Product Description
Get the Cliffs Advantage Fast, Effective, Accessible - Proven insights and strategies for each question type
- Complete explanations for every problem
- Valuable practice and reviews
Your complete guide to a higher score on the new GRE test Why CliffsTestPrep Guides? Go with the name you know and trust Get the information you need-fast! Written by test prep specialists About the contents: Introduction - Action plan for success
- About the test
- Important overview of the computer-testing process
- Successful overall approaches
Part I Analysis of Exam Areas: Writing, Verbal, Quantitative - Successful strategies for every test area
- Analysis of every question type
- Effective reviews
- Sample problems categorized by level of difficulty
Basic Math Review with diagnostic tests for Arithmetic Algebra Geometry Part II Full-Length Computer Adaptive-Style Practice Test - Charts for analyzing your performance
- Special mapping chart to find strengths and weaknesses
- In-depth answers and explanations for all questions
Part III Additional Practice Test with Explanations
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GRE General Test (Cliffs Test Prep)
- Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: Cliffs Notes; 2002-10-03
- Label: Cliffs Notes
- Studio: Cliffs Notes
- ISBN: 0764567071
- Average Customer Review:
based on 4 reviews
- Sales Rank in Books: #174778
Click on Product Listings for Details!
Avg. Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great book if you want a false sense of confidence 2007-10-13
Comment: I studied from this book for two weeks in preparation for the GRE general test. I found the lessons within quite helpful for taking the practice tests in the book. However, I was highly disappointed to find that the questions in the book were nowhere near as difficult as the ones on the actual test. As such I felt severely under-prepared and over-confident.
If you're going to study from this book, keep these two things in mind:
1. This book is really aimed at the test taker who is primarily concerned with the basic level of material. Those quite challenged or rusty on basic math skills and hoping for average scores on both verbal and math will be helped by this book. Those more advanced test takers looking for material to help them hone their already proficient math and verbal skills, to squeeze those extra few points out of the exam, will be disappointed.
2. The actual questions on the GRE test are more like the "advanced" or "difficult" level of material in this book. Unless you're at the really basic level, studying the easy and moderate categories in this book will be useless, they're much too basic compared to what you'll find on the test. The charts and graphs section I felt was particularly misleading.
Perhaps if the "difficult" level questions were more plentiful in the book, I might have gotten a more accurate impression of the actual test questions. But I really only got 1 or maybe 2 of the other levels on my test. I realize it is an adaptive test, so those at the lower levels may not have the same experience as me, and should probably find this book a better guide than I did. In any case I would have felt better prepared if I'd experienced more of the harder questions in practice.
This is the only book I used so I don't have an alternate to suggest. I did buy the princeton review book to get access to the online practice tests, which were closer to the real thing, but still not a very good representation, and the interface was slow and clumsy. The nice thing is that they score your practice test to give you an indication of your expected performance. But my scores on the practice tests averaged about 150 points higher than my actual exam score, so I was disappointed.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great for review 2005-08-21
Comment: This text provides an excellent overview of what to expect on the GRE. There is an example test in the back as well as varied levels of difficulty for each subsection. i.e. reading comprehension, algerbra, geometry. Best for the money for a quick review and not a lot of time on your hands. To provide a warning verbal on this test is difficult this text includes a breakdown of the most common root, prefixes, and suffixes to help test takers.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: 7th edition a good math starting point 2004-12-08
Comment: - Generally a useful book in both math and verbal, though barren in real advice for the writing sections. (Just go online for that.)
- Organized poorly in that the "Basic Math Review" is at the very end of the book, right before taking the practice test. This is silly in that it's probably the first thing a test taker would want to work on before embarking on problems.
- The layout is nice because there are a few different text sizes, making information easier to locate. There is also a little more white space on the page than in most books, which is useful for taking notes and making you feel less overwhelmed.
- The test in the back is "adaptive." That means you have to check your answers to determine what section to move on to. This is both an advantage and a little annoying. Probably gives you a more accurate score.
- Emphasizes understanding the instructions given, which is a good idea.
43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great Verbal & Quantitative, Analytical Could Be Better 2000-12-13
Comment: I used two books to prepare for the GRE. I started with REA's Math Builder for Admission & Standardized Tests which is fraught with errors and presents mathematical concepts in a disconnected manner, but at least loosened 18 years of rust.Then I studied every single page and did every single problem (some twice)in GRE CBT. I completed both sets of timed tests. I felt more than ready for the computer-based GRE. I was indeed well-prepared for the Verbal & Quantitative tests. However, I had problems in the Analytical. The good news is that the test-taking tips are good. I'm an execellent test-taker, but I still got a few new ideas. Plus the first sample test gives you an idea of how you will flow through to easier or more difficult questions. And the problems are generally well-edited so you don't often hit those frustrating errors in the questions. This becomes less true at the end of the book, but by then you should have a handle on when you're right and the book is wrong. The Verbal and Quantitative preparation is good. The verbal questions definitely stretched my vocabulary and the math questions covered almost everything that I saw on the actual GRE. I did astonishingly well on both sections. The Analytical prep is good for half of that test, drawing conclusions from text passages. My problem was with the logic puzzles. The book has a multitude of samples, but none of them were as difficult as the ones I encountered on the test. Since I had aced every single puzzle in the book, I was completely unprepared for the speed at which I was expected to work on some very difficult problems. I ran out of time with 1/3 of the questions remaining. Fortunately, that turned out to be a "pre-screen" unscored section and I paced myself better on my godsent second chance. This is a good study guide. I still recommend it. However if you expect to be working at the high end of the difficulty range, I recommend that you also purchase a second study guide that has a better Analytical section. And here's a free tip that's in neither book. Study with mild distractions in the background. The computer test center is not quiet. Someone will be typing an essay while you're trying to remember a math formula. Every few minutes, someone walks behind you to get in or out. The chairs creak like crazy. While I was studying, I cursed my two-year-old's Barney videos. While I was testing, I blessed them.
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