This book is extremely important for anyone who want to take GRE. According to my last GRE, some of questions in this book were in the real test. Spare a lot of your time preparing for GRE with this book. I'm sure that everyone will have the high score.

The product was not represented well. The seller said the book was in "good condition" well in fact it was in very poor condition. The answer choices were not legible due to markings, and the passages had notes on about 85% of the pages. This was a true disappointment because I thought I would be getting a quality product.
When I did contact the seller, he was very apologetic and agreed to provide me with a full refund. Since then, he has followed through and I was reimbursed the full cost. Perhaps the seller made an honest error and I hope that is the case. Regardless, there needs to be better quality control to not create mishaps such as this.

Isn't it about time a multimillion dollar operation such as ETS (which, by the way, is tax exempt due to another brilliant loophole in the system) put at least a minimal effort into producing materials that truly benefit its customers? In addition to this grossly outdated book, which contains seven previously released tests dating from 1986 to 1992 (my God, Ronald Reagan was still in office then!), ETS is also responsible, or perhaps irresponsible, for PowerPrep, a software product not compatible with Macs and unable to run on Vista. Good job ETS -- seems you're really interested in helping students prepare for the GRE!

One of the math problems in this book uses a scenario in which Maria buys gasoline for $1.49 a gallon. Either Maria lives in Bahrain, or ETS is egregiously out of touch with modern American society. Worse yet, this book does not include any of the new question types recently added to both the math and verbal sections of the GRE.

Perhaps if ETS charged the equivalent of 1986 dollars for this antique it would possibly be worth it, but given that they offer old stuff for new prices, I recommend taking your 2008 dollars (what's left of them) and picking up a copy of a Princeton Review product. At least that will give you the low down on the current test, something more than ETS seems willing to do.

We hated you for bringing us the SAT, and now we loathe you for providing the GRE and expecting us to fork over good money for nothing! The sooner ETS and all standardized testing is abolished, the better!!!

AMAZON service is the worst in SHIPPING. Any other place we get the iteam in 1-2 days max for FREE. I mean what's the use of getting a urgently needed item after 15 days

This book is really simple and easy to study from, I am preparing for my GRE and it has been a huge help!

Certainly better than taking a GRE-prep class. Worth the money I paid for this book, exams were extremely helpful, the other sections didn't give too much more than common sense would suggest.

If you intend to take the GRE, you'd be silly not to get this book. It's written by ETS, the body responsible for the GRE. It's a book filled with old tests plus explanations of every single answer. I have also have the Princeton Review general guide and this is great to use in tandem. This is a knockout buy.

It is a good book because it has former GRE questions and the students can see the level of difficulty of each question. But needs to be complemented with a goood review of strategies and a much better math review.
One problem of this book is that the questions that presents are so old that it does not include new topics.

These are REAL tests published by the test-makers. This is the best way to practice for the GRE once you have learned the Kaplan strategies. When I tutor my GRE students, we start with the Kaplan Comprehensive Program book to learn the skills and strategies, then practice with this book.

This book is written by the test-makers, so the first part of the book covers more material than is actually tested. I do not use this part of the book with my students, but the REAL tests are invaluable!

One problem with this book is that there are not explanations for each question. That would be because the test-makers aren't about to give away all their tricks and secrets! That's why it's important to study the strategies promoted by the companies that exist for the purpose of helping students to succeed on this test. (My choice is Kaplan.)

I am a test center administrator for a major university. I proctor GRE exams every day, and hear the feedback of hundreds of students. This prep book, published by ETS, is one of the WORST out there. It does a lousy job of content preparation. In my opinion, ETS is trying too hard to protect their exam. This prep guide does not focus on providing a solid review of exam content.

This book is a waste of paper. Spend your money on the Barron's, Kaplan, or Princeton Review GRE prep guides w/ CDs instead.

I took a GRE prep course through my college and one requirement was the purchase of this book. It was critical to my studying, I would definitely not use this as a sole source. It is best used as a test practice book, to either practice the full tests or use the sections individually. There are not explanations for incorrect answers, true, but it's not really a prep book it's more like an accompaniment.

It's wonderful that you get to work with 10 real exams. This is exactly what they put out. For the people arguing that the actual test appeared harder thats because these tests are from 5-10 years ago. Of course, the test have become difficult over the years. This is one of the best supplements you can have for studying b/c unlike the disk the ETS gives you for signing up you have 10 tests to choose from, that's more than Princeton Review and Kaplan combined. Even in a Princeton course you only have access to 4 tests at the most.

Also, it's great for vocab because you get a chance to see what words are really used on the exam. I think it's definitely worth it. I would make sure to either take a prep course or purchase another prep book alongside this one for guidance. I only used it for test practice but the results were great. Practice does make perfect and unlike Kaplan & Princeton Review guides, which has to produce/create their own tests often resulting in study aides that are either too hard or too easy this gives you perfect simulation.

I purchased this after getting through Barron's, Kaplan's and Princeton Review's GRE prep books. I found the ETS GRE Prep book to be useful in providing lots of practice questions [from actual test questions], but I found that the quantitative test questions were much, much easier than the actual questions I faced on the GRE [this is where the other prep books helped, as many of their questions were at a higher level of difficulty]. But, I rated this book three stars as I found the reading comprehension passages very helpful. The passages were dense enough in most instances to challenge my comprehension skills. The other parts of the verbal component were quite easy, much easier than those I found on the actual GRE.

In conclusion, the ETS GRE book makes for a good supplement if all you're looking for are practice questions before the actual exam, but it is insufficient if you plan on just studying this one book for the GRE.

Purchase the Princeton and Barron's GRE prep books first. There is still some useful information here, but the practice questions are way too easy to be considered more than just a introduction to the test.

This is the official review book from the creators of the GRE. There is no other currently published book of real former GRE questions. As such, I consider it necessary for properly preparing to take the GRE. However, the book is terrible in many ways, so use it as a source of GRE practice problems and nothing else. Let me summarize the problems and benefits.

Problems:

The test material is old. The most recent multiple-choice material in this book is from 1991. The oldest material reaches back to 1984.

Not much material, and paltry explanations. There are only 7 exams in this book, and only one of them has a full set of explanations. The rest only have an answer key, so if you miss a question you have to figure it out on your own.

Tests are still in the original paper-and-pencil format. The current GRE is a computer adaptive test, which chooses questions based on how you've answered prior questions. The material in this book is still arranged in order of difficulty, from easy to hard, as it was originally published. Obviously you can't make an adaptive book, but they could have mixed up the questions to better simulate the lack of knowledge about question difficulty that characterizes a real computer-based GRE.

Benefits:

You'll be practicing on real GRE problems. Real questions are always better than simulations. Some test-prep companies write good practice questions, but you should go to the source whenever possible.

The essay material is solid. The book contains a good discussion of essay criteria, and gives examples of essays at different scoring levels along with commentary from the graders.

I mentioned already that this is the only printed source of real GRE problems, right?


In the end, this flawed book is just one more reason to hate the GRE and the people who make it. But if the GRE is in your future, then you should have a copy.

This book, published by the makers of the GRE, is one of the better GRE review books available. The reading passages, in particular, are great practice for the real thing. The one key difference, of course, is that the real test is on the computer, but practice with these paper tests can still be very helpful. I wish the AWA section was a bit longer. In fact, I ended up using AWA practice questions from the official GMAT study guide.

This was a great study guide and better than any of the other books I tried. It's written by the people that make the GRE and has a great review for general math, algebra and geometry along with quizzes and practice exams. The only con I could think of was that the book just gives you the answers for the quizzes and practice exams and doesn't work the problem out or explain how it arrived at that answer. Overall, it is a great study guide, especially for the price.

There's really not anything groundbreaking in this book - most of the information is on the ETS website. What is IS valuable for, however, is those final rounds of practice testing.

My GRE review regime entailed working through more detailed review books (like those offered by Kaplan, Princeton Review, or ARCO) until I could understand and work every math problem (verbal was no sweat, but sadly, I'm a scientist). The final push, then, for me, was to just sit and take old GREs, check my answers, and then figure out why any wrong answers were wrong. A big part of the process for me was the figuring things out on my own (key skill for any grad-student wanna-be!). This book was my companion for that last week of studying.

Very important to studying with this book: make sure that you don't write in the book! When you take the computer aided test, you have to write down the info on a scratch sheet. Get into that habit, since it influences how much time it takes you to complete the sections; don't mark up the book like you did your SATs!

I am not quite happy with this book.I think I could have got the contents from the GRE website. This book was not worthy for me.

The GRE 10th Edition prep book is a good basic guide to the test itself. The math review is comprehensive, the example questions are relevant, however the test itself is supposedly changing as of november 2007, so I'm not sure how much use it will be to future test-takers.

Overall the book itself is a good way to prep for the verbal/quant sections, but even then, it's tests are deceptive if plan to take the computer-based test. On the computer test, the question types are jumbled around, so you only get 1-3 questions of the same type in a row, whereas the written tests given in the book here have subsections with 5-10 questions of the same type, progressive in difficulty. The written tests here also have 2 quant and 2 verbal sections per test, whereas the computer based test had 2 quant and 1 verbal sections.

So all in all, if you use this book I'd suggest taking the paper-based test and not the computer.

Although the last couple people have knocked this book for not providing ready explanations, I found it to be the most useful tool for preparing for the GRE. I actually used this book as part of a Princeton Review class, and although the teacher offered explanations for the problems if we needed them, that happened very rarely. I recommend using this book in conjunction with a variety of other GRE books, like the Princeton Review "Cracking the GRE." If you do the PR book first, you can treat this book as extra practice. And yes, this doesn't really help with the whole computer adaptive aspect of the GRE, but you know what? Nothing really does. That format sucks. Thanks ETS for this helpful book, but screw you for the test format.

This is the best source for GRE preparation because it is written by the company who writes the actual test. Recommend using other books to supplement and absolutely use the free online resources.

You'll find this book very useful in preparing your GRE test. A lot of prep material: questions, answers and reviews. It's worth every penny.

I was incredibly disappointed to find out that this book has very few answer explanations compared to other test-prep books. For example, in the review of the quantitative section (p. 19-25) they do provide a few problems with answers that have explanations. But in the long Math Review (p 27-91), the exercises have no explanations for the answers given! Ridiculous! If I get the answer wrong and cannot figure out the logic, how am I supposed to learn?

Also, it is very misleading (at least mis-written) on the inside cover under "IMPORTANT" that "it contains the verbal and quantitative sections from seven full-length paper-based GRE General Test editions, including two sections of each that are complete with explanations." From the logic of this sentence, one would think that there are 14 total sections of tests in this book that come complete with explanations. But not so. Only 4 total sections (basically the first test) have answers WITH explanations.

So, buy another book that actually gives you answers with explanations so that you can learn better.

It is a Good book for intensive practice.
There is lots of practice material in the book/

I received this item in a timely fashion. It was in brand new condition and by skimming through it a few times I can tell it is a useful tool. I am currently still in the process of mustering up the drive to actually study it in preparation for my exam on the 23rd since I am trying to enjoy my only summer off in my college career.

The GRE Official Guide is a great book for practicing GRE questions, it offers a little bit of all types of questions. The major drawback is that it doesn't offer too much of mathematical review or strategies.

Fortunatley, i bought the "EZ GRE - Math Strategies" book along with this book. It helped me a lot by applying the math strategies given in the EZ GRE book to the question in the Official Guide.

The full-length practice tests were extremely helpful. Several of the review questions for quantivative/qualitative sections appeared on the actual test. Not a great resource for practicing the writing section. Buy used- no need to buy this new.

This official GRE book is a good practice for people who want to take the GRE test, but it's not enough. Although it has a lot of questions the exam experience is quite different. The GRE also changed the structure of the verbal questions (although they said they'd do that on October 2007, and I took the exam November this year). The math questions in the exam are more difficult. When you train with this book you take your time with the math questions while the time constraint in the real exam is intense. The sections of the exam are also divided differently than the one you'll see in the book. The Math review was good, but there was no useful verbal review. You'll have to study the "difficult" vocabulary from an outside source. However it is still useful to get this book before taking the GRE though this it does not provide you with the "ideal" practice.

This official GRE book is a good practice for people who want to take the GRE test, but it's not enough. Although it has a lot of questions the exam experience is quite different. The GRE also changed the structure of the verbal questions (although they said they'd do that on October 2007, and I took the exam November this year). The math questions in the exam are more difficult. When you train with this book you take your time with the math questions while the time constraint in the real exam is intense. The sections of the exam are also divided differently than the one you'll see in the book. The Math review was good, but there was no useful verbal review. You'll have to study the "difficult" vocabulary from an outside source. However it is still useful to get this book before taking the GRE though this it does not provide you with the "ideal" practice.

The tests in this book are too easy compared to what I have seen on the real thing. It's not bad practice, but you'll definitely need another book if you want to be ready for the hard stuff.

the verbal is much more accurate, though. the scores i got on the verbal sections in this book were pretty close to what i got on the real exam. my math scores were also pretty accurate, but that's mostly due to my practice w/ kaplan and barron's exams, not this one. i wouldn't use this book to review concepts, period, though. just the practice tests. and only the verbal tests - you can do the math to boost your ego, but you're better off doing math tests from another book. use princeton review (best overall review, but repetitive questions on their practice exams makes them not reliable), kaplan (good review, best practice tests - harder than the real thing, but probably the best), and barron's (horrible review, good practice tests - again, harder than the real thing).

I completed this whole book and it was absolutely nothing like the computer-test. The questions were so much easier in the book. For example, I was getting around a 730 on the quantitative with the review book, I ended up getting a 510 on the real exam. Now I am going to pay $2000 for a tutor because I am afraid that if I use another book it will be the same garbage.

It's nice to have some real practice questions from ETS, but I'm not connvinced this book is at all relevant to the CAT GRE. The CAT is simply different and harder than paper-based tests. It can't hurt to do the practice problems - there aren't explanations for answers after the first test, so if you don't know how to figure out the right answer you might be frustrated - but I would doubt this book helps anyone to significantly improve their score.

This book was somewhat helpful. I used it during a course offered at my college campus. However, I would say that it is just as beneficial to use the Powerprep CD they send you in the mail.

While this book is a good start for learning analogies and reviewing math, it's a horrid way to prepare for the actual experience of taking the exam. The distribution of sections--in number, length, and appearance of a research section--has changed since the publication of this text, and it doesn't prepare you for the fact you'll be doing everything on a computer on the Big Day.



Author of
The Truth aboutt
Cafffeine

the are abundance of mock exam papers which is very much similar the real one!!!

Good review, the math though is challenging for someone who has been out of school for many years. Will have to purchase more detailed review for Math. Everything else was good. Purchase for a online class I will be taking from University. Maybe with their help the Math will make sense.

I have only one thing to say, it's a must buy for better score!
ETS must maintain its consistency for all GRE score, no matter it is paper-based or computer-based. Therefore, if you have a high scores from tests of this book, you definitely will have some similar results for the computer test. Most importantly, practice makes perfect! Going through those tests will improve your score by a big margin. It's been proved by many test-takers including myself for years.

Recieved item very quickly and in great shape for being a used product.

This is the perfect book to start using a couple weeks before you take the real thing. These are actual previous tests, and are very indicative of what questions are on the CAT.

I was disappointed with the format of this book. I have been out of school for 6 years. I found that the explanations for the math problems lacking. It appeared that the authored assumed you knew how to work the problem and didn't provide any explanation.

I used this test book in conjunction with a Barrons and Kaplan book and overall I found it fairly useful. I would NOT recommend this book as your only review book, but for practice tests, it is not bad. I agree with those who have said that the tests in the book are different from what you will find on the real GRE; they are basically two different tests now.

However, this book can still be useful if you know its limitations. I found the questions to be very good for practicing and I do attribute my 790 on the real GRE Quantatative section to practicing on these tests. However, the verbal scores I averaged in this book were very different from what I got on the real test, with the real test being about 100 points lower than my average.

Due to this, I recommend you use the GRE PowerPrep software as well (it is free) and take the two free GRE tests they give you so you will be familiar with the computer format and will know about what your score will be. Then, use this book for extra practice but do not read a whole lot into the scores that you receive on these practice tests. Good luck!

The purpose of this book is to help potential grad students do better on the GRE and because of it, I feel more prepared than I would have if I had never bought it.

This book has a lot of wonderful information and practice lessons that are helpful in preparing to take the GRE Exam. It's filled with practice exams and answers. The book was also in great condition.

You'll find the book helpful, BUT PLEASE NOTE that all of the review content and most of the book is posted FREE of charge on the GRE website (www.gre.org)--the website published by the same authors of this book. The reviews contained in the book are identical as are the exercises and answers.
The website also provides you with two computer-based GRE's (FREE) and an additional paper GRE (FREE). According to which test (paper or computer-based) you wish to take, you can more accurately simulate the testing conditions with those options.

To navigate to those pdf's, just go to www.gre.org; click on the the "General Test" and find the "Test Preparation" tab (you may need to download Acrobat Reader, which is also...free). The website is provided by GRE, and they've simply posted all the content (besides the particular paper-published exams) on-line. Go figure. *shrug* Of course, you can have all of the website content and the additional exams (if you have money to toss around).

The content unique to the book (and the $14 you paid) are 7 tests including one with full explanations. The test that I have gone through contains some typographical errors as well as some ambiguous asteriks without clear explanations. Though they're not catastrophic mistake, they're a bit disappointing and definitely embarassing (I blush for you GRE). If you wish more than simple practice questions, and more along the lines of vocab words to know, etc., I'd recommend you look elsewhere, or just save the money and invest it on a healthy breakfast before the test, or a hard drink after.

As mentioned many times, the math questions are extremely out of date.

Furthermore, while the vocab in the verbal sections reflects what is actually on the test, the questions are poorly put together, seemingly by an out of work English Grad Student in need of work who was given a list of vocab words and told to make a practice test with them. It's very clear that the same minds writing the actual GRE were not behind these practice tests, as the book's cover suggests.

Avoid this one. If you need a test-prep book, I suggest looking at other books with better marks in the reviews section.

I needed LOTS of math and quantitative practice, so getting this was mildly helpul. By far, I thought Barrons Pass Key to the GRE was much better for building quant skills. But, realizing that this is paper-based and the real test is computer-based, unless you seriously need boot-camp on the math then skip this book and get something else. It's not "better" because it's made by ETS, don't be fooled by that. I got the most help from Barrons and from a book called The Ultimate Math Refresher. The ETS book was really just more sets of practice problems, because I did so many. My first GRE was 55% quant, and second was 71% -- so the practice and studying helped. I think, for me, Barrons was the best because they helped me with my personal albatross -- quant comparison questions.

Dear Amazon,
I purchased the book GRE:Practicing to Take the General Test. I did receive it quite timely. I did use it to study for the GRE General Test. I did find the section on the verbal/reading comprehension/vocabulary part of the test to be useful. However, I did not like the explanations for the Math/Qualitative section. I don't know if a math professor authored this particular part of the book. I had a great deal of difficulty understanding the explanations in this math section.
Therefore, I was glad I had also purchased a separate book which reviewed the Math/Qualitative section of the GRE in a more clear and concise manner. I was not very happy with the ETS version of the Math/Qualitative section in the book I purchased by ETS. Therefore, I used the other book to review my math skills.
Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth H. Roessner

This new book is nothing but a condensed form and repaged version of the already out of print "Big Book", edited by the same ETS a long time ago. And being such, simply just don't waste your time and money if you can have any kind of access to the "Big Book". All of the seven REAL tests of this "brand new" book are already contained in the Big Book (and the Big Book has other 20 tests!).

First of all, this is a stale dated material! The old Big Book, used to disclose the period when the tests were taken: between 1980-something and 1994 (this "brand new" one does not even mention it!). But since then the difficulty level of the GRE Quantitative Section has raised its bar several notches up! So if the reader is purchasing this book with a specific focus on the Quantitative Section, chances are that she or he will feel tremendously frustrated.

However, the same cannot be said of the Verbal section questions. The old Big Book and consequently this new book are good sources of real-type Verbal Section questions, as such Section was already VERY difficult back then and things haven't changed that much as of October 2005. Despite this, it's good to remind the reader that ETS is planning to change the structure of its Quantitative and Verbal Sections of the General GRE Test for 2006, turning into obsolete even the real Verbal Questions of this book. (But likewise, even with such ongoing planned changes, ETS is also considering how to improve the preparation material for GRE).

The only good and really new thing about this "new" book is the Quantitative Section Review material where they mention how to obtain basic descriptive statistic concepts that test takers mention to have been finding so much lately in their real GRE questions. Nevertheless, two points should be raised on this topic. As a matter of coherence, the tests of this book SHOULD contain such type of questions, otherwise test takers can be wrongly misled and feel that including such topic to be revised is nothing but pure ETS terrorism since it is revised but by the new book tests it wouldn't be on the real test. And this is so not true! The other point to make is that, although this is relevant, it is also true that such new revision material can also be downloaded for free from the very ETS website.

Finally, I would say, that this material can only be good reference for other reasons than the above mentioned only if the purchaser is in her or his very early preparation steps, trying to familiarise her or himself with the type of questions. But let's face it. The purchaser could also have a glimpse of what is about to face in the real GRE by studying by whatever other updated book, software or online preparation material.

To conclude with, this book should only be bought if the purchaser really doesn't have access to the old Big Book or if the purchaser intends to buy as much material as possible and this one is only in her or his portfolio of material to be studied. As a solo buy, it is a real waste.

I bought this book in order to improve mu verbal skills. I read the advice of the previous reviewers who said that the maths are useless. I confirm this: it is to easy, to much geometry, ... only 2 or 3 questions on a maths test are interesting.

Conversely, the verbal part is consistent and in my opinion useful.

The several essays samples can inspire and give substantial ideas and methods for this part.