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McGraw-Hill’s Conquering the New GRE Math: Book Review

By on August 29, 2011 in Book Reviews

Not all is bad in the land of McGraw. For those who struggle with many of the concepts in Barron’s, Kaplan’s and Princeton Review, or simply want more practice with math fundamentals that both publishers gloss over, McGraw-Hill’s Conquering the GRE Math is an invaluable resource.

As a tutor, I see myself recommending this not only to students who haven’t seen math in ages, but, also, to those students who have certain specific concepts they need more practice on. So, if converting 0.125 into a fraction is tantamount to scaling Everest, then the hundreds of practice problems in this book will definitely help.

It is important to note that the questions in this book are not GRE math questions. They are questions that will help you better understand the basics out of which GRE math questions are constructed. Of course, the latter can seem bewildering without a strong grasp of the basics.

If I have to fault the book in one way, the layout is not that user-friendly. On some pages, one problem after another is dumped on the user. So, for someone who is already intimidated by math, the chaos of digits and mathematical notation will seem unnecessarily daunting (this is especially true on the explanations section).

But, as long as you know this going in, and are disciplined to work through this book, McGraw-Hill will help you understand concepts that may have stymied you all your life.

However, do not think that mastery of the concepts here will automatically transfer to the GRE. And, in that sense, the title is misleading: with only The McGraw-Hill Math you’ll be conquering very little of the actual GRE. For, once you’ve finished with McGraw-Hill, you’ll still have to learn the idiosyncrasies of the GRE quantitative landscape. But, with McGraw-Hill’s math, that process will no longer seem impossible.

As a math basics refresher, its grade would be an A-.  

 

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

About the Author

Chris Lele 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. Follow him on Google+!

4 Responses to McGraw-Hill’s Conquering the New GRE Math: Book Review

  1. Chris May 26, 2012 at 5:16 pm #

    Hi Chris,

    Do you think it would be better to practice (along with Magoosh Videos) my math with the Manhattan GRE or Kaplan book?

    Thanks,

    Chris

    Reply
  2. Chris February 28, 2012 at 12:17 pm #

    If you need practice with very basic concepts (simplifying square roots, exponents rules), McGraw is a great place to practice. Though it’s not too user friendly – each page is a flurry of math problems that can be extremely intimidating and off-putting to uninitiated.

    Magoosh Lesson videos of course go over all of these things too. To get enough practice I would recommend pausing the lesson videos, doing the problem, and then watching the explanation. For instance, if Brent (our math guy) is about to show you how to factor sqrt32, after he showed you the principle, pause the video and give it a try.

    Hope that helps!

    Reply
  3. cricket973 February 28, 2012 at 4:12 am #

    Hi Chris-

    If math is in need of serious help, is the McGraw book better than the Magoosh videos?

    Thank you,
    Cricket973

    Reply


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