I admit I found Princeton Review's "we speak your language" hip-talk and "calm down, you don't really need to know anything to do well" strategy refreshing in their Cracking the GRE guide - after all, I didn't want to panic about relearning math. But if you are an English student preparing for your Literature GRE, Wikipedia and Sparks Notes will be much better friends to you than the Princeton Review or heavy literature anthologies. This is a trivia test. There are also a couple of excellent websites devoted to literature GRE study notes and ETS's predilections for certain authors/questions.

This volume tries to sell "process of elimination" (or POE!) advice as if it weren't a strategy for dealing with multiple choice questions that every good fourth grader knows. It also boasts "Major works of literature summarized in 50 words or fewer!" - and takes pride when it can do it in 10. If you want bare bones summaries of canonical works - get them online. Given the fact that the book doesn't want to waste many words per each work, there are surprisingly few works are covered (the "A List" consists of summaries of only 8 poems, the "B List" summarizes only 4 canonical works). Its "D List" is especially unhelpful - simply a list of over one hundred authors names whose works you should maybe look into elsewhere.

I recommend this volume if you have only 3 nights to study or want to peruse another example test (GRE will send you one).

I must admit that I was intially skeptical about how much a Literature GRE prep book could help me; it seems almost common sense to think you cannot possibly study for such a broad topic. The book dispells this myth right away, and uses a convincing argument: the fact that literature in English covers such a broad area is something to the test maker's detriment, not the test taker's. It is the GRE subject test maker's responsibility to create a test that is multiculturaly sound; one that needs a represntative of English literature that a student of English at a college in India could recognize as easily as a student of English at Harvard. Therefore, there are ways to study for this broad topic: by looking at the barest essentials; the canonical pieces of poetry and fiction that a discernible person might guess an English major might have studied. Which leads to the next myth: that once you have a list of likely works that you must read every single one, from Beowulf to the Modern era. This isn't true, (the book makes the point here that one shouldn't bother going to grad school if s/he's already read most of the important works in English; it would surely be worth a degree or two by that point) in fact you need only skim the important details of these works by 1.reading a summary; 2. reading an author's bio or an intro section to the work in the Norton anthology; or 3. if you've already read the work, quickly reviewing the plot and characters by skimming a few passages to jog your memory. The goal is to get points, and luckily most of those points are easily taken if you can recognize a certain passage, which most likely contains key elements from a work or author and not a vaugue obscurity that no one has read except the most fervent of an author's scholar.
Oh, and if you're like me and weren't an English major, I highly recommend that you buy this book as a favor to yourself. As you're already disadvantaged by your skim study in comparison to the English majors you'll be competing against in grad school, you need all the advantages you can get. It starts with this one. The book has major and minor lists of works and authors that scrupulous research of previous tests deems you should know, so I suggest you take advantage of it. Luckily I was an English minor, and was fairly well versed by reading in my spare time. If you aren't either of this things however, I'd suggest not only getting this book, but hiring a tutor.
In summary, if you like the large, cumbersome expanses of a huge discipline attempting to be shoved into a small peanut shell, then this book is for you. You'll be getting just a snippet, but this snippet may indeed be worth your money and effort. Just remember though: it's a guide or an outline, not the end all and be all of your studying efforts. Treat it as such, and keep your Norton anthology handy.

If you are looking for a last minute study session, this is not the place to turn. They give you excellent advice on how the test is scored and methods of marking answers but there are few passages in it. They do provide an excellent list of authors you should know and quick overviews of some classic literature but nothing extreamely specific. I used this book in conjunction with my own study program and found the book really worth my while. It's a little light on Lit theory though, so you may want to brush up on that part of the test. Overall I would buy it again. It's written with a dry sense of humor and a drive to see the student do well

If you are looking for a last minute study session, this is not the place to turn. They give you excellent advice on how the test is scored and methods of marking answers but there are few passages in it. They do provide an excellent list of authors you should know and quick overviews of some classic literature but nothing extreamely specific. I used this book in conjunction with my own study program and found the book really worth my while. It's a little light on Lit theory though, so you may want to brush up on that part of the test. Overall I would buy it again. It's written with a dry sense of humor and a drive to see the student do well

This study guide was certainly helpful inasmuch as it allowed me to focus my studies for the GRE Lit. in English subject test--helped me, in other words, follow some line of preparation that was more pointed and purposeful than simply reading over the Norton anthologies.

But after taking the exam, I feel much less confident in the spot-on accuracy of this study guide than I did about the *Verbal Workout* guide by Princeton Review for the GRE General Exam. Of course there's just much more material to cover for this exam. But more importantly, *Cracking the GRE Literature Test* rests on several crucial assumptions, assumptions that I adopted myself in studying for the test, but which now appear to me a little questionable.

First, this book assumes that the large bulk of the exam involves identification--overt or covert, open or implied. Thus it emphasizes the study of basic titles, character names, and (to a lesser degree) plot contours of canonical Western works. While this was in some measure helpful, I found that the test focused much more on passage interpretation or analysis (grammar, style, definition), and that the passages themselves were drawn from sources other than those emphasized by the PR study guide. Look to the periphery and not to the center of the canon for these works, I guess I would tentatively advise. Not what one wants to hear after extensive reviews of *Canterbury Tales* and *Paradise Lost*, but such was my experience. The good news is that the interpretation questions rely on material that's technically provided in the exam; the bad news is that, on a 230-question test, one just doesn't have the time necessary to do justice to all such questions.

Second, the study guide assumes that a novice-level familiarity with literary theory suffices for the purposes of the Lit. in English subject test. If my recent experience is at all representative--and who knows if it is?--I would recommend that potential test-takers review, not only the study guide's encapsulation of various theoretical schools, but also the work of some *specific* theorists. I suppose that the (what else?) relatively new Norton anthology on criticism & theory would be a good resource here.

Third: some final thoughts on what this guide explicitly told me NOT to study, including Shakespeare and the Bible. I took an undergraduate Shakespeare course, so I was happy to follow the former instruction. And I don't regret doing so. But there were several more Bible-as-literature questions, posed in much greater detail, than I was expecting--and this in addition to the several Bible-allusion answer choices to questions on literary works. (Most of this stuff was, granted, in the passage-analysis zone, but still.) Not sure if this represents ETS's effort to rebuke the Princeton Review's disciples--but perhaps I'm just spinning a story where there's none to tell.

This book is great! It has wonderful strategy tips that really helped me on managing my time. The mythology chart and the historical chronology of literary periods are also excellent. The explanations of the practice test answers also explain what all the wrong answers are so you can better reference where to look up these authors and titles. I only wish that there was more than one practice test and that the book was longer. But as I mentioned in my REA review, this isn't a very profitable book for a big publishing house and I'm thankful that Princeton Review actually puts this out. Buy this book for your test!

When I took the GRE in lit three years ago, I didn't know about this book. I wish I would have. Studying literature isn't like studying math; you can't just learn the formulas to be successful. And with such an anbundance of literature from which to choose, you may get the feeling very early on in your course of study for this exam that you have no idea where to start. Now I'm taking the exam again and this book helps. This book more than helps. Let the experts guide you. They've studied the GRE exams and know ETS's trademark question styles that will help you. The writers and contributors to this study guide help show you where to start, what to emphasize, and how to study for the exam rather than the material, and they do it with a sarcastic wit that keeps you interested. Buy this book - if not for the infinite wisdom, for the pressure it relieves.

Having recently taken the GRE Literature in English subject test, I feel that a great deal of the information provided by this book is useful and got me quite a few marks that I would otherwise have certainly missed.

The first section - "The Big Picture" - gives some basic information about the test and describes the various types of questions on it. The second section - "Cracking the System" - includes some standard advice about time-management, and explains how the test is scored. It also provides a general overview of the philosophy behind the test and what kind of authors and works are likely to be on it. There are also a bunch of general tips and techniques for answering questions, the most important of which is stressed in the book - learn names!

"Cracking the System by Cracking the Books" - the third section - is the most useful, but also the most incomplete. On the positive side, the sections on Greek epic and tragedy cover the most important aspects (i.e. names and plot) of several classical works likely to appear on the test, and the Chaucer section (with summaries of the major stories in the Canterbury Tales) is also well done. While not all the authors and works listed as sure-shots in the study guides provided were on my test, enough of them were to make using these guides worthwhile. Although I have to say, along with reviewers of the earlier edition of this book, I saw no Herrick Julia poems! The glossary of literary terms, verse forms and stanza types, while brief, did include a number of terms I had never seen before that proved useful. The summary of critical schools and their 'buzz words' is very basic, but would be useful to someone who hasn't done a critical theory course of any breadth (or who was enrolled but asleep...).

While all this makes this book probably worth buying for most test-takers, it has some inexcusable weaknesses and omissions. The grammar review does not cover many of the terms one needs to know, and includes only simple sentences as examples that are nothing like the real thing. Worse is the complete omission of Shakespeare, which the author writes off as `assumed knowledge'. Come on, how much time would it have taken to include 50-word summaries of Shakespeare's plays, especially since just knowing the names and basic plots can get you quite a few marks? Also absent is pretty much the whole 20th century and writers who are not "dead white males", both of which ETS draws on substantially. Leaving these important areas out when Princeton Review could so easily create study-guides and summaries for them is just plain lazy.

The test at the end has explanations for all answer choices - a plus - and in terms of question types is fairly similar to the real thing, even though the obscurity of a few of the authors and works on it makes a small number of the questions misleadingly difficult. Unfortunately there is only one practice test; as the real test is difficult to finish in the time available, this is a serious weakness in a prep book.

I spent about an hour looking through this book and found that not only is the sample test (still only 1) the same, but so is 95% of the book. Granted, I would not expect the publishers to change their study methods, but if you release a new edition there should be something worth the new cover. Shouldn't there? At least provide a 2nd test to go along with the other one -- it's not like they spent money reusing the old one...

There are some alterations to the study info. Homer has his own section. There are family trees for the major Greek tragedies (with a note stating that the test won't ask specific questions about who is related to whom). Other than that, there is still a lack of emphasis on minority writers of the 20th century & lit theory.

There is a new section that has grammar vocabulary that is probably very helpful for those "Identify the gerund" questions. Except that, in the sample sentences, the gerund is not specifically identified with boldface or an underline or an arrow. (Of course, gerunds tend to stand out, but some of the more obscure ones don't).

Despite all of this, if you don't have the 4th edition, this edition is quite helpful. This is why I have to give the book 3 stars -- it covers alot of ground, has some helpful tips, and is a good foundation for your two months of studying. I wouldn't rely on it alone to get a great score, but there are lists of names that you should know in here and the more practice tests you can take, the better. Good luck!

UPDATE! I took the test last weekend. This guide is not enough to prepare you for the test anymore. Increases in 20th century lit crit/theory and decreased use of the 'obvious' pieces that this guide hinges on made the GRE Lit exam tough. Questions on the big authors used obscure passages and emphasized comphrehension as much as identification. So, while the test is more fair in some sense (you don't need to recognize a passage to be able to comprehend it), this guide spends most of its time prepping you for identifying authors and passages that the test-writers seem to be avoiding because of this very book! Anyway, this is not to say the guide isn't helpful, but it was not nearly as helpful as I'd hoped.