Crash Course for the New GRE

Crash Course for the GRE (3rd Edition) by Wendy Voelkle is an amazing resource for preparing for the GRE. I have not taken it yet as of the time of this review, but failing to achieve my target score would not have been the fault of poor instruction from this book! The language used to describe the process of the exam, review concepts and give numerous tips and tricks simplifies the material to a level that someone from any undergraduate major could comprehend with ease. The way Voelkle breaks down how to approach the test questions to work through it in an easier, more time-effective way will definitely prove useful. Her casual tone makes it easier to digest what she has said, and her candid expressions will keep her words with me as I sit for the exam. While it is not, in my opinion, the best idea to use this text alone in the preparation process, I highly recommend this book for those who are studying to take their Graduate Record Examination. You won't regret it!

This book is extremely helpful in presenting tips for test taking strategy. It carefully explains and demonstrates a variety of techniques you can use for problems that you don't automatically know. It goes in depth about process or elimination and what you can do to give the best educated guess on questions you don't know. I highly recommend this book as an addition to your other GRE study guides/courses. After having taken the GRE before and then reading this book in combination with my other study guides...I am already seeing significant improvement in my scores on practice exams (taken from an ETS study guide.)

I find this book very handy as a brief summary for the GRE, but you have to go through the whole course. There is not shortcuts. Remember, this examination does not test your knowledge but your testing abilities.

I highly recomend this book. After reading this short book, download the practice tests and you can decide if you need an additional book for vocabulary review. I believe my 5.5 out of a possible 6 on the essays is due to the tips in this book. It is short but to the point. You may need more than a week to absorb the math if you are out of practice. Also, it can not make up for a lack of vocabulary.

I decided to apply to graduate school on October 31. I had to take the GRE really soon to meet the application deadlines, and since I registered at the last minute the best test date I could get was November 25. That gave me less than one month to prepare! I went shopping for test preparation materials and one of the books I found was "Crash Course for the GRE." That seemed perfect for my needs. The book is organized around the "ten steps to the GRE," basically one step for each type of question to be found on the test. I found the steps for the verbal section of the GRE (analogies, sentence completion, antonyms, and reading comprehension) to be extremely practical and I got a score I was quite pleased with. However, the strategies for the math section (numbers/vocabulary, figures, equations I/estimating, and equations II/plugging in) were less effective for me and I decided to take the test a second time (I contacted the schools to which I was applying to request that they accept a second set of late GRE scores). The tips for the analytical writing section (issue essay and argument essay) were helpful, as was the general information on the GRE.I highly recommend this book for an overview of the GRE, for general GRE test taking strategies, and for its test taking strategies for the verbal section. The math strategies might be helpful if you are really weak in math, but I suggest supplementing the Crash Course with another book (I used "GRE Exam 2004" by Kaplan). Also, I used "Word Smart for the GRE" to help with vocabulary. Note that the Crash Course has practice problems but it does not provide any sample tests; you should download the free POWERPREP software from the GRE Web site, and you may want to get a book with sample tests (such as "GRE Exam 2004"). But if you only have time for one GRE test preparation book, I'd recommend the Crash Course.