i second the princeton for english; the vocab was pretty much spot on. But at the same time, I am not sure your scores will really be significantly affected one way or another.
Get the official ETS GRE book. It has 7 or 8 real GRE tests ("real" meaning they are real GRE questions organized into tests; it's paper form, so no question-adaptation). If you work through all of it under the time limit, you'll be in good shape.
If you have a little more time, I'd recommend Barron's. It's incredibly dense, but the math review is thorough as you can get. The verbal is thorough....but also insane...memorizing all that vocabulary is a waste of brain space IMHO.
I'd also recommend popping the ETS cd with practice tests into your computer as soon as you get it in your mail. The computer interface is absolutely infuriating, which unfortunately just means you have to get used to it.
This is a copy and paste what I wrote earlier in the 2010 commiserate thread, with a couple of minor edits. I hope it helps someone. I know we are all different, but maybe there is someone like me out there who will benefit:
GRE prep advice: I got something pitiful like ~1000 on a Barron's or Kaplan practice test. The only questions I aced were the reading comprehension questions. I decided to go to law school instead because the LSAT was easier. A few months later, I decided I wanted to go to architecture school and my friend had the ETS CD lying around (that's the free software the GRE people send you when you sign up; I think you can download it online) and I decided to take it for the heck of it. I did really well, like in the 1300s. It was much easier than that other weird test in that weird book.
REGARDING QUANT SECTION:
The free ETS software comes with 2 free computer-adaptive tests. I retook the same one until I got a 790. A lot of the questions are the same, but some aren't. They change up; it's "adaptive." It's good practice to redo the same sorts of problems over and over again anyway, even if it's annoying. I learned that it is very important to answer every single question correctly (durr! I mean don't guess), even if it means not finishing the test. Then I took the second computer-adaptive test (the one whose questions should be entirely new to me) and got the same score, a 780 or 790. It's all the same, like learning dumb recipes.
When I took the actual test, I didn't sleep the night before and realized about fifteen minutes in that I was still on the second question and had actually forgotten how to subtract. I didn't answer the last several questions on the quant section, but still ended up with a 720. It's important that whatever you do answer is correct, because then it will start giving you the "harder" stats and probability questions (which are much easier for me than things like subtraction and long division) and you get more points for answering those correctly.
By the way, I flipped through a GRE book that didn't even teach the stats and prob stuff, claiming there would be so few of those questions on the test that it didn't matter. That is false. You want to see lots of those on your test; it means you are doing well.
REGARDING VERBAL:
I did use the Barron's and Kaplans books to learn voccab. I marked the words I didn't know, then rewrote them in very small handwriting so that I could keep them in my pocket and study while getting gas and waiting in lines and whatnot. It took a few days to mark and rewrite the ones I didn't know so that I could carry them around with me. I also took out a few days to memorize nearly all of them while watching stupid movies. I thought about the word for a few seconds, made up a dumb sentence with it or something, and then it was there in my head and I crossed it off the list. I ended up with 770 on the verbal.
It looks like a lot of words, but it doesn't take very long at all. A friend of mine got a 1590. I don't think he had to study for the math at all, but he used note cards to study the vocab.
I skipped the essay, because my school did not require it.
Jun 8, 09 3:30 am ·
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GRE prep materials?
Could anyone recommend a book?
There seem to be mixed reviews for the Kaplan, Baron's and Princeton books on Amazon. Just trying to figure out which one would be best.
Any suggestions for what worked for you?
I recommend:
Baron for math
Kaplan & Princeton for english
i second the princeton for english; the vocab was pretty much spot on. But at the same time, I am not sure your scores will really be significantly affected one way or another.
Get the official ETS GRE book. It has 7 or 8 real GRE tests ("real" meaning they are real GRE questions organized into tests; it's paper form, so no question-adaptation). If you work through all of it under the time limit, you'll be in good shape.
If you have a little more time, I'd recommend Barron's. It's incredibly dense, but the math review is thorough as you can get. The verbal is thorough....but also insane...memorizing all that vocabulary is a waste of brain space IMHO.
I'd also recommend popping the ETS cd with practice tests into your computer as soon as you get it in your mail. The computer interface is absolutely infuriating, which unfortunately just means you have to get used to it.
Good luck!
This is a copy and paste what I wrote earlier in the 2010 commiserate thread, with a couple of minor edits. I hope it helps someone. I know we are all different, but maybe there is someone like me out there who will benefit:
GRE prep advice: I got something pitiful like ~1000 on a Barron's or Kaplan practice test. The only questions I aced were the reading comprehension questions. I decided to go to law school instead because the LSAT was easier. A few months later, I decided I wanted to go to architecture school and my friend had the ETS CD lying around (that's the free software the GRE people send you when you sign up; I think you can download it online) and I decided to take it for the heck of it. I did really well, like in the 1300s. It was much easier than that other weird test in that weird book.
REGARDING QUANT SECTION:
The free ETS software comes with 2 free computer-adaptive tests. I retook the same one until I got a 790. A lot of the questions are the same, but some aren't. They change up; it's "adaptive." It's good practice to redo the same sorts of problems over and over again anyway, even if it's annoying. I learned that it is very important to answer every single question correctly (durr! I mean don't guess), even if it means not finishing the test. Then I took the second computer-adaptive test (the one whose questions should be entirely new to me) and got the same score, a 780 or 790. It's all the same, like learning dumb recipes.
When I took the actual test, I didn't sleep the night before and realized about fifteen minutes in that I was still on the second question and had actually forgotten how to subtract. I didn't answer the last several questions on the quant section, but still ended up with a 720. It's important that whatever you do answer is correct, because then it will start giving you the "harder" stats and probability questions (which are much easier for me than things like subtraction and long division) and you get more points for answering those correctly.
By the way, I flipped through a GRE book that didn't even teach the stats and prob stuff, claiming there would be so few of those questions on the test that it didn't matter. That is false. You want to see lots of those on your test; it means you are doing well.
REGARDING VERBAL:
I did use the Barron's and Kaplans books to learn voccab. I marked the words I didn't know, then rewrote them in very small handwriting so that I could keep them in my pocket and study while getting gas and waiting in lines and whatnot. It took a few days to mark and rewrite the ones I didn't know so that I could carry them around with me. I also took out a few days to memorize nearly all of them while watching stupid movies. I thought about the word for a few seconds, made up a dumb sentence with it or something, and then it was there in my head and I crossed it off the list. I ended up with 770 on the verbal.
It looks like a lot of words, but it doesn't take very long at all. A friend of mine got a 1590. I don't think he had to study for the math at all, but he used note cards to study the vocab.
I skipped the essay, because my school did not require it.
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