Graduate Schools Books

Note: My review pertains to the first ten pages of the book which concerned graduate programs in Archaeology. I found this book to be rather uninformative. It merely stated the names of several programs without any detail concerning professors, course work, or degree requirements. It left-out a number of excellent programs that are available in the country. It was a superficial, glossed-over, synopsis that was a waste of my $20.

although it's pretty rare to find any specific information on graduate schools for architecture, i was pretty disappointed with this book. if you're looking for gradute schools for fine arts i think you would be more pleased. i could find much more information on the web about architecture schools than in this guide. the information in pretty limited and i don't think it mentions all of the schools. also, it would have been more helpful if the authors included a ranking of schools.

This has been helpful for pacing, but I've just learned, and this is a quote directly from LSAC, "The only timing devices allowed at LSAT test centers are analog wristwatches."

It seems best to practice with the actual timer you use during the test, so I wouldn't recommend buying this. I'm just glad I learned this now so that I don't show up to the test center without an "acceptable" timing device.

item arrived damage. Amazon did not respond to email asking for an exchange for an undamaged copy

I bought and then returned this book. From the description I expected a guide with detail about the different schools and programs, as well as inside information on the schools. Instead, the book contains a couple pages about audition procedures (a much better description is in the Performing Arts Major's College Guide) accompanied by basic information that is easily available off of the school websites (location, number of students plus number of students majoring in the discipline, teacher/student ratios, etc.). It was impossible to tell which programs had a good reputation or better quality. Save your money, and get the information off of the school websites.

I think the reviewers want a book that teaches them verbal and math concepts. If you stayed awake in school you should already have the skills to take the GRE. What this book does is increase your chances of getting the answer right. If you are given unlimited time and access to a calculator or a computer, you can solve any question on the GRE. If you cannot solve a substantial proportion of questions even if time were not an issue, then you are in trouble. Go Back to School. A GRE book is not going to fill in the gaps. You are not ready for grad school.

The catch of course is solving it in the time given. You have to look for short cuts. Look for alternate approaches when traditional ones break down or would take too long. That is what I used this book for. I learnt arithmetic, algebra, and geometry in high school. But if I sat and applied high school solving techniques to every quantitative GRE question, this would take too long. You have to look for patterns in the solution. "Ballparking", and "Plugging in" are two approaches that the book teaches and they work. Now if you plug in for every quantitative problem you will be trouble. Because most quantitative problems have an answer that will jump out at you. Plugging in all the time will just take too long. But if you are stumped at the first quick pass, plugging in can work wonders. Anyway, without giving away all the techniques in the book I can say that this book will improve your score on the quantitative test.

On the verbal side, there is no substitute for a genuine vocabulary and understanding the text passages. You can use methods in this book that will reduce the number of valid choices to increase your chances of picking the right answer. But that's about it. Vocabulary and reading comprehension are key.

The analytical writing exercises are also very good. At the very least they give you a template to start with. The only thing left is to think of relevant examples.

Personally I did not mind reading the book. The style is a matter of personal taste. I wasn't reading this book for pleasure so the style did not bother me. Clarity and information is more relevant.

The software is outdated and does contain the old logic games. But I only practiced on the verbal and quantitative sections. So that didn't bother me either. What did bother me a little was the fact that the practice tests run from the CD. Therefore each time I advanced to the next question there was a distinct delay of a couple of seconds as the CD spun out the data. I was a little anxious about this because I thought that perhaps this was simulating a similar delay that takes place in the real GRE test. But the real GRE test went smoothly. If this bothers you, maybe you can copy an ISO image of the CD to your hard drive and mount the image using daemon tools or similar software. I did not try this so I can't say for sure if that works.

The practice tests seemed fairly similar to the real GRE. Maybe the questions on graphs in the practice tests were unnecessarily complicated by showing more than one graph. I am not sure how accurately you can relate the practice scores to real life scores. I consistently got >750 on my verbal practice tests but only a 690 on my real GRE. On the other hand I never got higher than 750 on my quantitative practice test but I got a 800 on the real GRE.

Good luck.

The Kaplan one is much better. The CD-Rom has the old format of the test for one and then once you sit one test you can't sit it again. Then each answer doesn't have an explanation. A waste of money.

I have been reviewing for the GRE for a few weeks now and after polishing off the Kaplan book, I decided to try the Princeton Review book - what a mistake!

This books is not a great way to study and practice for the GRE. First of all, they are still using "Games and Logic" sections on their CD-Rom. I called the customer service to ensure that I hadn't received the wrong CD and the person on the phone assured me that I had the most current CD and that there was no way to evaluate the writing portion. You have to wonder why they don't give you the opportunity to at least practice it.

Additionally, I was disturbed that I have to take all the practice tests on the CD before I can do the practice questions. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't I practice before I take the practice tests?

Do yourself a favor and use one of the other books to study for the GRE. This book will only add to your frustration and confusion.

Normally, I'm a Princeton Review book fan. But this book is disappointing. The descriptions for each section are overly basic, and don't get into the specifics of the actual test. Phrases such as: "Remember, the GRE is not a test of intelligence." and "Work backwards." constitute the bulk of the book's content.

The biggest disappointment came when I took (and tried to review) the tests on the CD. Some of the questions on the CD-Rom are the same as the sample questions in the book -- not a good way to test anyone's improvement or ability to do well on the test, or to try out any new techniques. Couldn't the authors have written just a few more GRE questions to use as new examples?

Still determined, I decided to read through the explanation for the answers on the CD. Those were less than helpful. Here are a couple of examples: "Work backwards." "Use POE." "This is the correct answer. 'Panegyrize' means 'to praise'. Of the answers, this word comes closest." How are any of these bits of "advice" supposed to help me improve?

Sorry, Princeton Review. THis time you really tried to cut costs too much. Next time you decide to publish another book, put a little bit of time, effort, and money into it.

These guys should be ashamed of themselves! I bought this book today at a local store. In the few hours that I spent working on practice questions from the CD-ROM, I ran into many blatant errors. Luckily, some of them were math formulas that I could easily prove incorrect to myself. What a frigging waste of time. I recommend that book buyers out there purchase nothing from this publisher. Truly an embarrassment for Princeton Review.

I agree with those that have said using it alone is not helpful, but when you use it as a review guide and study with others this is a great tool to be used in preparation for the GRE test.

I purchased this book because of the graphic on the cover that read "3 computer-adaptive practice tests." That simply isn't true! The CD-ROM is simply a link to Peterson's web site. As far as I can tell, there is only one practice test on the site, not three. Another reviewer on this page indicated there were three, but that some of the questions were repeated. Either way, I am extremely disappointed.

This is a horrible book. It is definitely worth it to spend a few extra bucks on the Kaplan or Princeton Review GRE CAT workbooks. The practice CAT tests are a joke--they are not timed, the format is lousy, and they actually use some of the same questions over on each of the "3" tests. And, the program doesn't give you an opportunity to go over the questions that were missed. This is a waste of money.

Don't be fooled
This is a terrible overestimation of how you will do on the GRE!! All diagnostic tests said I would score great or perfect scores: v: 744 A: 678 Q: 800. As a result I did not continue with the program because it had nothing to teach. My ACTUAL scores were V: 470 A: 650 Q: 610. Only good for toilet paper!

I can only agree with the other critics that this book absolutely ... . The book per se is OK, but not as effective as the ones by Princeton Review or Kaplan, for example. The included CD-Rom made me really angry, because it doesn't deliver what is being promised on the cover. I bought the book because it stated "CD featuring even more practice questions and study tips" on the back cover. That's just another lie! The CD-Rom is superfluous and a waste of plastic, because it is essentially a web link to the publisher's web site (only 1.4MB of data on the disk! Utterly useless for a Mac user.). Again, don't buy it...

This was the worst GRE book I've studied from. I bought a Barrons book as well as one published by ETS which were a lot more helpful. The math and analytical sections had tons of errors and many of the problems seen in the analytical section didn't parallel the actual test. Even a one star is too high of a rating for this book.

This book teaches you reasoning and logic pretty well. I only found 2 mistakes. I think if you really want to learn how to answer logic questions, it is a great book to own... I find the practice exams not very helpful, though.

This book appears to be a rush job. Questions often don't match answers, and many questions (for which answers are provided) are simply missing. It is particularly annoying to find, for example, Peterson listing an answer as "C", while the explanatory guide gives the reationale for choosing 'E'. This happens to such an extent that I lost faith in the book and set it aside.

I emailed Peterson asking them for any supplementary materials for missing or misworded questions or wrong answers. I got no answer, indicating to me that they have abandoned this project.

Skip this book. There are better study guides available.

Mark Tokarski
Billings, MT

The edition I bought had numerous errors. Several of the quizzes had multiple questions missing. There were answers, just no questions. In addition, many of the answers where just plain wrong. The advice in the book is not that bad, however this is the worst editing job I have ever seen.

It's not that I'm quibbling with Weber's answers, but his analytical section is awful. Some of Weber's answers violate the conditional rules he sets out. Other times, he'll say something like "The answer is (E), Inga lives in apartment 211 or 214." Check back to the original question and it says "(D) Inga lives in apartment 211 or 214". What's with that?

Some of Weber's tips on solving analytical problems are useful, but his own questions are horrible. I scored a 760 on the GRE analytical when it was new and there were no books about it, so it's not like I can't figure this stuff out. Weber's questions make no sense and frequently have incorrect, or multiple correct answers. I haven't really tried the quantitative or verbal sections, so I won't comment on them.

Right now I'm using 4 different books to prep for my LSAT. I've got the LSAT Kaplin book, which is the one that I'm really using to study. I also have a copy of Kaplin's 180 book, however that is for use in the future. I own a copy of the 10 Prep Tests, that book is very stright forward in it's use. I also have this book put together by the people at Cliffnotes. I use this book for one purpose. I wanted a book that I could use just to use random test questions to solve. I'm going through the tests, but not under any test conditions. There are a handful of bad questions in this book, and as a serious study aid, it can't hold a candle to any of the other ones. But I suspose for my use, it's doing what I wanted.

I thought I was going crazy until I realized that this book is full of errors! More than I can count on two hands. If you're looking for a decent LSAT test prep, this is not it!

There were a ton of errors and the made-up questions did not seem all that similar to the real LSAT questions. I would recommend Princeton Review for Arguements and Arco for games.

Far too simple of an approach to the complex problems of mastering the questions presented by the LSAT. Sample and practice questions were far too misleading in their simplicity as compared to what the LSAT actually has. Sample tests do not even come close to what you will experience on the real exam.

My parents have been buying me this book almost every year since i was in 10th grade (haven't had the heart to tell them I don't need or want it anymore). it does contain some useful information, but as another reviewer said, it's right out of the Medical School Admission Requirements published by the AAMC. I have about 5 editions of "The Best Medical Schools", and I can tell you that you would be better off getting the MSAR.

I bought this book from Amazon.com, while searching for this type of books a few days back.I read the review at Amazon.com site and the name of "Princeton" all sounded attractive.I ordered it.

Now, to read this book - you really have to be an expert or go to a school to learn how to interpret the book. 1. There are 124 Medical schools in USA and the details of all of them is spread in around 230 pages and can you believe it, it has no index and the schools are arranged alphabetically - if you are looking for school in one State only. You have no mechanism except to go through all the 230 pages. 2. Look at the numbers - Candiadate applied, percentage interviewed and percentage enrolled the numbers appear erroneous - after a thorough research I found out that percentage intervied is percentage of total applied but percentage enrolled is OF the percentage interviewed and so on. Now if you are looking in details of Medical schools sit for a night and calculate and then your book may be bit useful. 3. Now you want to find out the class size of freshers - read at least two pages per school - Lucky if you can find in all of them. I feel, I lost my money - I wish if some how I could return it and get my money back.

I saw this book in the store and it looked like a good place to start for chosing a med school. I quickly discovered that there were countless erros in it, though. Apparently you need a 4.3 gpa to go U. of Illinois among other great mistakes. The mistakes were so numerous that I didn't feel I could even trust the numbers which looked reasonable. The book did have some useful information, but a lot of it looked like it was copied right out of the MSAR. Buy that instead!