GRE: Practicing to Take the General Test

I just took the GRE and did pretty well, considering my vocabulary isn't the best. I wouldnt reccomend this book for its strategies, but because it has 8 old tests so that you can get a feel for how you will do on the test, and be able to determine where to focus your studying on. I found that my actual scores corresponded with the ones that I got after taking these practice tests.If you want some help with strategy I would suggest something by the Princeston Review, I found them more helpful than Kaplan. Good Luck with your studies.

I used to "big book." with 25 exams in addition to the ETS GRE 10th edition. I studied only for the quantitative. The key to my success was to do problems over and over and over again which I accomplished by doing both of these books (there are some repetitive tests). Do them until the point they are automatic and you really don't have to think about them much.I took the computer-based exam and for that you must also use the GRE's POWERPREP (downloadable off of web site) software. Also use their on-line diagnostic service. The problem that I had that some of the POWERPRP and real exam questions are more difficult than the paper-based exam questions. It is difficult to get enough practice material for those more difficult questions. I did some Schaum's outlines.Still, regardless of which test you take you must start early and do as many of these old tests as possible. That's my advice.

Since I was studying for the GRE on a shoestring budget, I skipped the expensive test prep courses and bought this book, along with 2 others, to help me prep for the test. My initial concern when I ordered this book was that it wouldn't be able to accurately predict what kind of score I would get on the computer based test, since the entire book is (obviously) full of paper based tests which are set up in a totally different format than the CAT. Yup, I was pretty skeptical of ETS's claims that scores on the paper test should correlate with those of the CAT.When I finally took the GRE, I was surprised to find that my scores on the CAT were pretty close to how I had scored on the practice tests in this book. (within about a 30 point margin - the only exception was my quantitative score which was about 70 points higher on the CAT... still fairly close, though)I would recommend this book for people who are studying for the GRE themselves (without the help of prep courses) and would like to get an idea of how they might score. (Having some idea of how I might do made me less nervous about taking the real test.)Be warned though, that the soul purpose of this book is to give an indication of your possible performance: it won't help you pinpoint where your weaknesses are or give you lists of vocab words, practice problems, etc. It is simply a book of practice tests. Be sure to buy a few other books which can isolate your weaknesses and provide practice problems on the sections you need the most help with.Good luck!

ETS was in a good mood when they released this book to the public.Like all official materials, this book is unbeatable for quality of questions. None of the other practice books can come close to the quality of questions you will find in this book.This book contains 27 actual, full tests which were administered in the past. This is more than most people would ever need to practice. However, this book contains NO explanations or strategies--it's pure practice. If you need strategies or explanations, you will have to look elsewhere.Finally, some of these tests were given years ago. Like all the other tests, the GRE has evolved and some of the question types that you will see in this book will not be on your tests. For example, the real GRE reading passages are actually pretty long (four or five paragraphs) even though some of the passages in the book are quite short (one paragraph). Moreover, students who can score in the 90 %ile on the math section will find the math in the book too easy.All in all, you can beat the value. This book is the bible of GRE test prep.

I have the ARCO and Princton Review study guides. I found that the questions on there practice tests were fairly easy and didn't estimate my scores realistically. This book contains real GRE tests so you can see how you could really do. The review books gave me false confidence in my verbal ability. This GRE book told me that I better work on my vocabulary.