GRE Cat: Answers to the Real Essay Questions, 2nd Edition

There is no way you'll be able to memorize all the essays in this book so if that's what you're looking for, forget it. If, however, you are looking for tips on how to prepare for the essay portion of the GRE, common themes you'll find, and you want to review well thought out essays for every possible essay topic (just to get ideas and to get your creative juices flowing), this is the book for you. I thoroughly enjoyed using it as a study guide and found myself well prepared when I actually sat down to complete this portion of the GRE. As I wrote, so many ideas came to me, many of which were touched on in the book. My score was a 6.0!

I truly enjoyed reading this book, not only as a preparation for taking the GRE general test, but also as a tool for self-enrichment. I admit that I don't agree with everything the author put into the issue or argument essays, but, that's hardly the point for reading this book, isn't it? The sample essays are truly extensive and exhaustive, serving as good models for students who might not be familiar with GRE writing. Moreover, very often I find that the essays jump start my own train of thoughts, challenging my point of view on an issue or argument, and that's a big part of reading this book is about, I believe. This book truly epitomizes the saying - learning by doing.

Although it's true that the topics are not kept completely up to date vis-a-vis the current topics available on the ETS website, the great majority of these topics are in fact still being used, and hence the book is still useful. I should also add that Stewart uses brief phrases describing the topics rather than reproducing them as written on the official list, and they are not in the same order. But as he explains, this is not his fault, since ETS often changes the order and wording of the topics. However, it only takes a little attention to correctly identify which topic the essay is on. So ignore the other reviews which complain about this.As a science student, I have done very little "college writing," and to tell you the truth, I find this sort of essay-writing deplorable and asinine. At first, I didn't feel like I had a decent idea of what would be expected on the GRE. But Stewart gives nice, concrete, concise advice and useful if standard pointers in Part 1 to help you get started, which is more than I can say about either Princeton Review or Kaplan. Parts 2 and 3 consist of good, solid, middle-of-the-road answers to "all" (as of a few years ago) Issue and Argument topics. I found his answers to be a helluva lot more instructive than the [poor] sample essays provided by ETS. I can't think of a better way to prepare for the Analytical Writing part of the GRE than taking a shot at the ETS topics yourself and then comparing your answer to Stewart's, as he recommends.