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ETS’s Official Guide to the GRE Revised General Test Book Review

By on August 29, 2011 in Book Reviews

Free video explanations for every practice problem in the Official Guide here.

There is no prep like the ETS guide. Simply put, these questions are written by the very company that will write the questions you’ll see on test day. And those questions, as well as the ones in this book, are written according to exacting standards. There is a sophistication, complexity and “trickiness” to the questions that is saliently absent from the content of the books I reviewed last week.

However, ETS is not the first place you would necessarily want to start prepping. The main reason is, ETS does not provide the best strategies for approaching the questions on the Revised GRE. Nor does ETS really intend to help students, especially those who are scoring at the lower levels. Really, they have no motivation to – they are simply providing practice problems.

Also, ETS does not provide the best explanations, a fact that may be surprising, given the high quality of their content. But remember, they do not really have incentive to provide you with the most lucid explanations, so that you will do better on test day. ETS has already written the questions, and they know people will pay for them. So, the explanations are average (in this regard, Kaplan does a far better job. However, Kaplan’s questions are iffy and suspect, so this point is basically moot).

So, if you have picked up your strategies from The Princeton Review book (a good book for strategies) and/or Magoosh (a great place for in-depth strategies…with plenty of practice problems), and have done some practice problems, then you can start with the ETS materials.

The Official Guide to the Revised GRE also offers the PowerPrep software, which provides you with an actual GRE test, along with a score range after you’ve finished. This is the single best prep for the exam. Why? Because the computer interface—down to the very last pixel—is exactly what you’ll encounter on  test day (unless you are taking the paper-based version). And, if you haven’t taken a test on a computer, the experience can be very different from those found in books.

The bottom-line: if you are serious about scoring in a competitive range on the Revised GRE, then picking up a copy of the Official Guide, along with CD, is critical.

 

Prep: A+

Strategies/Explanations: C

 

Update: to address our dissatisfaction with the explanations given in this book, we’ve recorded our own set of video explanations for every question. Enjoy!

 

This is the sixth in a series of new GRE book reviews.

 

About the Author

Chris has been helping students excel on the GRE, GMAT, and SAT for the last 10 years. He is the Lead Content Developer and Tutor for Magoosh. His favorite food is wasabi-flavored almonds.

16 Responses to ETS’s Official Guide to the GRE Revised General Test Book Review

  1. Arif August 30, 2011 at 6:18 am #

    Chris is The Best!!

    Reply
    • Chris Lele August 30, 2011 at 9:45 am #

      Thanks, Arif!

      Reply
    • SJ April 6, 2012 at 11:56 pm #

      agreed :)

      Reply
      • Chris April 9, 2012 at 3:22 pm #

        Thanks guys :) .

        Reply
  2. Fan August 30, 2011 at 7:07 am #

    Just as I thought, the ETS material is indeed the most accurate in that it mirrors the difficulty of questiosn on test day. The math was more difficult and tricky than other prep material I’ve encountered, and the verbal was definitely more well written.

    However, in the ETS booklet, their math sections consisted of 25 questions for 40 minutes. Does that reflect the length and time of math sections on test day? On the ETS website they seem to say it’s 20 questions for 35 minutes.

    Reply
    • Huan-Lin Chang August 30, 2011 at 9:05 am #

      The practice test included in OG is for paper-based GRE, so it contains 25 questions in 40 minutes. The PowerPrep II software is very close to the test day experience: 20 questions in 35 min. for math, 20 questions in 30 min. for verbal.

      Reply
      • Fan August 30, 2011 at 9:09 am #

        Thanks for that! I didn’t realize the length/pacing for the paper & computer based tests would be different!

        Reply
        • Chris Lele August 30, 2011 at 9:45 am #

          Yes, Huan-Ling is right on every point! The good news – if you are taking the computer-based exam – is it will be shorter.

          And as you’ve corroborated, the material on the real test is much more difficult than any encountered in the major publishers. As a tutor, I always want to make sure students are prepared as possible – that’s why I usually avoid material from PR and Kaplan (esp. for quant) and use Barron’s (only up until a point). In the past, for quant, I’ve written my own questions, coupled those with ETS material, and even some GMAT and SAT, for the best results.

          Reply
  3. Fan September 12, 2011 at 11:14 am #

    Has the ETS released more than 2 full sets of new GRE questions? I know that PowerPrep II has one set, and the book has another full test. Are there any more than that?

    Reply
    • Chris September 12, 2011 at 12:01 pm #

      For now, that’s all that ETS is offering us. I do hope it decides to release more practice material soon. I have a feeling – once all this equating is done in Nov. – that they will offer more content/tests that will give scores based on the new range.

      Reply
  4. mary October 24, 2011 at 7:08 am #

    Is it neccessary to purchase the ETS book WITH cd? Isn’t the powerprep software offerred online for free? Or are there different exams on the cd and the website?

    Reply
    • Chris October 24, 2011 at 12:25 pm #

      Hi Mary,

      The CD you get with the book is redundant with the free powerprep software. The questions in the book, however, are unique and are found nowhere on-line. I would still heartily recommend purchasing the book to have access to the 200-plus
      practice questions in the book.

      Reply
  5. Sarah December 15, 2011 at 5:14 pm #

    Does the PowerPrep CD that comes with the ETS book run on a Mac, or only on a PC? (I know the downloadable version only runs on PCs; I couldn’t find info about the CD version.) Thanks.

    Reply
    • Margarette December 15, 2011 at 8:29 pm #

      Hi, Sarah

      Unfortunately, the practice material on the CD doesn’t work on Macs! As an alternative, I’d recommend using the free PDF of the paper-based test from ETS, we have video explanations for all of the questions as well as the link to the PDF here: http://gre.magoosh.com/videos-for-revised-gre-paper-test. I hope that helps!

      Best,
      Margarette

      Reply
  6. johnny March 30, 2012 at 10:56 am #

    I scored a 1200+ (580 and 720) when taking the powerprep 2 practice test; however, i signed up for the free trial and tried the practice tests on magoosh and got demolished. the questions were much harder on magoosh. does this mean magoosh is harder than the GRE or is powerprep questions easier than actual GRE problems? i was fairly confident and figured i only needed to improve on vocab but magoosh destroyed that confidence.

    Reply
    • Chris March 30, 2012 at 2:33 pm #

      Hi Johnny,

      Indeed the Magoosh questions are more difficult than those found on the actual test. But don’t lose heart – if you can get these right, the questions test day should be nowhere nearly as difficult (quite a few Magoosh users have said this).

      We also have a great score predictor feature that tabulates your projected score on the actual GRE based on your performance. Let me know if you have any other questions :) .

      Reply

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