The printed prep manual was very thorough with regards to the verbal and quantitative section. I do not think it did adequate preparation for the verbal section.
The disc on the other hand left much to be desired. It was touch and go as to whether or not Windows would read the disc. Frustrating is the polite term I can think of.

All I can say is "Thank God!" I purchased this book knowing I would only have 3 days to study for the GRE (thanks to an over-booked schedule). As I read the book I became so stressed out because I realized the depth of the GRE. However, after stressing me out, this book provided all the help I so desperately needed.

Buy it, read it, do what the book says... it will help!

I initially used the Barron's GRE prep book and got a 540 on the verbal section and 640 on quantitative. My math score was low relative to those of accepted students for the programs I am applying to, and the Barron's book didn't have enough examples. I know all the concepts behind the math questions so the concept explanations in the Barron's book didn't help me...I was having trouble seeing through the "tricks." I bought this book along with the Kaplan vocabulary flash cards and was able to raise my scores to 710 in verbal and 720 in quantitative.

I really liked the Kaplan book because it is very explicit in all of its explanations. The most useful part of the book was the section listing the dozens of math question types one will encounter and the steps to solve them. There were fewer practice questions than in the Barron's book, but those explanations more than made up for it. The tips on answering verbal questions were also very helpful, though the exercises were kind of silly. The tests on the CD had a similar setup to the actual GRE and were accurate in terms of question types and difficulty.

I do have to dock a star for the numerous typos and errors in the book as well as the fact that I couldn't get the online tests to work and Kaplan never answered my email requesting help.

All in all, I am very happy with this review book. It is WAY cheaper than those courses Kaplan offers. Between this book, the vocabulary flash cards, and doing as many practice tests as possible, you almost certainly raise your score.

the online practice key number in the new book I bought from this seller is already used: (

I had to cram for the GREs, had two weeks to study and definitely no time for a class. So I bought this book and went through basically the entire thing. The review sections are pretty good, more helpful for math than verbal because they don't actually define that many words and the instructions for the analytical writing section are more or less for people who have never written a one page paper before. Anything more in-depth than that or tricks to save time were not there.
The practice test in the book is ridiculous - way harder than the actual GRE. The cd rom is a good resource because it does have several practice test sections and 3 CAT tests, though they're not full lenth - the math and verbal sections are half the length they are in the real test. THey're helpful, although I think also harder than the GRE itself.
My main gripe with this book is that the explanations of how they solve the problem or why certain verbal problems are correct are terrible. They basicaly give a one liner on how they got to the answer but don't explain any nuances of the problem or give help on how to do a better job next time, drawing connections between the problem and the general math concept being tested. The online syllabus tool is also kind of hard to use and not that much more helpful than a daily planner that you write out yourself.
Overall this is a good product - definitely helps if you need to study really quickly because it's not too long and involves all the basic review that you need. If you want to get into more detailed and harder math stuff, you'll need another math review book, so be aware of that.

I have used Kaplan study products for many different exams, and I like their approach and the fact that they have a CD-ROM with extra features. But it doesn't work with either my PC (which has Vista) or my Mac laptop!! This seems ridiculous for a 2009 version. I am very sorry I paid the extra money for the CD-ROM.

I bought this book to get an overview on the GRE (which I could have got on ETS page) and to increase my Verbal and AW scores.

After three week of learning words, the Verbal scores didn't improve and the AW skill is simply unmeasurable.

Their verbal CD tests are pretty limited, after making them twice I get maximum score because of learning the answers by heart, not because any improvement actually occurs. The Math was no challenge except the probabilities, whose I had to review once again. Sadly, no probabilities problems occurred in the test, but statistics (distributions, percentile, standard deviation), which I had barely remembered (I have a 10 year old CS/Math undergraduate degree).

I scored 800 Quantitative (with very less preparation) 480 on Verbal and 3.5 on AW. Same score, (at least after my appreciation, I had the official test only once) as when I have acquired the book.

The book may be good to give an image about what GRE is, this is the reason I gave two stars, but if you wish to improve your score, you may look elsewhere.

The GRE Premier Program 2009 Edition is a fantastic study guide for the GRE tests. Having the groups of words and math examples in the back of the book make it a lot easier to study.

I would suggest that those word groups and math examples be pages that can be torn out so that they can be used as notecards!

I purchased this book because I wanted to be well-prepared for the GRE. This book is easy-to-understand and very thorough. I especially appreciate their test tips. Kaplan gives explicit information about how the GRE is written and points out pitfalls to avoid. They train students how to easily eliminate certain answer choices to increase their odds of choosing the correct answer. There are practice tests both in the book and on the disk and there is a wealth of additional information on their web site. I highly recommend this book.

The strategies and practice are good. The CD-ROM is a disaster. I was doing one of the 3 CAT included in the CD-ROM and my time expired after 10 minutes of the issue essay. The same thing happened with the quantitative section. It's worthless. Also, I found more productive and interesting the analytical writing tips in Princeton review.
I don't recommend it.

This GRE review is great. I highly recommend the Vocabulary cards. I had no idea that my vocabulary was so limited! Shipped fast, a little worn as described, but still in great condition to study with. No marks no tears.

AMAZON service is the worst in SHIPPING. Any other place we get the iteam in 1-2 days max for FREE. I mean what's the use of getting a urgently needed item after 15 days

Item arrived within timely manner and in exceptional condition. Would definitely do business with again.

First of all, the editor of this book should be fired. Isn't it the editor's job to make sure no typos make it into the final product? And after reading reviews of other editions, I think the problems have been there for awhile. Other than those annoying little mistakes, it's pretty helpful. There are good ideas of how to approach problems and solve them quickly and easily.

I bought this edition primarily because I wanted the online options and the cd-rom extras. However, both of those have fallen short of my expectations. The internet site isn't as "personalized" as they make it out to be. The "guided study plan" is just a generic "syllabus" that isn't very helpful, and some of the links to study guides don't even work. I thought the diagnostic test would give me specific areas to work on but instead it's just the same as a practice test that gives you a score and reviews the answers but nothing more.
It's also not plainly stated the the cd rom DOES NOT WORK ON A MAC. In 2008 this seems like an unacceptable format for a book like this that makes you pay extra for the cd features.

The study guide itself is pretty good, with good tips and techniques for getting through the test, and the verbal and math workbooks have also been useful for more specific areas of review, but you can get the same thing from the non-premier edition.

Well, since feedback came timely, I have to say that my book got shredded by my labrador retriever as soon as it got delivered. Lyla was in the garage due to re-modeling at the back of the house. Perhaps packages of this magnitude should be confirmed upon delivery, perhaps not.

Thank you!

Best wishes,
Kevin Liu

NOBODY WANTS TO STUDY. There are so many better things to do, like just spacing out and thinking about the apartment you'd buy if you had enough money to buy an apartment. And then there's text messaging and instant messaging and Mad Men on ON DEMAND TV, and WEEDS on Monday nights and there's always food to eat, right? BUT, in order to get to the stuff you really want you have to do the tedious stuff it takes to get there. Just study. Take your shoes off. Make sure there are no screens of any kind lit up (TV, Phone, I-Pod, etc.). This book WILL help. I didn't use the CD. I only used the book. I studied every night. I took the test. I got into my top choice school. It was worth it.

I got this CD book in the expectation that the book would be similar to the actual computerized GRE. I use it primarily for its practice tests. Unfortunately, the CD is a HUGE disappointment. It does not appear to adjust the questions based on performance like the actual test. It does not scale to your monitor, so if you have a widescreen monitor, it is hard to read.

However, what is much more disappointing is that the questions, particularly the quantitative questions, are of poor quality and often incorrect. For example:

The drawings are horrendous. Some questions assume that things are drawn to scale without stating it, while others say that an answer must be "not enough information" because the drawing does not say it is drawn to scale. On Q Test 4, one diagram was a closed shape according to the answer explanation, but it was clearly open in the drawing so a number of degrees could be fit inside. One of the chart questions on test 5 has two charts but both are labeled "sales" - one is supposed to be net profits.

If you are getting this to teach you how to take the GRE or for the paper tests, it may be a fine buy, but the software it horrendous and riddled with errors.

I got this GRE guide as well as "Cracking the GRE" by the Princeton Review... and preferred the latter.

Not that this isn't a good study book; you'd probably do fine on the GRE with either one. I found the PR book more easy to follow with print that's easy to read and even some tongue-in-cheek humor (studying doesn't have to be boring?). What it basically comes down to is that Kaplan is content based whereas PR is more techinique based, walking you through how to solve problems easily. The "Hit Parade" vocab lists in the PR was also super helpful--Kaplan has nothing near the number of need-to-know vocabulary words.

Bottom Line: at least check out the Princeton Review's "Cracking the GRE" before you buy this.

Bought the book and tried to jump into the Quick Start Guide by registering online and taking the Diagnostic Quiz. But alas, the online registration failed, error message: Invalid code. So I called the customer service number supplied, and as I write this, I've been on hold for one hour, eight minutes, and still counting. Either save your money and buy a cheaper book without the "premier" online and CD extras, or try someone else's version that might actually work.

My biggest worry about this product was that perhaps the practice tests would be contrived and undiagnostic of actual GRE performance. However, I took the actual GRE this morning and was pleasantly surprised to find that my scores were roughly the same as the scores that I had achieved on the practice tests provided with this guide--I'm impressed!

I would recommend this product as the foundation for any GRE test prep. Not all of the tips they provide are brilliant; you'll be able to pick and choose which ones you find helpful and which ones you find needlessly cumbersome. However, it provides a good overview of the typical GRE vocab and math problems and, if you're like me, you'll be grateful (and a little embarrassed) when they point out blatantly obvious tips that you hadn't previously thought of (e.g., creating a verbal bridge to join analogy terms).

Of course, I recommend using other products to supplement the material in this guide. The free GRE Powerprep math review is a good reinroduction to basic math concepts if you're rusty (I went through it prior to starting on this book). I also used Kaplan's "GRE Exam Vocabulary in a Box", as well as the vocabulary hit list from The Princeton Review's "Cracking the GRE". Using these products, I was able to obtain an extremely high verbal score and a decent quantitative score. If you want a perfect quantitative score, you may want to go a bit deeper than I did. However, the products that I've mentioned should be enough to get you a verbal score in the high 90s.

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I'm going to start my third year of college soon and have already registered to take the GRE. This book is a MUST HAVE because ETS has changed the format of the GRE and this book covers all the changes. The book contains a lot of strategies that I could have figured out for myself...but the practice problems and tests are very useful. This is a priceless resource if you want to score high because they give you a list of the most common vocabulary words that appear on the GRE...I'm sure nobody wants to randomly memorize words from a dictionary.

This is an excellent prep book for the actual gre. Their vocab and math prep workbooks are also excellent.

This book had everything I wanted to help me study for the GRE. I enjoyed the helpful hints and tricks to mastering each section, and there are more than enough practice tests available to help me prepare.

This book gives an excellent overview of what the GRE will be like, and has lots of super tips as to how to best approach the different question types. When I got to the math section I was a little overwhelmed, especially since I have never had geometry, only algebra. But the authors say that it is not a math test at all and go on to explain how to approach each type of math question. I am so relieved. Despite my history of usually doing well with English questions, the resources in the back of the book are invaluable. It is filled with commonly used GRE words to memorize and lists of like-meaning words. Now I know what the test will be like and have the tools to play the game, which is how Kaplan says the GRE should be approached. Thanks for the confidence booster, Kaplan.

This has been a very helpful study tool. It is easy to follow and easy to understand and the CD ROM really enhances the learning experience.

u will find the practice test examples for GRE in this book...this book is very helpful for preparing GRE...

Just bought this book at a local bookstore. Guess I should have bought it on Amazon so someone couldn't have stolen the code out of the back of the book and used it before I got to it. Nice work Kaplan! You couldn't have put the code in a sealed envelope or something? You need the code to access all the online features, practice tests, etc. So here I am - a couple days into my prep - and I can't utilize the book I paid $20+ for. And of course their easy access 1(800) customer service is CLOSED on the weekends! Very disappointed...

I have only had this product for a few weeks, but I have already discovered some criticisms.

One major criticism is the CD-ROM seems dated. The disc lists "version 1.0" and you can tell that the disc is 1.0. The copyright on the program is 2004! While the sample tests appear to simulate the test environment very well they don't contain the any of the fill in the blank questions that have been added to the GRE. While they aren't a big part of the exam you would figure that if this is the "2009" edition of this book that the CD would fully prepare you for the test that students taking the exam in 2008 might take.

Needless to say this disc doesn't seem to work properly under Windows Vista much like the feedback I read on last years' edition. I bought the 2009 edition figuring that they would have updated the CD for this years' book, but apparently not. Having neither a Mac version nor a Windows version that works in Vista seems pretty pathetic. I have been using the inside of a virtual machine(VMware) and it seems to run OK. I will give an update if I discover any means by which the software will run under Vista properly.

After you remove the background information on the GRE, and the chapter on applying to grad school, and the advertising for Kaplan's courses the number of pages of actual prep drops below 400 pages, albeit most competing books are approximately the same length. There are entire books written on applying to grad school if I really wanted a book for that, but nevertheless I will admit that the book seems incredibly informative.

As far as I can tell there is no compelling improvements in this book over the previous edition. The book could obviously have more problem sets, but so far I haven't seen any obvious mistakes in the book like I have seen in test prep books for the SAT or other exams. The book could be better, but I don't see any clear flaws in the book so far.

This book is all you need to prep for the Verbal exam. I made flashcards out of the top 200 GRE words listed and defined in the back of this book. Then I read the test-taking tips and - voila - my Verbal scores were right where I wanted them to be. If, like me, you haven't taken a math class in years, then you will need some additional materials. I used Basic Mathematics by Bittinger, then studied the Kaplan materials for the test-taking tips. That worked perfectly. My score yesterday was 90 points higher than my GRE score from 13 years ago. I definitely think these materials helped me to get my best possible score. I gave this book only 4 stars because the online site was difficult to use, and the book contained a lot of typos.