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Best GRE Books vs Worst GRE Books

The Best Books

1. The Official ETS Guide

Made by the test makers themselves, this source is the most reliable of all sources! The practice questions in these guides come closest to the actual GRE test. The practice tests at the end of each guide must NOT be missed under any circumstances!

There are numerous resources available – both online and in bookstores – for GRE preparation. This plethora of choices often end up leaving test-takers confused as to which book should they select for their preparation. To make this choice easier for test-takers, Scholar Den offers detailed reviews of popular preparatory resources to help test-takers make an informed decision.

1. The 8 Manhattan guides by Manhattan Prep

The set of 8 guides includes six guides for quantitative and two guides for verbal. This is the best resource to hone both your quantitative and verbal skills since it provides a comprehensive description of each test section, loads of practice questions along with effective strategies for approaching questions. The practice problems at the end of each topic are comprehensive and provide an in-depth explanation to answers. Test-takers are strongly recommended to begin their preparation from these eight guides.

2. Manhattan 5 lb

Once you have completed the Manhattan guides, use the 5 lb book to bring the skills and strategies learned into practice. It comprises of very thorough, step-by-step answer explanations to help you decide exactly how to arrive at the correct choice. From this book, focus more on the quantitative sections (especially probability, statistics, and word problems) than on the verbal sections since the verbal section is not reflective of the questions and vocabulary you are likely to encounter in the real GRE test.

3. Scholar Den GRE Prep Website: (www.scholarden).For the real GRE experience, do solve www.scholarden.com questions and do go through all verbal lectures on the website. It also gives you the detailed anlaysis of how much you have scored in each specific section. Through this resource, students are improving their score 3 times better than the Magoosh and Kaplan.

4. Barrons GRE Guide

Although the guide provides numerous questions for practice, they do not reflect the difficulty level expected in the real test. The guide is recommended for quantitative practice, but NOT for verbal practice.

5. Magoosh Online Paid account (accessible through subscription)
The Magoosh subscription comprises of online video tutorials and answers explanations for both verbal and quantitative sections of GRE.

7. GRE Big Book by ETS

The GRE Big Book consists of innumerable practice questions for verbal and quantitative sections. However, a word of caution: The questions in this book are based on the old GRE pattern (prior to 2011), and their difficulty is not reflective of the current GRE pattern. Therefore, this book is NOT recommended as a primary resource of preparation; it should only be used after all other resources have been exhausted.

In addition to the aforementioned material, do not forget to take these 12 mock tests before your test date if you receive a score of 320+ in your actual test:

ETS Power Prep II = 2 Mocks (FREE) – A+ Rating

ETS Paper Based Test (ETS book) = 2 Mocks – A+ Rating

Manhattan = 6 Mocks – A Rating

Barron's = 6 Mocks – A Rating

Kaplan = 6 Mocks (FREE) – B+ Rating

Check FREE Mocks Document on GRE Main Page, you can access 10 mocks for free!

The Worst Books

The following books are not recommended due to the low quality of practice questions and strategies, which are not reflective of the real GRE test:

Nova's GRE Prep Course Book and the Nova GRE Math Bible

1,014 GRE Practice Questions, 3rd Edition by Princeton Review

Princeton Review – Cracking the GRE with 4 Practice Tests, 2014 Edition

Kaplan – GRE Premier 2015 with 6 Practice Tests

McGraw-Hill's GRE 2014 Edition, McGraw-Hill's Conquering the New GRE Math, McGraw-Hill's Conquering the New GRE Verbal and Writing, McGraw-Hill's 6 GRE Practice Tests

Studying from x or y books doesn't help you score +315, you MUST use multiple sources to build your concepts and strategies. Please ensure that you have already taken GRE Diagnostic Test (full length exam without preparation) to assess your strengths and weaknesses