Manhattan Prep

I was surprised how good this was. Most test guides are dry and very tedious to read; this guide broke up the monotony with humor, lots of fun GRE-based terminology and no-so-subtle jabs at ETS testing and the GRE itself.[return]Aside from being a good GRE guide, I could quite feasibly use it as a teaching guide in the classroom. Many of the tricks it teaches are transferable to other tests.

I have used virtually every guide out there -- Barron's, Princeton Review, Kaplan, the official guide, idiots/dummies guides, and at least a half dozen others, not to mention different versions. While I used most of these guides before taking the test and only read this guide afterwards, I would say that it is really roughly equal to most of the better coursebooks out there, but perhaps that's not saying much. It certainly ought not be used as a sole preparation for GRE verbal section and it show more does seem to lack the detail of strategies that I would like to see adumbrated. However, considering one should consult a variety of sources when studying for the test, I would suggest having a copy of this book if only because it does not seem to be such a strong duplication of the Kaplan/Barrons guides which seem to be heavily modeled after the official guide (or vice versa?).

Anyway, use it, but don't count on it. Nothing...absolutely nothing...will benefit you as much as recreating the testing conditions and working hard and constantly. There is only so much any study book can do to help you with this, and in fact computer-based programs are becoming superior to books in this regard, no to mention programs which set out rigid schedules for you to follow. This book should be considered as a supplement to those activities.

Also of worthwhile note: the GRE is *scheduled* (last time such a thing was scheduled, it never actually happened) to undergo a dramatic change in format in 2011, at which point most of this book's contents--and its competitors--could be largely irrelevant. That said, it could still be helpful. In studying for the test, I actually found a few obsoleted books (namely, some referencing old sentence completions) to still be surprisingly helpful (at least insofar as there were no good up-to-date equivalents for the techniques and examples they promoted). show less

This a great book for the narrow purpose its title sets out for it. However, if there are separate books like this for each section of the GRE, buying the whole set would be a costly proposition. Maybe less than one of those ridiculously expensive GRE-prep courses, but still quite spendy. If you can find these books in a library, I'd highly recommend using them to study for the GRE. But if you're looking for an economical way to prepare for it, I'd buy one of the single-volume study guides, show more and use the many free resources online. show less

Received this book through the Early Reviewers program and so glad that I received it. Both my husband and I are in education and are all too familiar with standardized test preparation. We've both found that geometry is an especially difficult and frustrating subject for many students. Although this book is obivously most appropriate for graduate school-bound students, after reviewing the book we agreed in our household that it has its benefits for undergraduates and high-performing high show more school seniors.

Mostly, we like that the practice exams are available and the "check your skills" exercises. There is definitely a strategy for success in test-taking and the way that this book guides students through that preparation is notable. The guide seems to go through basic to more intermediate content in a unit and then guides students in applying the theories before moving on in the book.

I wouldn't say that the practice problems or actual math units are more successful than other books that I've read or used. The organization of the content is what makes the difference. show less