Customer Reviews

Master The GRE - 2010: CD-ROM Inside; Take the First Step Toward Earning Your Graduate Degree (Peterson's Master the GRE (w/CD))

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

 

 

The book is very thorough and comprehensive, and makes sure to keep the prospective test taker aware of all the recent changes in the GRE. The CD contains no practice tests, if I am not mistaken. Instead it gives you an access code to their website. This makes the CD difficult to share with others, resell, or to be used as a library copy. I gave it three stars mainly because of a glaring and highly annoying printing issue. As I understand, in the new GRE verbal section, the text that is referenced by the test questions is highlighted, instead of referenced by line numbers. This book tries to recreate that, but is unsuccessful. Instead of highlighting the text, it blacks it out completely, and you are left trying to select the answer with the pertinent text obscured rather than highlighted. I'm surprised that other reviewers didn't pick up on this. (Am I the only one?)

This book is awesome. Much better that the Kaplan GRE review! It has many more practice tests and the strategies are better explained with examples of everything. This is worth the money for sure.

Not totally through this book in its entirety yet but I thought I would weigh in so I could take a break from studying =)

PROS
- a lot of useful strategies were provided for tackling the different types of questions
- math review had a lot of good examples, not just presenting the rules and theories
- practice tests are all suitably challenging
- there's a lot of practice tests for a strategy book (the main reason I bought it)
- I liked the tips on how to build your vocabulary near the end
- in general good clear explanations for the questions posed

CONS
- sloppy editing - there are minor errors sprinkled throughout. A couple have already been mentioned, I think I found one or two in the practice tests as well. Bottom line, nothing that will completely mess you up because you'll see them if you're alert and they really are minor. The highlighted sections in reading comprehension have indeed been blacked out instead of highlighted, but most of the time you are able to read the blacked out section in the questions below. It's a shame this book did not go through more rigorous editing.
- in the math section, I found it lacking in covering the concepts of factorials and tougher probability questions, but it was spot on with everything else. minor point - is it me or was anyone else disappointed it didn't list the quadratic equation in which you solve for x using terms -b, b^2, 4ac and 2a ?? I wish they had mentioned why they omitted it.
- the word list at the end is shorter than other word lists. To score high on verbal, I think you need more words that what they've got here. They also excluded a bunch of words from their word list that appeared as examples in the text.

Overall it's a good starter book. I am glad I began with this one. I think after reading this, if you really understand all the math concepts, memorize all the equations, and practice them, you should score well in that section. As for the verbal, you will probably only obtain an average score using this book because you need to memorize a lot more words than what they provide. To be fair, they do mention this as a caveat in the verbal strategy section and make recommendations on how to go about building your vocab, but I would have paid an extra $10 to see a big 50 page word list that grouped key GRE words in terms of their meanings (as they suggest you learn them).

***EDIT - I've just finished going through Barron's 17th Ed. GRE book and I have to say that Peterson's book is inferior. For one thing, this Peterson's just does not contain enough practice. It has 9 practice tests, yes, BUT Barrons includes ample sets of practice problems at the end of each concept taught in addition to the practice tests. I think this boosts your morale when studying because you don't get to the practice tests until you have really studied the concepts. That way you don't end up with abysmal scores for the first two weeks of studying. ALSO, seeing that Barron's includes a full vocab list that is at least triple the size of Peterson's, highlighting the two or three hundred buzzwords PLUS it sections the word list into more digestible pieces with practice problems...it makes Peterson's verbal look like a very weak effort indeed. In order to master the verbal you absolutely need to increase your vocab. Peterson's does not help you do that, it just says "good luck, here are some strategies to learn some words, now you are on your own"... now that I have gone through 6 of Peterson's practice tests, I can see how some reviewers said some of the verbal questions were not clear cut. I think I agree with this now, because some of the questions didn't seem fair. It seemed like the writer wanted to 'trick' you, which is fine if the explanation afterwards makes complete sense. There were only a handful of questions like that, but then there were also a handful of mistakes in the editing, a handful of blackouts instead of highlights, a handful of concepts missed here and there...I just feel this publication was a careless effort. This book is good for practice, but I would not recommend it as your first stop.****

I'm only halfway through the algebra review section, and I've already spotted FIVE major errors. For example, on page 227 they provide a practice problem (if x=-2, then x^5 - x^2 - x = ?). Directly underneath they state that the correct answer is 34. They go on to prove in explicit detail that the answer is NEGATIVE 34. This is a minor example, but it happens over and over again. For students who struggle with math these errors could be devastating. They are unnecessary and sloppy.

I'm giving one more example because I can't stand it. On pg 239 the question clearly asks for the value of p/q. The answer provided by Peterson's corresponds to the value of p. Again, minor, but crazy confusing.

This book is covering a lot more then Princeton review.
The math section is great and it does not miss a single concept used in the GRE exam.
Very good for people with good math understanding. Princeton review is overrated and it seems to give a feeling that the GRE is not that hard, the problem with that is that they don't push hard enough and not challenging with enough questions (only 3 exams 1 easy, 1 medium and 1 hard).

This book "feels" different (negative connotation) than all the other GRE books I am utilizing to study for my exam. The style is a bit dry and onerous, the verbal questions are ambiguous and some answers are clearly too close to call, while the provided explanations do not satisfy my need to know "why" an answer is correct.

I would not buy this book if I was just starting my prep for the GRE. If you must look at it-check with your library, it is free.

Mine has the redacted text described in another review. Otherwise, I like it. It definitely has some more challenging questions than the Kaplan book.

-Dave