Kaplan GRE Exam 2009 Premier Program (w/ CD-ROM) (Kaplan Gre Exam Premier Live) (Paperback)

by Kaplan (Author)
Key Phrases: verbal section, grad school, sentence completions, Reading Comprehension, United States, Resources Kaplan's Root List (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The Education Testing Service continues to make gradual changes to the content of the GRE. But with this unique multi-format preparation program, students will receive the most accurate, timely details on the GRE test change. This customized study program includes:* The latest information on the November 2007 updates, including samples of the two new question types with detailed answer explanations. * Full-length practice test* Hundreds of additional practice questions * Detailed answer explanations * Diagnostic test to target areas for score improvement * Kaplan-exclusive score-raising strategies * Essential tactics for the computer-adaptive test (CAT) format --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Kaplan Publishing (June 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1419552066
• ISBN-13: 978-1419552069
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,833 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars not as good as Princeton Review, September 8, 2008

By	Hillary Lauren (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I got this GRE guide as well as "Cracking the GRE" by the Princeton Review... and preferred the latter.

Not that this isn't a good study book; you'd probably do fine on the GRE with either one. I found the PR book more easy to follow with print that's easy to read and even some tongue-in-cheek humor (studying doesn't have to be boring?). What it basically comes down to is that Kaplan is content based whereas PR is more techinique based, walking you through how to solve problems easily. The "Hit Parade" vocab lists in the PR was also super helpful--Kaplan has nothing near the number of need-to-know vocabulary words.

Bottom Line: at least check out the Princeton Review's "Cracking the GRE" before you buy this.

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Resource for GRE Prep, June 9, 2008

By	lil_applet "lil_applet" (Lone Star State) - See all my reviews

This book is all you need to prep for the Verbal exam. I made flashcards out of the top 200 GRE words listed and defined in the back of this book. Then I read the test-taking tips and - voila - my Verbal scores were right where I wanted them to be. If, like me, you haven't taken a math class in years, then you will need some additional materials. I used Basic Mathematics by Bittinger, then studied the Kaplan materials for the test-taking tips. That worked perfectly. My score yesterday was 90 points higher than my GRE score from 13 years ago. I definitely think these materials helped me to get my best possible score. I gave this book only 4 stars because the online site was difficult to use, and the book contained a lot of typos.

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Test prep seems fairly good, albeit the CD-ROM seems dated, June 29, 2008

By	Shawn S. Augsburger - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have only had this product for a few weeks, but I have already discovered some criticisms.

One major criticism is the CD-ROM seems dated. The disc lists "version 1.0" and you can tell that the disc is 1.0. The copyright on the program is 2004! While the sample tests appear to simulate the test environment very well they don't contain the any of the fill in the blank questions that have been added to the GRE. While they aren't a big part of the exam you would figure that if this is the "2009" edition of this book that the CD would fully prepare you for the test that students taking the exam in 2008 might take.

Needless to say this disc doesn't seem to work properly under Windows Vista much like the feedback I read on last years' edition. I bought the 2009 edition figuring that they would have updated the CD for this years' book, but apparently not. Having neither a Mac version nor a Windows version that works in Vista seems pretty pathetic. I have been using the inside of a virtual machine(VMware) and it seems to run OK. I will give an update if I discover any means by which the software will run under Vista properly.

After you remove the background information on the GRE, and the chapter on applying to grad school, and the advertising for Kaplan's courses the number of pages of actual prep drops below 400 pages, albeit most competing books are approximately the same length. There are entire books written on applying to grad school if I really wanted a book for that, but nevertheless I will admit that the book seems incredibly informative.

As far as I can tell there is no compelling improvements in this book over the previous edition. The book could obviously have more problem sets, but so far I haven't seen any obvious mistakes in the book like I have seen in test prep books for the SAT or other exams. The book could be better, but I don't see any clear flaws in the book so far.