New GRE Verbal Workbook (Kaplan GRE) [Paperback]

Kaplan (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 26, 2011 | ISBN-10: 1419550012 | ISBN-13: 978-1419550010 | Edition: 7

NEW FOR AUGUST 2011 TEST CHANGE!

Kaplan New GRE Exam Verbal Workbook comprehensively addresses the test changes in the verbal section of the GRE Revised General Test. Fully revised and updated, Kaplan New GRE Verbal Workbook contains 75 percent all-new content, 50 percent new practice questions, and brand new strategies for new question types. This powerful combination makes the Kaplan New GRE Verbal Workbook a highly effective way to prepare for the verbal section of the GRE Revised General Test.

Kaplan New GRE Verbal Workbook includes:

• Overview of the new GRE Revised General Test verbal section
• Review of all question types
• More than 220 practice questions, with detailed answer explanations
• Kaplan-exclusive strategies and tips

Kaplan is dedicated to the success of our students. We guaranteestudents will score higher on the GRE -- or get their money back.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

More people get into graduate school with a Kaplan GRE course than with a similar course from any other major test prep company. Kaplan provides three advantages no one else can match: the most personalized prep with more course options than any competitor including in-class, online, one-on-one, and self-study; the most focused prep with Kaplan’s exclusive online score analysis and personalized recommendation system; and the most effective prep, which is why Kaplan guarantees your score will improve.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

TOC, Chapter 1

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Kaplan Publishing; 7 edition (April 26, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1419550012
• ISBN-13: 978-1419550010
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 8.5 x 11 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,070 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Education & Reference > Graduate School > Test Preparation > GRE
  • #26 in Books > Education & Reference > Encyclopedias

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A great book for the GRE Revised General Test- combine it with New GRE Premier July 8, 2011

By S. Parihar

Format:Paperback

This review is specifically for the verbal section of the New GRE

I had already purchased Kaplan's new GRE Premier and ETS The official Guide to the GRE Revised General Test. ETS gives the right picture about how the test will be like. I couldn't find questions of high difficulty level in any book, but ETS Guide. Since there are just two practice tests in the ETS, you obviously need to practice a lot of questions in order to be well prepared.

Kaplan's approach to the Verbal Section for the New GRE is the best. You should combine it with Kaplan New GRE Premier which gives you 10 practice sets in their CD and two practice tests inside the book for verbal section though New GRE Premier doesn't have a good Maths section)- This book- Kaplan Verbal Workbook, has many questions which are very much close to the ones that I found in ETS; that means Kaplan meets the standards of real exam. When I saw the sample question for the verbal part on the ETS website, I found that comprehension questions are a bit more difficult now. Kaplan Verbal Workbook has come with questions that one might expect in the real GRE Exam and it gives a good practice. Although there are not enough books in the market for the New GRE exam (Barron's, kaplan and ETS are the only reliable sources), I believe this book will be enough. The number of practice tests are quite a lot! And that's what I wanted. Usually GRE books are huge and are filled with too many general explanations with the overview of the exam. We obviously know what the exam is and Verbal section is more about practice. SO, I just wanted to practice questions and this books wil really help me. I recommend this book to anyone who is preparing for the New GRE exam with a focus on Verbal section....

One another great thing about this book is how they deal with the vocabulary part. We all know that it's not possible to mug up the entire world list. And I am not a BIG FAn of learning the vocab by the WORD ROOT! That never helped me. Here, Kaplan Verbal Workbook has grouped words of similar meaning together. For example: the word chicancery means deception by craft, so all those words which mean the same are grouped under chicancery. Even I tried this strategy when I began preparing for GRE and one has to spend a lot of time in doing that. So the book has made that job easy. This will really avoid any confusion between words which have similar meaning.

My exam is on AUgust 2, 2011. I will write more after I experience the real exam :) Read more ›

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good tool November 24, 2011

By Mike

Format:Paperback

This book is definitely helpful, and if you study long and hard it goes by quickly. I started the book with rather poor scores, around 153-154/170 on most practice sets. by the end I was up to around 168, and I have even received a perfect score on one of the sets. my actual GRE didn't reflect as high of a score (164/170), so I won't go out on a limb here and say that this is a perfectly accurate tool for gauging your final score. But it did indicate when I was improving. I would advise, however, that even when you begin to score extremely well in these kaplan practice sets that you do not consider yourself done with verbal study. Keep going with vocab and other practice sets in different prep books. My score wasn't as high as I had hoped for, and if I do end up having to retake the GRE, I will focus even harder on vocabulary.

If you are struggling with comprehension questions, it would greatly benefit you to begin studying far in advance of your test day by frequently reading quality publications in your free time. Read The New York Review of Books, Truthdig, The Economist, etc. and LOOK UP and LEARN every word you can't define immediately. If you have a Kindle, subscribe to the new york review of books, and when you read it, you can instantly look up the definition of words you don't know. That simple! You can tell I worked really hard to achieve a decent verbal score. This book is a decent tool to help gauge where you stand with the verbal section and I would highly recommend it in addition to other practice sets.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great companion to Kaplan New GRE Premier w/CD September 12, 2011

By Caroline K

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

When I first began studying for the GRE, I bought the Kaplan New GRE Premier w/CD, and after using this for a while, it was clear that I needed extra help on the verbal. So I ended up getting this book, which was a great decision. I feel like practice is what helped me most, and this book provides additional practice sets and strategies that are not in the Premier version. But it definitely helps to have the CD with additional practice sets which comes with the Premier. Overall if you need help with the Verbal section, this book is pretty good. Granted, it's not perfect- I still came across words that I was unfamiliar with on the actual GRE, but thanks to the word groups and word roots strategies, I was able to pull a much better score than I think I would have gotten without it. For those of you who also need help with the Math, I recommend CliffsNotes Math Review for Standardized Tests. I got that even though Math is my strong suit. So using all these study aids, I got a 680-780 on Verbal and 750-800 on Math (they just give you a range on the old scores since the new scoring system is not refined yet I believe).

All in all, this book is a great supplement to help with your studying.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Overall, a good book for additional practice problems August 31, 2012

By Bikes With The Fishes

Format:Paperback

I just took the GRE and scored in the 85th percentile on the verbal section. Here is what I used:

I bought this Kaplan book later in my GRE studies as I was still struggling with the comprehensive reading, and some vocab. The book itself is mostly useful for having additional practice problems although it doesn't get too in depth regarding strategy (see my review of the Manhattan book below). Most of the practice problems seemed moderate to slightly challenging level of difficulty, so should suffice for the GRE.

Here are the other verbal workbooks that I used as well:

I did use the Barron's GRE Verbal Workbook Barron's GRE Verbal Workbook and while I found it useful for it's large amount of practice problems, I found some of the vocab words used as answers were less common that what I saw either on the GRE or on other practice problems and practice tests. With this noted, I still recommend using this book as some of these practice questions seem more difficult than other books.

I did use Manhattan's Reading Comprehension and Essay GRE Strategy Book as well. Reading Comprehension & Essays GRE Strategy Guide, 3rd Edition (Manhattan Prep Strategy Guides). The best thing I got from this book is learning how to take brief notes while reading over the reading passages on the GRE. Taking notes helps to reinforce what you are reading, a technique not talked about very often by other books. The practice problems in this book are decent, but nothing above that.... I do wish they could have put more practice problems in this book (like the Kaplan Verbal Workbook), but there is still useful content here. If you are struggling with the analytical writing section, there are some good tips on this section as well.

One final note about both practicing your verbal, but also your math/quantitative: do as many practice tests as you can!!! When you purchase a book (any book I believe) from Manhattan, you get an access code to 6 full length online practice tests. I found these practice tests VERY VERY USEFUL for getting comfortable with the GRE format but also applying all of the verbal and math skills I was practicing. Most of the questions are very similar in difficulty to what you will see and you can review your questions as well. By the way, always review problems you get wrong, this is really important! For Kaplan, you have to purchase the Kaplan Premiere GRE review book to get the disc with access to 10 verbal practice tests and 10 quantitative practice tests. Like the Manhattan, I found these practice tests VERY VERY useful. Do yourself a favor, and get access to both the Manhattan and the Kaplan practice tests It will help immensely!

Finally, as for vocab words, I used both the Manhattans 500 Essential Words Flash Cards 500 Essential Words: GRE Vocabulary Flash Cards as well as the Manhattan 500 Advanced Words Flash Cards 500 Advanced Words: GRE Vocabulary Flash Cards. After making it through both of these sets of flash cards, I felt like I had a fairly good vocabulary for the GRE and did see many of these words on the test.

With this noted, if you do have additional time after finishing these two sets of flash cards, I **HIGHLY RECOMMEND** that you learn the 300 or so most common root words for the GRE as well. Root words are very helpful in deciphering words that you don't know that will come up on the GRE. I found Barron's Essential Words for the GRE book Essential Words for the GRE (Barron's GRE) to be a good source for this, although I'm sure you can find these same root words in the Kaplan or related books as well. And while 300 root words seems like a lot of words to learn, you will probably know some/many of these words already, so fear not! There doesn't seem to be a good set of root word flash cards out there, so I ended up making my own, which was fine. One last note about learning root words: they will also help to strengthen and reinforce the vocab words you already know or are learning from both sets of the Manhattan cards. Learn your root words! Read more ›