Barron's GRE: Graduate Record Examination

If you're preparing to take the GRE and trying to determine which book to use, the answer depends on your goal score. If it happens to be in the 500-650 range for either the verbal or quantitative sections, then most any review book should do the trick provided you invest a reasonable amount of time studying. Since the big name reviews (Barron's, Kaplan, PR) generally target this segment, any one of them alone should suffice.

If your goal is 660-800 in either section, and you don't have a natural talent that puts you in that range, then the main ingredient is: lots of studying.

At any goal level, Barron's is the best vocabulary review, hands down. It contains 50 word lists comprised of 3500 words whose usage is prioritized based on retired tests (i.e. if an obscure meaning of a word never came up on the test, the authors omit that definition so you don't waste time). To score consistently above 650, you'll need to know more than just the 333 words on the...Read more

At age 51, I was applying to grad school, and had to face the GRE. The English/writing part was no problem, but I had done badly in algebra in 9th grade, and never had trig at all. I had to learn it all in ONE MONTH. This book came through for me. It has very clear explanations of all key math points. I did all the practice problems in the book, pushing myself a little further every day. When I'd gotten through all the math, I tried a practice test. Only got a 250. I had the knowledge, but not the speed. That's where the CD-ROM came in. I took 2 practice tests a day, and slowly got my speed up. (Each time you do the practice tests, they are different. Now and then, there was a question I'd had before, but not often enough to significantly boost my score.) By the time I took the real test, I was getting in the 600s on the practice tests. I had figured out some strategies. Finally, I took the real thing, and got a 720 on both sections, for a total of 1440! I owe it all to...Read more

This book is really really thorough and works well if you plan on studying well ahead of time. There are sections for each type of math problem that appears on the actual test and this was what I found most helpful. I went through each of the specific sections because math was a weakness for me and I wound up getting a 660 in the quantitative section. There is an extensive list of vocabulary words and several sections of review for the verbal section of the exam. Studying the high frequency words was helpful. The tips and hints that are included are great for helping you learn how to take the test and to save time. The amount of time for the test is fairly limited and the book shows you how to do the least amount of work to come to the correct answer. I studied using this book and I received a 1320.