Books for Prep | |
 - Kaplan, Princeton Review, or Barron's?I am currently studying for my GRE and an instructor in SAT classes. I agree with most reviewers here that test preparation can hardly be dependent on a single study aid. Kaplan's material always provides down-to-earth strategies, with aphoristic explanations and solid exercises. It is a means to an end; but so do all the other books available in the market. Princeton Review's material tends to be more verbose with less exercises. Their books that are commercially available do not really explain the philosophy behind their approach completely. Most candidates find it difficult to apply their strategies unless they have taken a course with them to teach the material itself. Once you have learned Princeton Review's strategies, their books then make perfect sense. Each question is designed with care to illustrate a particular strategy or method. Barron's adopts a very old school, albeit very consolidated approach to test preparation: building up from one's foundation. Their workbooks tend to have an abundant amount of exercises, which are generally much more difficult than those that would appear in the actual tests. The philosphy behind their approach is that candidates will perform well if they have encountered questions that are more advanced than the standard requirements. I find that Barron's is always a good foundational book if one has months to prepare. Princeton Review generally provides inspiring strategies if you have a chance to learn exactly what they want their instructors to teach as supposed to what they sell in our local bookstores. Kaplan is always a great choice if you have already had some foundation and insight into the test and would like a systematic approach to strengthen your testing skills. Rating:  - a number of errorI've been working with this book for about a week, I have found a number of errors. Looks like they don't spend much time checking their work between editions. Rating: - Great Book!!!Recomended if you want to get high scores but less time to study!!! Rating:  - almost completeTrust me, if you've never taken a GRE before, you really want to buy a guide book -- whether it's this one or another -- to help you through. It's a GRE suicide to just walk in without preparation!! When I took my exam, I was under tremendous presure and had to get ready within one week and so I bought two workbooks, Kaplan GRE Verbal Workbook as well as Gre Verbal Workout (ISBN: 067977890X) to get as much as I could out of the short time I had. I found out that I needed both to get a complete understanding, exercise, and overview. Kapalan is great, but it's NOT complete and neither is the Princeton series so my suggestion is to get both and have all the angles covered. There will be a large amount of overlapping and redundant data, but when it comes to exam and preparation, you will need all the practice you can get. Rating: - Pretty Solid for Going More In Depth on the Verbal SectionI started my GRE preparations with Kaplan's "GRE Exam, 2003 Edition", the basic book that covers the whole exam: Verbal, Quantitative and Writing. This book, "GRE Exam Verbal Workbook, Second Edition" just gives alot more practice on the Verbal section question types and then devotes a huge chunk of the book, 161 pages, to vocabulary. The core of the book is really the four chapters devoted to the four different Verbal section question types. There is a quick 3-4 page review of Kaplan's method, which is no different than their methods in the general book, and then 5 practice tests. So, basically this is what they call it: a workbook. There are alot of problems to practice, practice, practice. And that is really the most important part in mastering the GRE. However, there are limits to how far practice can take you on certain Verbal section question types. I think that practice is the whole deal for Reading Comprehension and Sentence Completions, once you have a basic technique for approaching those question types. The reason for this is that all of the information that you need to answer these questions is provided for you. For sentence completions, there are "roadsigns" that signal what the word in the blank has to be. And the reading comprehension questions all have to be found in the passage you are given. Thus, getting good at these just requires that you hammer away. However, with antonymns and analogies, practice is helpful but can only take you so far. Because if you don't know the word in an antonymn or one or both of the words in an analogy, working backwards will only get you so far. The only way to nail antonymns and analogies is to gear up on vocab and memorize a couple hundred words and learn word groups (groups of words that have similar meanings). This is why Kaplan devotes so much space, 45% of the book, to vocabulary compared with the 5 or so pages in their general preparation book. In the end, this book has all the vocabulary and practice you need to be as ready as you'll ever be to take the Verbal section of the GRE. Greg Feirman In association with Amazon.com | |