Books for Prep | |
 - Good for beginners, but not for fine-tuningThese flash cards are useful if you're really haven't been exposed to the words, but they're not good for fine-tuning your understanding. They'd be good for a non-native speaker or a beginner-- they might take you from a 400 to a 600 score, but not a 600 to 800. The problem is that the definitions are oversimplified: for example, compare their definition of "acumen" as "insightfulness" or "diffident" as "lacking self-confidence" to the definition in a good dictionary, and you'll see how much nuance is being lost, nuance that is essential when choosing which of several words is most appropriate. So, overall: quality good, format useful, but really just a starting place. Rating:  - not necessaythis set of flashcards is definately not necessary for any one who has even average vocab. buy the following sets, but unless you need help with simple, everyday words loke "literal" "covert" or "movement" then save the money, and forget this product. Rating:  - good with other thingssome of the words on the vocab list were ridiculous - "bacterium" - but many of them were very helpful. I used it in conjunction with the word list provided in the back of my GRE book and together there's probably 1000 words. The flashcards come already made - you don't have to make them yourself. Very convienient. "Plastic carry pouch" is a ziplock bag. But good product. Rating: - Good quality product.The cards are well printed, and their size is similar to that of the business card. I wish the card stock would be a bit thicker. Only about 50% of these words are new to me; therefore, I may have to buy set #2. Rating:  - Helped me get 99%!I ended up buying all the sets and just went through about 30 cards every morning while eating breakfast... Since I was a science major and hadn't read anything besides science text in four years, I had a lot of catching up to do... When I took the exam I came across MANY of the words I had learned from the cards. I got 99th percentile and I think the cards played a big part in that. GRE tends to pull words from the same pool of vocab- I'm not sure if just using one set of 750 cards would have made much of a difference, but if you can fine the time to plow through all 4 sets (which you can get for a discounted price if you order the next 3 together), you should be in good shape.... In association with Amazon.com | |