Barron's GRE Review

If you're preparing to take the GRE and trying to determine which book to use, the answer depends on your goal score.If it happens to be in the 500-650 range for either the verbal or quantitative sections, then most any review book should do the trick provided you invest a reasonable amount of time studying.Since the big name reviews (Barron's, Kaplan, PR) generally target this segment, any one of them alone should suffice.

If your goal is 660-800 in either section, and you don't have a natural talent that puts you in that range, then the main ingredient is: lots of studying.

At any goal level, Barron's is the best vocabulary review, hands down.It contains 50 word lists comprised of 3500 words whose usage is prioritized based on retired tests (i.e. if an obscure meaning of a word never came up on the test, the authors omit that definition so you don't waste time).To score consistently above 650, you'll need to know more than just the 333 words on the high-frequency list.To score consistently near 800, you'll need to know most of the 3500 words and be able to handle the tougher inferential questions that come up in high-level reading passages.The math review in this book is well done, but you'll need to look elsewhere for the more challenging math questions seen at the 700+ levels (Barron's is especially shallow on probability / permutations / combinations).The test taking tactics they present are well written and definitely useful.On the down side, the 2009 book doesn't contain significant revision from previous years and fails to include the new verbal and math question formats that ETS is gradually introducing (and which you may see on test day).It's an oversight which the authors ought to correct for 2010, but if you understand the actual material, you can get a great feel for the new formats on the ETS website.

Personally, I used the Barron's book as my main study tool.After digesting it and its practice tests, I moved on to the 2009 PR book.From a content perspective, there is very little in the PR review book that wasn't covered in Barron's and much that PR omits which Barron's covers well.I'd say I gleaned less than 10 new word meanings from PR (that weren't in Barron's), got a slightly better feel for probability from PR than from Barron's (but still not enough for high-end questions), and did learn a few good test tactics not covered in other books.All things said, format is what PR does best.PR understands its audience well, is very user friendly, is much easier to read, and is clearly designed for those with a short to medium attention span.But content is king for higher scores, and PR is definitely lighter in this department with one caveat: the online computer-based tests (included with a book purchase) are some of the best around and worth getting a hold of for this reason alone.

I didn't have the opportunity to review the Kaplan material, so can't give you a good feel except to say I've heard good things (especially about the math section).If you are looking for 700-800 level math, there are a number of off-brand guides available on the internet, including a great one put together by some very diligent (and very talented) Indian students.Best of luck.

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Product Description:
This manual’s new edition offers prospective graduate students intensive preparation for the GRE Graduate Record Exam. Opening chapters provide a perspective on the exam with a GRE overview, advice on effective test-taking tactics, anda diagnostic test to help students pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses. Subsequent chapters review all GRE test areas and include practice exercises for the following topics: antonym, analogy, andsentence-completion questions, reading comprehension, vocabulary, analytical writing, discrete quantitative questions, quantitative comparison questions, data interpretation questions, and math. The math review includes questions in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. The manual’s concluding section presents five full-length model exams that reflect recent GREs in length, question types, and degree of difficulty. All questions are answered and explained.

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