<< 1 >>
Rating:  Summary: Success! Review: I myself am not one who tests well. I am the person who chokes from test anxiety. I was applying to grad school as an English Major, knowing that the most important score for me, on the GRE, was the verbal score. Conscious of my test-taking history, I purchased the book in an attempt to subdue apprehension and buttress my confidence. Having taken the test, and scoring 200 points higher than I had expected, I would advise anyone who relates to test anxiety to sacrifice the money and buy the book. Follow the advice it gives and it will prove to be your advocate.
Rating:  Summary: Helpful Review: I recently needed to score in the top 50% on the verbal section. With the help of GRE EXAM VERBAL WORKBOOK, I scored in the top 85%! The book introduced the test remarkarbly well & made me comfortable with the GRE's approach to asking questions. Highly recommended. Oddly, the book does contain typos.
Rating:  Summary: Success! Review: I took the GRE a few months ago and began practicing about six weeks before the test. I was mainly interested in scoring well on the verbal section, which was why I picked up this book. For the most part, I found it useful, with in-depth looks at each component of the verbal section of the GRE. The vocabulary was especially useful, but it's important to make flashcards and truly memorize the words, not just skim them before the test. Be forewarned that this book takes a while to work through. I spent about an hour on it each day the six weeks before the test and still didn't get through all the supplemental exercises and word lists at the back of the book.One downside of this book is that its language is a bit more stilted than some other guides', especially the Princeton Review's; Kaplan is thorough, but slightly less user-friendly. This, however, is a minor annoyance and shouldn't stop anyone from buying the book. To really boost your score, I suggest using this book in conjunction with one that covers the entire GRE; for me, the Princeton Review book and this one were a good pair. (Make sure you don't buy Kaplan's general GRE study book--the one that covers all three sections--if you buy this, because you're going to end up duplicating virtually all the verbal section info (as it is an extended version of Kaplan's larger tome). Additionally, in selecting a supplement to this, consider one with a CD that lets you take practice tests. I'm a regular computer user, and even practiced with the CD, but still found it moderately difficult to adjust to the computer, and ended up getting a little flustered on the test because of how the computer program was working (AND the little annoying facts like having to look back and forth from the scrath paper to the the computer screen, back and forth). Even so, using this book and the Princeton Review book together for 1-2 hours every day the six weeks before the test raised my verbal score from the 89th percentile to the 97th, my analytical from the 88th to the 98th, and my math from the 70th to the 80th. I highly recommend this--and think the GRE, unlike, say, the LSAT, is a test for which you can easily study on your own without taking a class.
Rating:  Summary: Incorrect answers Review: This book features answers that are just plain wrong! The GRE tests subtleties of words and phrases and this book ignores them. If you can pick up with book used somewhere, I suppose it is good for basic practice, but don't count on it for your main method of review.
Rating:  Summary: Fantastic! Review: This book gives a good holistic view of the GRE but I think it contains insufficient amount of vocabulary. It does teach you some good techniques to max out the verbal section but what I don't like is that the word list is far too short(only 100 words with ultra brief definitions, no examples) and the meanings of other words listed are not given. However I do like the root list which lets you to guess what a unfamiliar word might mean but again, definitions are not given. Should you look for a book which has a more comprehensive word list, the GRE book from Barron's might be useful to you, at least it gives you 3500 words with definitions and examples on how to use those words.
Rating:  Summary: It is just waste of $$$! Review: This book is not helpful at all. The definitions of some vocabularies are not exact, they can give some sort of confusion to the test takers. Even though this book provides some good groups of similar vocabularies, it is not that useful also because modern tendency of GRE is asking more the exact meaning of a vocabulary. It would be better to study the detail and exact definitions of vocabularies through some good dictionaries.
Rating:  Summary: Solid Preparation - It can be amusing too...))) Review: Two Important Points: 1. Vocabulary... Nightmares of GRE takers, especially if English is not your native language... And even if it is...:-) O.k., this book is indeed much better than, say, Barron's Verbal section in this way: the authors use an innovative approach to the crucial but often neglected because the time lacks,- part of GRE Verbal - vocabulary lists. Even though you decide not to buy this one, apply this tactic: design your own WORD CATEGORIES - and you WILL NOT forget those words. List words you don't know on a sheet of paper in two colomns, each having a meaning opposite to another (HESITATE : ACT QUICKLY, for exemple. Hesitate: Dither, Falter, Waver, Luggard...; Act Quickly:Apace,Impetuous, Precipitate etc..). More possible groupings: RUDENESS : POLITENESS SMART: STUPID WAR: PEACE MAN MADE : NATURE MADE ..... Working so will make ANTONYMS section of the GRE a piece of cake, and, for sure, will boost your ANALOGIES score.(cause what do you think you were doing, making up your word groups? Preparing indirectly for exactly those GRE sections:-) This book presents the vocab in exactly this manner. The only disadvantage is that they give a limited number of words. As for me, I had to complete the categories they suggested with words taken from "Barron's: How to Prepare For the GRE" 3,500 word list. 2. As for helpful techniques for specific GRE VERBAl sections, the book is fraught with very efficient hints. I Highly recommend it, really. Good luck on the test!
<< 1 >>
|