<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I'm planning on taking the GRE this August and thinking about purchasing Princeton Review's 'Cracking the GRE - 2009 Edition'. Two quick questions:</p>
<p>1) Is this the best book to assist preparation for the GRE?</p>
<p>2) Is it worth paying a bit extra for the DVD?</p>
<p>Thanks,</p>
<p>Tom</p>
<p>I took the GRE in November (750 verbal, 600 quantitative, 6 writing- I'm not a maths person), and, as a nervous international applicant, went mad on GRE prep books (so much cheaper on amazon.com than what I'd pay in Australia, too, even including express shipping!)</p>
<p>DON'T waste your time/ money on the DVD, if it's the 2009 edition (the one I got). It's just a video with study tips, and they're not very good (mostly common sense, and mostly duplicated in the book). Besides, it's horribly cheesy (imagine a kindergarten teacher telling her charges, with the trademark kindergarten-teacher enthusiasm, that they're going to be "CRACKING the GRE!!!!" over and over...) and quite painful to watch.</p>
<p>In terms of other content, I'd say the Princeton one is middling difficulty between Barron's (harder, and I feel prepared me better), and Kaplan (way too easy for my liking, at least in the verbal section). The Princeton preparation for the analytical writing section is very good, and the verbal and quantitative setup was fair. The only beef I'd have is that they're a bit short on practice questions (Kaplan was the best for that), and that the book is very cheaply made. </p>
<p>The other nice feature is that near the front of the book is an explanation of scores, and what percentiles they represent (in fact, after taking the GRE, I called my mum and asked her to find the Princeton Review and look up my scores!). The table was pretty accurate (within 1%) on my scores.</p>
<p>If I had my time again, I'd probably opt for either the Princeton or the Kaplan Premier Program. The latter has easier questions than I found in the actual exam (Princeton was about right, and Barron's was too challenging- which was probably a good thing for preparation), because they had plenty of practice questions and it was nicely set out (Barron's didn't have enough, I found, and the book's setting out was horrible). I suppose it depends on what you want. If I had more time to prepare (I stupidly decided to start studying properly after I finished my semester's work, which gave me all of two weeks!), I'd consider going for Barron's, though. I could get used to the format, and being pushed harder is worth it (and the format of the GRE itself is Windows 3.1ish, so you have to get used to a crappy layout). Also, their CD is great- you do the test over and over (the questions repeat, but it's never the same test), and they give you an approximate score for the verbal and quantitative sections (which was about right or slightly below what I ended up getting)</p>
<p>I used the 2008 version of the Princeton Review with good success. I took the GRE in August and got 790q 680v 5W. It's pretty engaging and preps you pretty well on how to take the test. It does a good job of refreshing your memory on the math section, and the vocab section is very large, though I didn't use it.</p>
<p>I thought the practice tests were a little easier than the actual test, but they were still a good way to start studying. </p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Edit-I barely looked at the DVD since it seemed kind of redundant.</p>
<p>I used the Princeton Review 2009 and Barrons 2008, I did ok but not great - 640v/590q</p>
<p>I think the Princeton Review is the best test prep as far as making sure you get the method down for approaching the GRE questions, after all it's called 'cracking the gre'. The practice tests were pretty close to my real score, though I think the ETS software gave closest prediction. The DvD is pretty useless and amatuerish. Best all round test prep though if your only going for 1 book, I found the vocab and word list sections especially useful. </p>
<p>Barrons is a good compliment to the Princeton I think. Princeton is more clear about the method to use while Barrons has lots of practice problems. I also leaned on the Barrons more for the math section which I thought was better explained than in Princeton. </p>
<p>Also try number2.com, it's a free online test prep that I found somewhat useful.</p>
<p>From someone a bit further along in the process of graduate admissions- don't stress out about your general GRE score. Instead spend that time doing something relevant like researching programs and have a clear, focused idea of what you want to do and why each program is a good fit.</p>
<p>^It must depend on fields of study. Belevitt may be right but in my field- and I've sat on adcoms for grad studies at 3 universities (all very strong research programs mind you)- GREs make or break an applicant. We won't even look at someone below the 85% percentile and our choices are usually those in the 90th and above across the board.</p>