Barron's 6 GRE Practice Tests

These tests are more difficult than the actual GRE so I had a difficult time solving maths problems. I was taking private lessons so it was great to ask my teacher. Besides, if you do well in these tests, you'll do great at GRE :)

The book is good with some challenging exams that get you better prepared than most. However, on the kindle version the paragraphs do not all line up properly and that can take away from the realistic aspect of the exams. Some answers are also wrong on the quant section, but overall good book. Would recommend.

As a test prep expert @ www.SuccessPrep.com, we use this textbook for homework practice with our students. This GRE book is the best collection of GRE relevant questions outside of the Official Guide Quantitative & Verbal books for GRE by ETS.

I had to take the GRE, and realized that I had forgotten more about math than a lot of people ever learn. I bought this book along with "The Official Guide to the GRE revised General Test, 2nd Edition" by ETS. I bought the Barron's book because it had six additional practice tests and was fairly cheap. When compared to the ETS book, it really leaves a lot to be desired. Having just returned from taking the GRE, I can attest that the ETS book provides much more realistic practice exams. It also has an excellent math review (Chapter 7) that is a great way to get back up to speed quickly. Other reviewers said that the Barron's practice tests are harder than the actual GRE. I don't agree. The quantitative reasoning portions were very similar to the ETS ones, but the verbal reasoning tests, in my opinion, just had incorrect answers. I think people tend to get a lower score in the verbal reasoning because sometimes there just aren't any correct answers, and some of the ones that Barron's says are correct really aren't. Barron's explanations for the correct answers are not as clear as the ETS book, and in my opinion, some of them were just plain wrong. I completed all four of the practice tests in the ETS book. Two are on paper and two are on a CD. The computer-based practice tests are EXACTLY like the actual test in format and style. My scores increased a little with each practice test, and my unofficial score on the actual test was a little better than my last practice. If you need to get ready for the GRE, I recommend the ETS book. If after going through it and all of the practice tests, you still want more practice tests; you might want to go ahead and get the Barron's book--especially if you want quantitative reasoning practice. Just be warned that the verbal reasoning practice sets might be a little frustrating.

Somebody told the authors of this textbook to make sure that their passages have complex sentences. The resulting critical reading excerpts sound like they've been written in English, translated into Russian using an online translator, and then translated back into English. Often the questions don't seem to make any sense in relation to the passage, and the passages are confusing and strange. Here's one of my favorite sentences:"However, the individuals who gave the signs had actually lived together at or near what was known as Anadarko, Indian Territory, for a considerable time, and the resulting uniformity of their signs might either have been thought of as jargon or as the natural tendency to compromise for mutual understanding---the unification so often observed in oral speech, coming under many circumstances out of former heterogeneity."That was one sentence of about twelve wonderfully overwritten epithets. Now you're probable reading this review and thinking, "Hey, sure that was muddled, but with my own personal, superior grasp of the English language I could have made short work of that prompt!" So here's another:"...many tribes had, at one time, been forced to dwell near together at peace"Seems like a typo, right? So imagine my surprise when one of the multiple choice questions dealt explicitly with that prepositional soup, as if it were representative of some profoundly esoteric construction in the English language.The math is fine, since it's a lot harder to mess that up. But I strongly recommend the Princeton Review book instead of this one.

I've taken the practice tests contained in Barron's, Kaplan, ETS and McGraw Hill textbooks, and I can say that Barron's tests are close enough to the difficulty that appears in the actual GRE math section. I cannot speak for the Verbal section, but I would recommend this text to those who are focusing in math.

I would recommend this to anyone preparing for the GRE - It has questions of varying difficulty and it is good to work through multiple sections. I haven't taken the test yet but I seem to find the vocabulary in this book substantially harder than the ETS "official" practice book.. overall, I think this is a good tool.

Good, appropriate level GRE review.