Rating: 
Summary: A must have
Review: Getting a high score in GRE Vocabulary do not necessarily depend upon years of experience with the English Language. Kaplan's Verbal Workbook is a living testimony to this fact. It definitely increased my test taking ability. It is a must have book. You should be honest in doing all your exercises. The list of high frequency words at the end is not meant to be comprehensive, but a combination of the understanding of the word roots and a familiarity with this word list will carry you a long way. Good Luck!
Rating: 
Summary: Kaplan, Princeton Review, or Barron's?
Review: 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:
Summary: Kaplan, Princeton Review, or Barron's?
Review: 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: 
Summary: Good book but not an Encyclopedia of Verbal
Review: I bought this book hoping to get some boosts in verbal section of GRE. Well, it did but not big enough. I got only 50 points of increase. Altough, 50 points is quite an achievement but not enough to pass my personal limit. For verbal section, the key is to memorize and eat up as many words as possible. This book do provide SOME words, but not enough. For words I would prefer to go with Barron's or use free vocabulary builder software, eg. guru's wordlist.To ace verbal section will need alot of hardwork, especially for foreigners like me. This book will provide complementary assistant but surely not the bible for verbal section. One thing that I like about this book is it categorizes words according to it meaning, positive or negative, and typical meaning, such as there are many words have the same meaning, this book categorize them. As always Kaplan has the simple strategy to overcome problems. I like the sentence completion stretegy to paraphrase and words elimination. All in all, if you have time (more than 3 months of preparation) I think this book will increase your score alot, then again maybe it's not because of this book, but because you have memorize so many words.
Rating: 
Summary: Not great preparation
Review: I bought this book with the hopes of increasing my verbal scores tremendously on the GRE. Well, it did no such thing. My score only raised 20 points from a practice test taken with no preparation. Don't bother memorizing the 200 Top Used GRE words because only 1 of them was on the test. Waste of valuable preparation time. Buy something else or read lots and lots of scientific journal articles.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Solid for Going More In Depth on the Verbal Section
Review: I 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
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Solid for Going More In Depth on the Verbal Section
Review: I 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
Rating:
Summary: a number of error
Review: I'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:
Summary: a number of error
Review: I'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:
Summary: Very difficult to raise your score significantly....
Review: Ok. It is a good book, helpful, and will make you a living dictionary but only if you have 1 year to give the test. I bought it, studied from it, checked it many times during a month and a half and got a 550 (73%). Considering my first language is not English it is a respectable score, but not significantly higher than the first time I took a practice test (probably 50 points or so). The truth is that no book will improve your score significantly in a short time. The Verbal part of the test is tough, especially for foreigners, so don't expect miracles. It is not like Maths where you can learn some tricks by practice. With the Verbal section you need time, not practice. Buy it and judge for yourself. It will help but not make you a Verbal Section God. Now, if you have 6 o more months..... maybe
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