Customer Reviews

Kaplan GRE Exam Verbal Workbook, Fourth Edition (Kaplan GRE Verbal Workbook)

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

 

 

I took the GRE a few weeks ago, and I had 2 1/2 weeks to prepare for it, having never seen or heard of the GRE before that time. I panicked and ordered four books. Kaplan's verbal workbook was a great purchase and it improved my verbal score - I got a 610 and I am not even born and raised in the USA.

I used Kaplan in conjunction with Barron's Passkey to the GRE Test and The Ultimate Verbal and Vocabulary Builder. Together, the three of them and 6 stacks of flashcards were the reason I did well on the test. The best part of the Kaplan book is the exercises and strategies given to help you through the challenging verbal section. I learned to make an educated guess even if I didn't know what any of the words meant and I got quite a few of them right. It is not so much about roots, prefixes and suffixes, but more about using the word in context with the other words and ruling out possibilities that are impossible. I strongly recommend making this book part of your GRE study regimen. I did one of each group of exercies per day. For reference, I studied on average 12 hours a day for two straight weeks. This book is worth your money and MUCH better than anything published by ETS which proved useless to me.

I just took my GRE yesterday and I can tell you that every word on the verbal portion (excluding the reading portion, of course) was in this book. The vocabulary building section was the most useful for me. I bought 3 sets of the flash cards - very useful, too. These 2 tools helped me get the verbal score I need to get in to the graduate school of my choice. Just beware that there are some errors in each one of them. Oh, a great companion to these two is the website dictionary.com. Study hard with these and you'll see great result.

The Kaplan Verbal Workbook has a great vocabulary list, often with related words and synonyms in the definition. There's a word root list comparable with other GRE prep books, but the Workbook takes word recognition one step further with its Word Groups (eg audacious, courageous, and dauntless are all degrees of boldness) and Opposite Drills--good strategy for GRE, since GRE doesn't test the exact word definition, but your recognition of the best answer choice.

However, I found the exercises on the actual four types of questions to be different from ETS published exams. The "best" answers were sometimes not as clearly differentiated from the rest of the choices. I prefer to do test simulations with ETS's past exams or from Barron's books.

Despite my doubts on the questions, I would still buy this book again for its stellar vocabulary-building sections.

It is really organized by specific Kaplan's method.

In fact, I tried out a Kaplan school's GRE class, the contens of the book is quite similar to class's book.

Though I mentioned "really organized," sometimes I feel bored 'cause too much explanation.

If you have STRONG vocabulary, this book really helps you and improves your Verbal score. On the other hand, like I am, people who do not have specific academic vocabulary, this book is little bit tough. However, you can get strategy from it!!

Seeing is believing, and opinions are unique, so just try it!

I used this book diligently over the course of a month to prepare for the verbal section of the GRE, but found that I was totally unprepared for taking the test. I do not recommend purchasing it for preparation. Instead look to the Princeton review. It's also a little cheaper for poor college students.

The book is good for the test preparation, though this used book has many permanent writings in it. Anyway it is useful. The shipping is fast.

I went through and I read the whole book, took all the practice tests, and even learned all of the words. Come test day none of the words were even on my GRE and I had been so worried about following the book that I think I may have done better without it. The book was good in improving my vocabulary, however, don't expect it to help you out a whole lot.

I graduated from college 20 years ago so I needed a good review of principles as well as several practice tests. This book helped me understand the "whys" of both verbal and quantitative questions. The book was great for studying away from home and the CD was great for the computer. I would recommend this study guide 100%.

I bought a brand new item from amazon and it's really brand new with reasonable price.