Books for Prep | |
 - terrible, many, many typosAbsolutely terrible. Is there anything worse than marking an answer incorrectly on a practice test, then, after examining the explanation and answer key, to figure out that the answer key is wrong and the authors failed to solve a math problem correctly? math is math, and they answered their own questions incorrectly. There are typos everywhere, including in mathmatical explanations. I think there wasn't a single proofreader of this book. In the practice tests, the quantitative time limit listed is 30 min for 30 questions, when the real test is 45 for 28 questsions; and clearly the tests require 45min to complete. the verbal sections are just as bad. You read the justifications for their reading comprehension sections, and they are simply inane. Just flat stupid. The analogy and antonym sections aren't any better. The answers are often very forced, with differing parts of speech. The only good thing about this book is that, I suppose, if you manage to start acing such poorly thought out practice tests, then you will breeze through a proper test- one that actually makes sense. This book was more than a waste of time and money, it was an offense to my mind. I soiled myself just touching it, and felt less intelligent after each practice test. It is a scam to sell such a poorly composed book as test preparation. I hate this book with every fiber of my being. Since buying this book, I have compared it to Kaplan, Princeton Review, and Arco. I'll spend money on a more reputable book tomorrow. This one is an offensive cheat. I'm glad I still have two months to prepare. The authors were so lazy preparing this book that I feel cheated. I cannot believe the number of typos, typos that actually effect the coherency of the content. I have the 2006 version of this book. Do not buy it. Seriously. Rating: - A waste of moneyI found this book to be completely useless. I went through the entire quantitative section and found that the questions given in the study guide were about a hundred times easier than the questions on the actual test. Many concepts weren't gone over, the verbal section is outdated, and the CD practice tests are incredibly easy compared to the real thing. The explanations on the verbal section of the CD were about the only useful thing about this package but they are torturous to go over. Don't waste your money on this. I'm already shopping for another study guide. Rating:  - A good preparation for the GREI used this book in preparation for the GRE, and scored in the 80th and 87th percentiles in verbal and math on my first, and only, GRE. I probably could have done even better had I been more thorough in my preparation, but the percentiles qualify me for most graduate programs. The salient point is, I spent minimal time studying and still obtained a decent score; this indicates the book's approach is solid. Getting the most benefit from this book does require studying it from cover to cover. But, doing so doesn't really take that long. I did not intend to spend an exorbitant amount of time studying for the GRE, and the book really cut to the chase. The book gives a review test on various subjects, then presents complete answers of the test. It then provides a review section for each subject. After completing the topics given on the GRE, full length sample exams are provided. Using a timer, I followed the instructions on converting my sample test to a GRE percentile. I was consistently scoring between 80 and 90, and that's where my scores landed on the GRE. The key to an accurate prediction of your score is being honest with the time. I did not use the CD/ROM because I simply don't care for any of the software based "sample exams" from any vendor. The book has some errors, but since each answer is fully explained, it's fairly straightforward to locate the error. I noticed many other test preparations have cursory explanations. Rating: - waste of money and timeWhere do I start? The vocab in the analogies and antonyms varies....from something a 7th grader could manage to some obscure word that probably five people in the entire world have ever seen before. Parts of speech don't match, and the analogies are sometimes just terrible Take, for example, "a particle is PART of an atom". Seriously? If you don't know basic physics, pick a different analogy ffs. Reading comprehension questions are ridiculously basic, except for the ones that make no sense and have multiple answers. Oh, and the ones that aren't on the GRE anymore. If you are thinking about buying this book, you'd be better off taking that $30 and flushing it down the toilet. Or burning it. Or using it as toilet paper. Whatever you want really, just anything but this book. Rating: - Very dated I studied for the GRE for 6 solid months and have used every book available on the topic. This book was the only one whose verbal section was entirely outdated. For example, there was a practice test that had reading comprehension questions dealing with material that was taken out of the test years ago (such as terms relating to analysis). Also, I had problems with the analogy questions. On the real GRE, the parts of speech are ALWAYS congruent to the stem word. This was not the case in this book! I immediately stopped using it as I didn't want to waste my time and felt that it was a complete waste of money. In association with Amazon.com | |