» How to Prepare for the GRE with CD-ROM (Barron's How to Prepare for the Gre Graduate Record Examination)(16th Edition)

How to Prepare for the GRE with CD-ROM (Barron's How to Prepare for the Gre Graduate Record Examination)(16th Edition) Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Not worth the time or money
Comment: I bought this book to review for the GRE after being out of school for four years. I liked it well enough through the verbal section, but verbal has always been my strong suit. Then I got to the math section, and I ABSOLUTELY HATE this book. For one, the way the reviews are divided up are illogical. They begin with geometry and review basic principles of shapes, but don't explain how to solve anything within those shapes until 3 or 4 chapters later. There is no easy way to follow the pagination (e.g. "I'll flip to section J") so you waste a ton of time digging for the review. Even worse, the math "explanations" assume that you remember far too much, and they skip entire parts of their processes, leaving you to ask "How the heck did they get from this to that?"

What also annoys me is the book contradicts itself; they spend 1 chapter on tactics where they stress "Don't spend too much time on this," but another stressing "Be sure you look for all the ways the test will try to trick you." So then every question you start to answer, you're paranoid that you're being tricked. Also, they stress that 0 is neither positive nor negative, and yet in one of the questions that asks for all the POSITIVE intergers between two particular numbers, it says "Don't forget that 0 is an integer!" Finally, they give a review section but then do not limit the practice questions to what you reviewed in that section, so rather than help you, the book just keeps putting the test farther out of reach and making you feel more hopeless.

I do not recommend this book, and as someone who works in educational publishing, I could write my own book about why this one is terrible. You're better off using the test prep materials from GRE.org.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Verbal OK, Aweful Math
Comment: This book's verbal section is well organized and will definitely help you in the real GRE's. However, Mr. Barron clearly has no understanding of the GRE Math. The graph questions are simply aweful and do not reflect the real GRE questions whatsoever. Moreover, the grammer on Math questions is extremely sloppy, often leading to obvious confusions about what the questions ask. If you are trying to score perfect on the math like I am, this book will only frustrate you with its consistenly aweful graph questions and grammer ambiguities.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Prep Book
Comment: I took the GRE in August of 2007 and this book did an excellent job in preparing me for the exam. It had plenty of Practice problems as well as several practice exams including a CD with a simulated computer based exam. I have recommend to anyone that I have met that is preparing to take the GRE.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great
Comment: Great Book. The math section is esspecially useful. The tactics will save you in terms of time managment on the actual test.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Pretty good
Comment: I liked this study manual better than any of the other brands out there. It mimiced the real GRE pretty closely.

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