Kaplan GRE Psychology

 (19 customer reviews)

After reading all the amazon reviews of psych GRE books I decided on two: Kaplan and Princeton Review. Although I had plenty of time to study (over 3 months), I focused 90% of my time studying Princeton Review, mainly because of its less intimidating size. BIG MISTAKE. By the time I got to read through Kaplan, I realized just how much important material I had missed. However, by then it was too late to read through the whole book, as the test was only a couple weeks week away. Although I had memorized theorists and definitions galore from Princeton Review, I did not do well on the test. Practice GREs scored me in the 99th percentile, so of course I thought I was on the right track. Wrong! I only scored a 600 on the exam and was truly disappointed. I was even more disappointed when I realized everything I needed to do well on the exam was right in front of me with Kaplan. In fact, if I had not studied at least some of Kaplan, I don't think I would have even hit 600! All the material...Read more

I studied from two books: The Princeton Review's Cracking the GRE and Kaplan's GRE Psychology. I never had a psychology class in college - I'm a chemist - most of this was new. But I scored an 800 on the test, apparently, 99th percentile. Here were my impressions:

Kaplan - Much more thorough than Princeton Review's; it was very dense and seemed to try to touch on every concept that might be a question on the test. This can be a bit overwhelming and certainly confusing, as I noticed numerous typos, contradictions, and other errors that sent me to the web for clarification and correction. The book's organization is poorer for review than The Princeton Review's, so keep your own notes and keep them organized.

Cracking the GRE - I enjoyed the presentation and the organization of the material. It was straightforward, covered the basics, and clean with upbeat, if cheesy, dialogue and photos. It made it easier to learn, but left out a lot that was in Kaplan. This is a...Read more

I used all three of the major books (this one, Barron's, and Princeton Review's) to study for this exam, and the Kaplan book was by far the best.

First, it had more comprehensive information than the others, without unnecessary details that the test does not cover. It does a good job of putting things in context rather than just listing items that you need to know, but does not get too bogged down in doing so.

Second, the practice tests were much more like the actual test than the books from the other companies. The complexity and subject matter of both the questions and the answer choices reflected that of the actual GRE and ETS's own practice GRE much better than the Barron or Princeton Review books.

Finally, there were actual detailed explanations for the answers to all of the questions. This is immensely helpful in giving you feedback about why you might have gotten something wrong, and providing strategies about how to avoid such mistakes in the...Read more