Customer Reviews

Verbal Workout for the GRE, 3rd Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation)

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

 

 

I bought this with Cracking the GRE to prepare for the test. I'd say it helped me (my boyfriend said "wow" when I told him my score). It has plenty of quizzes for good practice, and they do a great job of explaining the testing process to you. The strategies might take a while at first, but over time it gets easier to process faster. What I didn't like, though, was that beyond the quizzes, nearly everything is identical to the verbal and writing sections of Cracking the GRE. The vocab hit lists are exactly the same- I would have liked some new words.

The math on the GRE is pretty simple, so if you want test prep, I'd suggest getting this book only, and get free math prep from the ETS website.

I would recommend this book to someone who is looking for a practice book with a bit of explanation and strategy. The sample questions are solid and there are plenty of them. The strategies are sometimes helpful but at other times not so helpful because the author explains them too hastily, assumes prior knowledge on the part of the reader, or does not provide enough detail. They also do not differ from Princeton Review's Cracking the GRE, at least not very greatly.

Here is what I mean about the explanation of strategies.

In the section on analogies, the writer discusses what to do when you "only sort of know" a root word. One strategy given is to look at the answer choices, determine the opposite of each answer choice, and see if that word means the same as the root word. This is how the writer handles a sample question to illustrate this strategy.

_______________________________

INCENSED:

- mollified

- ecstatic

- entertained

- peeved

- satisfied

Let's say that you're not sure what INCENSED means. Therefore, take a look at the answer choices.

What's a simple opposite for (A), mollified? Mollified means appeased, so a good opposite would be along the lines of provoked or irritated. Does INCENSED mean provoked or irritated? No. So eliminate (A).

What's a simple opposite for (B), ecstatic? Since ecstatic means very happy, a good opposite is very angry. Does INCENSED mean very angry? Yes.

(...)

_______________________________

When I read this, I couldn't believe it. If I don't really know what a word means, how am I supposed to know if the opposites of the answer choices have the same meaning? This is totally useless to me if I don't definitely know what the word means. The same section then goes on to tell you to figure out the connotation of a word if you don't know it, but Yung does not give any steps or guidelines for doing that. If you have never read the words "bucolic," "puissant," or "sedulous," you might easily assume they are negative in connotation, when in fact they are positive.

But by far the greatest disappointment for me with this book are the explanations to the questions on the sample quizzes. Since I had already learned the strategies from Cracking the GRE, I bought this book primarily for these explanations, not so much for the strategies. Throughout the book, however, I was left high and dry. I'll give you an example.

In a reading passage quiz, one of the questions and its explanation:

_______________________________

7. The author's attitude toward the Republican party of the mid-nineteenth century can best be described as

- admiring

- appreciative

- sympathetic

- objective

- vehement

For a tone question, anything too extreme must be wrong. (E) is out, as a result, as is (A). So you're left with (B), (C), and (D)--each of which is pretty moderate. So use "Republican" as your lead word to find out how the author feels about the party. The fourth paragraph talks about the Republicans, and clearly, the author is pretty neutral in tone. So the best answer is (D).

_______________________________

You can see pretty "clearly" where this explanation drops off. It starts out using a good strategy (eliminating extreme answer choices) but then fails to explain why (B) and (C) are wrong and why (D) is right. The author should at least have explained that the relevant paragraph does not contain any adjectives that show opinion.

This is the general pattern of the book. There are many cases where Yung putatively explains concepts and answer choices but fails to deliver solid information. Nevertheless, I don't consider my time spent on this book to be a total waste, and I feel that reviewing the strategies and having the extra practice material were both helpful endeavors. And, to temper my negative tone, I'll add that about half of the explanations are helpful. Thus, three stars.

For anyone who thinks I'm writing this because of sour grapes, I aced or nearly aced all the practice quizzes in the book. So it's not like I was outraged by my failure and looking to blame the author. I am a writer of ETS test-prep books myself (not for the GRE) and used this book with a critical perspective thereof.

the book is good. I wish there was more reading comp though, but still more reading comp than kaplan. The strategies seem to work well. The verbal test is changing next week so I'm not sure how useful this book will be.

I had already taken the GRE and studied using Kaplan's general GRE prep book when I decided to retake them to boost my verbal score. Although I can't say how effective the book is (I'm taking the test in a month), I will say that the verbal practice sections and tips are different from Kaplan and there is different vocabulary than is offered in the Kaplan book. Anyone looking to go into an English graduate program that needs a highly competitive score - this book is for you!

I personally didn't like their explanations. Some things they say in their answers don't make sense.I would go for Kaplan's review if I had to pick one.

Questions are good if you are not willing to read their answers, but there is no point in buying the verbal workout if you just want questions.

Just buy practice exams from ebay

I started GMAT Club - online MBA community; my GMAT score is 750 (49, 42), and here are my thoughts about this book:

There are very few resources to help with GMAT Reading Comprehension and this is one of them. Actually until the Manhattan GMAT RC book came out, this was considered the best RC book (considered by many gmatclub members better than Kaplan or PR Verbal GMAT Workbooks).

What's Valuable for a GMAT test-taker in this book:

* Reading Comprehension Section with 15 pages of strategies covering tone, general idea questions, roman numeral questions, etc

* 10 Passages with 50 questions (from 3 to 7 questions per passage) with detailed explanations

* Section on AWA as GRE has very similar essay topics (Analysis of an Issue and Argument). It actually covers AWA in a lot more detail than you need to worry about (AWA is easy to tackle) but has a good overview of assumptions and how to tackle the analysis of an argument essay.

Recommendation: Get Manhattan GMAT Reading Comprehension. If you have exhausted practice and GMAT strategy guides for RC, then get this one

I got this book a while ago but i just recently opened it and it only had until chapter 5! So the vocabulary hit parade was missing and also the analytical writing section!

I had been working full time and did not have enough time to "enhance" my vocabulary. I used only this book for total of 18 hours over a period of one week and got 700 in verbal in GRE General. I would recommend not wasting money on any additional preparation materials: Just use this book and the material on the CD ROM from ETS (do all the math questions on the CD because math is tricky), which you get automatically by registering for the exam. If I knew verbal was going to be this easy, I would have spent more time on math (got only 790).