Kaplan Psych GRE Book

SDN Members don't see this ad. (About Ads)

hi all,
i'm wondering if any of you used the kaplan book to prepare for the psych GRE and how you found it.
thanks.

Overall I thought it was a good book, but it depends on how you want to study and how much time you have. It seemed to go into a lot more detail than Princeton Review, which is good if you have time to study, but if you are cramming then PR's book of more or less what you need to know may be the better option!

hi,
i'm starting to study now and my plan is to go over the kaplan book then look at an intro psych book. i just read some reviews of the kaplan one on amazon and they were terrible so i got nervous!

Originally Posted by irish80122

Overall I thought it was a good book, but it depends on how you want to study and how much time you have. It seemed to go into a lot more detail than Princeton Review, which is good if you have time to study, but if you are cramming then PR's book of more or less what you need to know may be the better option!

Completely agree. Whatever you end up with, make sure to get electronic pre-tests on a CD, and do EVERY ONE of them. www.gre.com should also have some (free) practice tests available online.

-t

I also recommend taking practice tests. Don't trust the PR or Kaplan tests, however, they usually aren't quite like the real thing (though they may still be good practice). ETS publishes a whole, real psych GRE test from a few years back. I found my score on this the night before was very close to my actual score and it helped calm my nerves a bit. Good luck!

I poured over the Kaplan test for a week (I didn't realize that the test was given only three times a year, had only a week to study). Didn't do anything other than basically memorize the book, make flash cards, take the practice tests and take the ETS practice test and I got around the 80th percentile, which is above the median that most schools publish for the psyc GRE in their admissions data.

You're fine with just the book, I think, if that percentile is acceptable for you. But if you've got more time and don't want to piece through every psyc. textbook you own, Spark (of Sparknotes fame) makes a Psyc overview book that seemed fairly comprehensive.

Echoing others, definitely definitely do the practice tests just to give you an idea of what the test is like.

Also, on the day of the test, don't be afraid to skip questions (I think the study guides will go more into strategy)! This helped me quite a lot. Good luck!