Customer Reviews

Kaplan GRE Verbal Workbook, 2nd Edition (Kaplan GRE Exam Verbal Workbook)

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I started my GRE preparations with Kaplan's "GRE Exam, 2003 Edition", the basic book that covers the whole exam: Verbal, Quantitative and Writing. This book, "GRE Exam Verbal Workbook, Second Edition" just gives alot more practice on the Verbal section question types and then devotes a huge chunk of the book, 161 pages, to vocabulary.

The core of the book is really the four chapters devoted to the four different Verbal section question types. There is a quick 3-4 page review of Kaplan's method, which is no different than their methods in the general book, and then 5 practice tests. So, basically this is what they call it: a workbook. There are alot of problems to practice, practice, practice. And that is really the most important part in mastering the GRE.

However, there are limits to how far practice can take you on certain Verbal section question types. I think that practice is the whole deal for Reading Comprehension and Sentence Completions, once you have a basic technique for approaching those question types. The reason for this is that all of the information that you need to answer these questions is provided for you. For sentence completions, there are "roadsigns" that signal what the word in the blank has to be. And the reading comprehension questions all have to be found in the passage you are given. Thus, getting good at these just requires that you hammer away.

However, with antonymns and analogies, practice is helpful but can only take you so far. Because if you don't know the word in an antonymn or one or both of the words in an analogy, working backwards will only get you so far. The only way to nail antonymns and analogies is to gear up on vocab and memorize a couple hundred words and learn word groups (groups of words that have similar meanings). This is why Kaplan devotes so much space, 45% of the book, to vocabulary compared with the 5 or so pages in their general preparation book.

In the end, this book has all the vocabulary and practice you need to be as ready as you'll ever be to take the Verbal section of the GRE.

Greg Feirman

Trust me, if you've never taken a GRE before, you really want to buy a guide book -- whether it's this one or another -- to help you through. It's a GRE suicide to just walk in without preparation!!

When I took my exam, I was under tremendous presure and had to get ready within one week and so I bought two workbooks, Kaplan GRE Verbal Workbook as well as Gre Verbal Workout (ISBN: 067977890X) to get as much as I could out of the short time I had.
I found out that I needed both to get a complete understanding, exercise, and overview. Kapalan is great, but it's NOT complete and neither is the Princeton series so my suggestion is to get both and have all the angles covered. There will be a large amount of overlapping and redundant data, but when it comes to exam and preparation, you will need all the practice you can get.

Though I have to admit my score was probably better on the verbal section having studied this book than if I hadn't, I must say it's a lot of work for such a pittance toward your score. For those who aren't applying to English related programs (or others that specifically require higher verbal scores) I'd highly recommend buying a more general book and understanding the methods for eliminating wrong answer choices. This, along with practicing the test format on the ETS software and other Kaplan software helped me much more than the HOURS and HOURS I spent memorizing a 2,500 word vocab list, only to get in the testing center and discover plenty of words I had never heard.

Though the book does include a list of root words and the top 200 words in context (used in sentences, synonyms, etc.) beyond that it simply ranks the remaining 2,300 as equally important. The lists included which group the words into synonymous categories such as "criticize" or "praise" are also too general to be effective if you're working on the harder questions the book is intended to get you to, simply because those questions invariably include multiple antonyms or analogies that could apply and that require you to know the exact nuances of the word. Probably a better idea is to buy flashcards, which are grouped into high, medium, and low frequency words, so you can buy how many ever sets you will have time to study.

This is a great tool but I really think practice makes perfect. Get this one or get a similar one if you're studying and practice practice practice. I did really like the lay out of this and it was easy to use and keep track of my progress.

Great book for GRE verbal part. I have got a really good score on GRE verbal considering I'm a foreigner. Highly recommend!

I am currently studying for my GRE and an instructor in SAT classes. I agree with most reviewers here that test preparation can hardly be dependent on a single study aid. Kaplan's material always provides down-to-earth strategies, with aphoristic explanations and solid exercises. It is a means to an end; but so do all the other books available in the market. Princeton Review's material tends to be more verbose with less exercises. Their books that are commercially available do not really explain the philosophy behind their approach completely. Most candidates find it difficult to apply their strategies unless they have taken a course with them to teach the material itself. Once you have learned Princeton Review's strategies, their books then make perfect sense. Each question is designed with care to illustrate a particular strategy or method. Barron's adopts a very old school, albeit very consolidated approach to test preparation: building up from one's foundation. Their workbooks tend to have an abundant amount of exercises, which are generally much more difficult than those that would appear in the actual tests. The philosphy behind their approach is that candidates will perform well if they have encountered questions that are more advanced than the standard requirements. I find that Barron's is always a good foundational book if one has months to prepare. Princeton Review generally provides inspiring strategies if you have a chance to learn exactly what they want their instructors to teach as supposed to what they sell in our local bookstores. Kaplan is always a great choice if you have already had some foundation and insight into the test and would like a systematic approach to strengthen your testing skills.

I bought this book hoping to get some boosts in verbal section of GRE. Well, it did but not big enough. I got only 50 points of increase. Altough, 50 points is quite an achievement but not enough to pass my personal limit. For verbal section, the key is to memorize and eat up as many words as possible. This book do provide SOME words, but not enough. For words I would prefer to go with Barron's or use free vocabulary builder software, eg. guru's wordlist.

To ace verbal section will need alot of hardwork, especially for foreigners like me. This book will provide complementary assistant but surely not the bible for verbal section. One thing that I like about this book is it categorizes words according to it meaning, positive or negative, and typical meaning, such as there are many words have the same meaning, this book categorize them.

As always Kaplan has the simple strategy to overcome problems. I like the sentence completion stretegy to paraphrase and words elimination. All in all, if you have time (more than 3 months of preparation) I think this book will increase your score alot, then again maybe it's not because of this book, but because you have memorize so many words.

Getting a high score in GRE Vocabulary do not necessarily depend upon years of experience with the English Language. Kaplan's Verbal Workbook is a living testimony to this fact. It definitely increased my test taking ability. It is a must have book. You should be honest in doing all your exercises. The list of high frequency words at the end is not meant to be comprehensive, but a combination of the understanding of the word roots and a familiarity with this word list will carry you a long way. Good Luck!

I bought this book with the hopes of increasing my verbal scores tremendously on the GRE. Well, it did no such thing. My score only raised 20 points from a practice test taken with no preparation. Don't bother memorizing the 200 Top Used GRE words because only 1 of them was on the test. Waste of valuable preparation time. Buy something else or read lots and lots of scientific journal articles.

Recomended if you want to get high scores but less time to study!!!