Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Does its job just fine, January 15, 2004
By A Customer
Although it's true that the topics are not kept completely up to date vis-a-vis the current topics available on the ETS website, the great majority of these topics are in fact still being used, and hence the book is still useful. I should also add that Stewart uses brief phrases describing the topics rather than reproducing them as written on the official list, and they are not in the same order. But as he explains, this is not his fault, since ETS often changes the order and wording of the topics. However, it only takes a little attention to correctly identify which topic the essay is on. So ignore the other reviews which complain about this.As a science student, I have done very little "college writing," and to tell you the truth, I find this sort of essay-writing deplorable and asinine. At first, I didn't feel like I had a decent idea of what would be expected on the GRE. But Stewart gives nice, concrete, concise advice and useful if standard pointers in Part 1 to help you get started, which is more than I can say about either Princeton Review or Kaplan. Parts 2 and 3 consist of good, solid, middle-of-the-road answers to "all" (as of a few years ago) Issue and Argument topics. I found his answers to be a helluva lot more instructive than the [poor] sample essays provided by ETS. I can't think of a better way to prepare for the Analytical Writing part of the GRE than taking a shot at the ETS topics yourself and then comparing your answer to Stewart's, as he recommends.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Practical, insightful, helpful, January 22, 2005
I truly enjoyed reading this book, not only as a preparation for taking the GRE general test, but also as a tool for self-enrichment. I admit that I don't agree with everything the author put into the issue or argument essays, but, that's hardly the point for reading this book, isn't it? The sample essays are truly extensive and exhaustive, serving as good models for students who might not be familiar with GRE writing. Moreover, very often I find that the essays jump start my own train of thoughts, challenging my point of view on an issue or argument, and that's a big part of reading this book is about, I believe.
This book truly epitomizes the saying - learning by doing.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Only 1st section is useful, February 26, 2004
like titles says... 1st section is useful. Essays themselves are outdated and not really written well. Author says himself that he was not under pressure of time and had time to think it thru, in the end all his essays contain some sort of reference to work of Shakespier or some statistics. How sitting on GRE test I will come up with all these sources? So do not waste your time on 2 nd 3 rd part of this book, but do read thru the 1st one!
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