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Barron's GRE: Graduate Record Examination Review

I took the GRE three years ago now and swear by Barron's GRE Review.

I studied for about an hour a day for 3 months...a little here and a little there mainly focusing on this book. I went through it twice, then rented a couple of others from the library. I found this book to be the most helpful of the books I studied and highly recommend it to anyone who is taking the GRE. The math section I highly recommend- it help to review all the math from middle school and high school that had long been moved out of my brain. With that being said, I can't say very much about the English. I was seeking a Master's degree in a math-oriented field so my main focus was on that. The English section did a good job on guiding through the essay along with lot's and lot's of vocab, which again I glanced but barely touched.

Again- great study aid!

Barron's GRE: Graduate Record Examination Overview

This 17th edition of Barron's GRE manual reflects recent Graduate Record Exams and presents six full-length model exams with all questions answered and explained. Tests are similar to recent actual GREs in length, question types, and degree of difficulty. The manual also reviews all GRE test topics: antonym, analogy, and sentence-completion questions, reading comprehension, analytical writing, quantitative comparison questions, data interpretation, and math. The enclosed CD-ROM contains computerized versions of the book's subject reviews and practice tests.

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Customer Reviews

if getting overwhelmed is a good practice-strategy... - that guy (whatever that means) -
Barron's is undoubtedly the most rigorous general GRE guide. It is also, in my estimation, pretty excessive. The 3,500 word list is NOT necessary and is not very helpful. Sure, IF you could learn all 3,500 words, you'd hypothetically be in better shape than if you only knew 1,500 of them. Then again, there are only 30 verbal questions on the GRE. Also, you are NOT going to learn all 3,500 vocab words unless you already know most of them (and you probably don't, so it's just overwhelming). Likewise, the math section provides vague, confusing explanations of many answers, and contains many errors. If you can master the math in this book, you can master any math test rescued from a meat grinder originally written by a severely psychotic schizophrenic. Brilliant! But what about the GRE?
If you have spent your last several years intensely studying Victorian literature, ancient Latin and Greek languages, and college algebra/geometry, and you have a "gimme all you got!" attitude, then by all means, this is the way to go. If you're like the rest of us, you want straightforward training that will teach you what you need to know for the actual test (no more, no less), then look elsewhere. Please, look elsewhere. This book hurts my feelings.
Barron's essential words for the GRE is useful, thorough, and user-friendly. Princeton review is great for giving you the basic tools to do okay, and/or is a great introduction to studying for this wretched thing. Kaplan has a couple of nice, slim 'advanced' verbal and math books, which make a good supplement. Nova's GRE math prep course is also a good, thorough math book.
Don't take the GRE so seriously. The point is to score really well, not to be the ubermench of all topics distantly related to GRE success. Barron's general GRE book is an unforgiving slave-driver. Be good to yourself; use books that are more appropriate.

Excellent Condition - maggie -
Product was quickly shipped to me and in excellent condition. No used pages or written notes anywhere.

Poor Editing, Overall Mediocre Product - L. Lin -
Barron's 18th Edition for the GRE will likely help you prepare for the exam better than sitting at home watching paint dry or maybe reading Kaplan's version. This book is poorly edited, mistakes abound and are frustrating to the observant reader, and the format of the examples are not always intuitive. I have noticed errors in several sections, and it has irked me enough that I have stopped studying to write a scathing review. For example, the word definition for "colloquy" in their word list is "informal discussion," when it "informal" should be "formal." The only usage of colloquy in which it would be informal would be related to theological discussions. Another instance of frustrating mistakes is in some of their examples, they simply omit what the correct answer is. On one of their graphic interpretation practice questions, the question is reversed: instead of asking how much less, the question asks for how much more. Only in the answer section do you realize that the author/editor made an oversight, rather than your inability to answer the question.

I will mention again that this book will help you in your preparations for the GRE and possibly more so than Kaplan (in my opinion, which they simply have wrong answers). But that is like saying the urinal smells better than the toilet. However, these books are simply too poorly put together and little care was taken to refine these prep books. I only gave this book 2 stars (vs. 1 star), because I believe it to be marginally better than Kaplan in terms of quality. That is to say, Barron's GRE book is slightly less crappy. The other reason is its "Master Word List" which contains 3500 vocabulary words used commonly. This may be the one redeeming quality of this book, providing mostly accurate definitions with the words used in context on a large volume of vocab words.

Conclusion: This book is not good, but not as bad as comparable products out there. I have not tried Princeton Review products in detail, but they are generally more expensive with essentially the same content. One redeeming quality of Barron's is its word list. If you do purchase this book, buy it for this vocab list. Better yet, if your local library has a copy of these books, borrow it from there.

Update:
Took the GRE again, Verbal score went up 90 points, Quantitative score had no improvement.

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Thursday, October 14, 2010