Essential Words for the GRE (Barron's Essential Words for the GRE)

This is a great supplement to GRE exam study books. While not focusing on how to answer specific exam questions, it does build the critical vocabulary you need for the test. It gives you both definitions and context for the words, as well as numerous drills to help you practice them. I think that combination helped me understand these words a lot more effectively than just studying a list that the comprehensive exam guides tack on the end.

Although I have not yet taken the GRE exam, I recommend this book for the following reasons:

1. It contains 800 high-frequency GRE words, divided into units of 10 words each. The words are well explained and each unit summarize the 10 words by sample questions, which are answered at the end of the book.

2. In addition to explaining the words of the unit, it sometimes explain other strange words.

3. In addition to the 800 high-frequency words, it contains 300 high-frequency word roots, which learn you an additional 1500 words. For me, I prefer those 800 words + 300 roots over memorizing the GRE word list of more than 3000 words!


NOTE: If you buy the book, you will see at the beginning "300 Absolutely Essential GRE Words", but they are not defined! Do not waste your time looking in dictionaries, because those 300 words are partial set of the 800 high-frequency words, so it is just a list that will help you focus on those words.

This book is very well organized, this book will help you to learn and memorize numerous words in short period.
Each unit contains 10 words with explanation and examples, after that, there are some exercises that helps to memorize the words. In just 1 week, I memorized about 600 words. I really recommend this book.