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Rating: 
Summary: Effective techniques, learnable in a few weeks
Review: As a result of using this book, my GRE verbal score improved from 250 (1%ile) to 610 (86%ile) in one month. The GRE has nothing to do with what you learned in college, and everything to do with the techniques outlined in this book. Learn how to get the reading-comp questions right without actually reading the passages. Learn how to get the analogies and even antonyms right without knowing most of the words. Each chapter of the book is geared to a particular type of question. Each chapter starts by explaining how you can go wrong, and then guides you through techniques with many carefully chosen practice examples, giving you great confidence and speed on the real GRE. If you plan on taking the GRE, you must have this book because it is simply not possible to do well on the GRE verbal test without the help of those who have studied its workings and devised suitable techniques.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book for GRE preparation
Review: This book is very good tool if u want to get well prepared for the rigorous verbal section of the Gre . It offers techniques on how to learn new words , how to handle the verbal sections and also has a 300-word hit list . I would have rated this book with a 5-star review if the word list was larger . Still ..a good value for your money
Rating: 
Summary: Good for practice
Review: This book provides good GRE verbal strategies along with lots of practice exercises to help you really internalize them. It's superior to the Kaplan verbal book, which has easier content and less of it. Plus, PR gives you a step-by-step method to use on each question type. Kaplan's recommendations are more general and thus harder to actually put into use. I also like the fact that PR emphasizes process of elimination, which is essential on the harder verbal questions.
The flaws of this book are that it is out of date, so it doesn't cover any strategy for the CAT, includes an inadequate vocabulary list and doesn't cover the analytical writing section. I don't view these as particularly major flaws, though, because you'll have to buy a general review book in addition to this one anyway, and that book will include techniques for handling the CAT format and the writing section. Good GRE vocabulary lists are available for free online.
Finally, a few thoughts from someone who scored 800V: Doing well on the GRE verbal is about practicing reading comp, practicing the bridge method for analogies and learning vocabulary. Of these three, the most crucial for me was knowing the vocabulary cold. No matter what fancy testing techniques you use, if you don't know the word your chances of getting a question right are poor. On the other hand, if you know the word, many verbal questions are just plain easy, so you'll answer them quickly. You can then use the time you save on vocab to really understand the dense reading comp passages.
Rating:
Summary: ok but I expected more...
Review: This book was ok in preparation for the GRE. I appreciated the test taking strategies that I still use today. I'm sure that I would be more satisfied if I put more effort into the verbal section of the exam. I purchased the book for the Hit Parade, but I think the book would have been more useful if the list was longer. My piece of advice is to start verbal practice as early as you can and use the ETS CD-ROM.
Rating: 
Summary: Needs to be updated. Quickly.
Review: This review is aimed at those in the upper scoring echelon of the population. If you are getting 200 and wish to improve by a few hundred, this book can help, as most books will. But for those of us who score in the 650+ range who want to shoot for an 800, you need to read this with caution. A lot of the techniques, while timeless in a general way, do need to be modified for the recent exam. This book was published in 1997 and it's getting long in the tooth. Pick up the PR 2003 GRE to know the current state of affairs for strategy. Those who are verbally gifted will also notice more than quite a few errors in this book. Most of the errors will fly under the radar for the general population and so it won't matter, but if you're shooting for 800, you make no mistakes. The vocabularly list is a subset of larger ones in other PR books. Word Smart 2 is a great addition to anyone's library.
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