic exam questions had explanations, and if the questions were broken down into content categories (ie, so you would know what areas needed work). Overall, though, I found it to be the most helpful.

The book shipped out very quickly. I was pleasantly surprised to receive it so soon! The book was described in detail, so there were no surprises. Thank you so much!

This book has answers that are arguably accurate. Concepts such as belle indifference are not covered in Kaplan's review. Insofar as the diagnostic test: Mental disorders that are short in duration are episodic, not acute (which means severe). There was another but I can't remember it. I believe another reviewer simply read the Beta Error question incorrectly.

All in all, this is a good book to support catholic knowledge of psychology and psychological history, but should be viewed as an accompanying component, not a primary tool. On the diagnostic you will assuredly miss many questions. Live and learn. I skipped the practice tests as I ran out of time when combined with my other study, and the the ACRO questions do not accurately match the question composition style of ETS. They are good practice, but they're a little off from the real deal.

This book has a ridiculously long diagnostic test, almost 390 questions, but it does really help you to narrow your focus to study your weakest areas. I think the section on research methods is more thorough than Princeton Review, and that using these two books together to study would be a good idea.