moxed

I currently have the PR Cracking the GRE (2008 ed) book. I heard that the PR math isn't the best for preparing for the GRE. I've noticed that they do give really good "tricks," but I'm not sure if this is sufficient for preparing the GRE math section.

I'm decent at math and would most likely benefit from a "refresher" rather than something that explains algebra indepth again.

Given that, would you recommend the Barrons or Kaplan for math (or something else, ie Nova)?

I was looking around on amazon, and found that Kaplan has a couple of versions of its book preps. I don't have the money to spend $50+ on one prep book (considering I already have a book; I'm looking for something in the $25 or below range, ideally). Kaplan does have this "GRE Exam 2010: Strategies, Practice, and Review," has anyone had experience with that? Can it be used as a substitute for the $50+ premiere program? What about some of those "math workbooks" (I think Kaplan and Barron produce one), are they simply practice questions with no "review"?

Thanks for any advice!

MasterMoe

Well buying the princeton review was your first mistake. Hopefully you won't make many more of those during your GRE prep. Contrary to what people say about practice practice practice, the prep material u are using to practice is more important than the amount of practice.

What do you mean by decent? What program are you applying for and what kind of scores are you looking for?

For math, go through Barron's first then go through the Nova Prep Course. Barron's is the gold standard for improving your scores quickly but it is NOT enough. It fails to cover multiple topics adequately.

For Math:

--Barron's first (~25$)
--The ETS GRE math review 2nd
--Nova Prep Course textbook 3rd (free---it can easily be found online)
--Powerprep practice problems 2nd
--Powerprep CATs 4th

That will give you a killer score. You can add in a few other CATs (like Kaplan's 2004 CATs and online CAT as well as the 800score CATs if you can find them online---they are floating around).

Verbal:
--Firstly those megasized word lists are a waste
--Secondly, get the Kaplan 500word flashcards or books. These really are the high frequency words that are most likely to show up (~$15)
--3rd, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, practice using the BIG BOOK Gre tests. There are 27x2 of these. Go through a few a day. (free--found online)

This will max your Verbal score.

Frankly, considering cost an issue when buying such cheap prep books is foolish. Would you rather just do poorly and rewrite the test for an added 150/200$?

moxed

Hey! I negelected to add that I do also have the Kaplan 500 vocab box and the ETS GRE book with old exams (as well as the Powerprep download).

I'm a fan of the Princeton review, I've used their prep for other exams, and have done well. Anyway, I'm off to buy the Barron's book and the free downloads I don't have already. Thanks for the advice!