Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 25
 worth getting, but imperfect August 11, 2009
kbizzle (san francisco, ca)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book is certainly helpful and well organized. I would strongly suggest that you also get the Princeton Review general GRE book and also learn all of the hit parade words. I systematically cross checked all the words from the PR with this book and while there is some overlap it is definitely worth having both. It is slightly frustrating that Barron's doesnt go into a lot of second meanings for words, which is something you should definitely know for the GRE. I spent 9 weeks with a ton of flashcards working through both word sets and got a 630 V. The verbal section is HARD so practice and be prepared to make plenty of flashcards. Kind of knowing a word is not sufficient. I never got through the latter 2/3rds of the root section, but I can definitely see how that could help give you a high score. I'd say 10 weeks with this book if you plan to realistically ingest and retain all the information.
Decent book, but shouldn't be the only tool for the GRE. August 5, 2009
N. Nathan (Los Angeles, CA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I'll keep things short. The issue with this study guide is that words are taught in alphabetical order.
It is easy to lose focus even if the book is divided in chunks.
I was expecting variation in how words will appear in the book, instead of lexical ordering. It's the same as reading a dictionary, memorizing a set of words, testing yourself, and moving on. This can get boring real quick.
Anyways, I give it 4 stars because it does have the GRE words you need to learn and useful exercises. I just wish words would appear at random or be listed by frequency. They do provide a list of the most frequent words, but it'd be better if the lessons were designed around the frequency of words. A little mix & matching would help.
Anyways, this is my initial impression. I do plan to study along w/ the Kaplan GRE Vocab. in a box.
 great buy July 15, 2009
rozilla (san francisco, ca, usa)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I like the quizes, the root words and the way it is organized pretty effectively so far.
Very useful vocab tool!!! June 30, 2009
LCstar13 (COLORADO, USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
A very helpful book for learning vocab! It is divided into manageable sections and is quite useful in learning more words!
 Just okay June 30, 2009
T. Michelle
12 out of 16 found this review helpful
I'm still studying for the GRE, so I have yet to see if this book was actually helpful; but based on my experience going through the exercises, this book is for people who learn by memorization and have a limited vocabulary. I already knew 75% of the words. Words like "itinerary," "odyssey" and "dormant" are just a few examples of obvious words that someone looking to go to grad school should already know. That being the case, I'm not quite sure why the author chose to include them. Also, I found some of the definitions to be poorly worded, so I ended up having to use online dictionaries to better comprehend some word meanings.
The word roots section proved not so helpful as many of the exercises include words for which the definition can't be directly guessed or implied from the root's definition. The typos also created confusion and weren't helpful from a mnemonic (one word I learned from the book!) learning perspective.
All the same, I did appreciate the contextual sentences provided as they made the book fun and entertaining to work through. The secondary meanings / uses of some words were also provided which was rather insightful. There are also brief summaries of academic phrases, concepts, key figures, etc that could potentially be helpful in preparing for the GRE Verbal Section.
Showing reviews 6-10 of 25
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