Yes, I used it, and yes, it was nice to have a review. But it was full of typos. Important ones-- like the ones that totally change the equations they want you to memorize. Furthermore, it contains information that is just wrong (a reaction is NOT spontaneous, despite negative change in free energy, because of a high activation energy?). Low, low quality like this is unacceptable.

To preface: DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK

The book covers all the material necessary, but there are barely any practice questions with each section leaving you wondering what is important to take away from the material and what is extraneous? Should it be understood from cover to back? There isn't even an introduction portion explaining how to best make use of the book. Doesn't really qualify as proper test prep.

To make things worse, there are crucial errors. Not grammar errors, they clearly hired enough people to hammer those out, but science errors in terrible places that will screw you up on the exam. I find a significant error, the wrong variable used or name given, every 10-20 pages. For something as crucial as test prep, where the student is filling gaps in knowledge, such errors are inexcusable. For shame Princeton Review, your company clearly has no motivation to actually aid people and is concerned only with getting money out of them for this exam before the user realizes how bad the text is. On an exam that is not particularly well attended, I can see you lack impetus to make a good prep book, but it doesn't speak well of your corporate policies if you're just trying to deceive the consumer instead of being grounded in a quality product. Eventually this will catch up with you.

The book covers all the material necessary, but there are barely any practice questions with each section leaving you wondering what is important to take away from the material and what is extraneous? Should it be understood from cover to back? There isn't even an introduction portion explaining how to best make use of the book. Doesn't really qualify as proper test prep. To make things worse, there are crucial errors. Not grammar errors, they clearly hired enough people to hammer those out, but science errors in terrible places that will screw you up on the exam. For shame Princeton Review, your company clearly has no motivation to actually aid people and is concerned only with getting money out of them for this exam before the user realizes how bad the text is. On an exam that is not particularly well attended, I can see you lack impetus to make a good prep book, but it doesn't speak well of your corporate policies if you're just trying to deceive the consumer instead of being grounded in a quality product. Eventually this will catch up with you.

If you plan on taking the chemistry GRE, you should probably get this book. It is fairly inexpensive. However, it isn't as good as it should be and isn't worth much more. The book explain the test and goes over almost all the key material on the exam. It includes one full length practice exam that is unavailable online. It also has a few other practice problems. These are the key reasons to get the book.

The downsides are numerous. They basically mean that you need additional preparation. If you have your old text books and notes, they'd help a lot, but I didn't save mine. The book has maybe a dozen errors in it, which can be quite confusing. It really should have been through another printing by now to fix those. It contains only one practice test which i find inadequate. I'd like 5 in total and only two are available online, the offical ETS practice book, and one of the old ETS practice books. This book should have maybe 2 more practice exams in it.

Basically, get the book, be careful of the errors, but don't be foolish and think you can rely on this book alone.

While I have been impressed with the Princeton Review materials before, their chemistry review book is a bit lacking. This would be a good book to go through maybe a month or two before the exam, but for GRE studying, the most helpful resources are always practice exams, and the one with this book is definitely much easier than the real thing.

You would like to think that Princeton Review would do a good job with something like this, but it's pretty miserable. It's obvious that they just hired some first year grad student to write it.

The organic section consists of a list of reactions with little to no explanation. No mechanisms are involved and it's just expected that you memorize all 50 some pages of mechanisms.

The physical section is absolutely miserable and they don't seem to want to stick to a sign convention when they talk about thermodynamics.

The analytical section is not comprehensive.

I used this book to study for the Chemistry GRE. It definitely helped me but it needs alot of work. There are too many errors and the organic section seemed like just a big list of reactions, rather than any system for understanding it. PR needs to add way more practice problems and practice tests, also. This would make it far more useful. I wish they kept refining it and I wish there were some competitors to this book!

After taking the practice test and going through the book, I found a lot of material to be missing. And the material that is goes through, it provides over complicated explanation that you will never need to know. Not to mention so many mistakes and typos that it almost offends me and I got this book for free.

If you are looking to study for Chem GRE, find another resource. If this book is one of many others then its ok.

I must admit I found the free material you get from ETS upon registering for the test more helpful than things I found in this book. The fact that the structure of the book does not follow a logical path (e.g. you will find some topics of analytical chemistry in the middle of the quantum chemistry chapter)plus the signs of poor editing (this is the 3rd edition, yet there are still lots of typing and other mistakes in the text) are the main reasons why I would recommend people not to buy this book.

If you need to prepare for the GRE Chemistry subject test, or just review some Chemistry, this book can really help.

If you need to prepare for the GRE Chemistry subject test, or just review some Chemistry, this book can really help.

This book will help you narrow down what you need to study and show you the main topics covered by the chemistry exam. However, there are several flaws in the material that while studying, could confuse you if you are not careful. If you get this book, use it to show you what you need to know, but study the topics from your own notes and books.

Hi there,

I just took my Subject GRE in Chemistry yesterday. Thank God, i had ordered this book. Being from MEchanical Engineering backround, and haven't had seen chemistry in past 5 years, it was a tough bet! All the material i studied were my High school notes and the Princeton's Review book.

The overlap with high school chemistry taught in India is roughly 70%, but one can't neglect the remaining 30%. The book does a good job in explaining topics like NMR spectra, Chromatograhpy, Photochemistry, ORganic Chemistry, Thermodynamics, Kintics principle, Acid-Base equilibria etc. Not a single question in the Test was out of the topics covered in the book. The practise test and indepth analysis in the end is Great. I am so much impressed by the book, that I could not wait to write praise for the book.

For chemistry GRE, there are no yahoo groups of students, and not many test papers are available. Here is some information: The FIIT-JEE website has some previous IIT-JEE and AIEEE papers with solutions archived. Further, there are 2 online tests available which will give you a fair idea of your probable score in final exam. Also try to get hold of some student in Chemistry department. They hit 'home' to the simple GRE level questions! My friends Dr Ahmad, Jamila and Dawn (all from Chemistry department at Purdue) were very helpful.

This book is a great HELP for any student working on his/her Chemsitry GRE.

The only thing i dislike about the book was its coverpage, which i tore away the first day i got it!

Good luck.

-Himanshu Mishra

This book is an okay start. It has less mistakes in it than the older edition, but there are still some. It is definitely not enough preparation though.