More accurate GRE practice?

[Armymutt25A]

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For those of you who have taken the GRE recently, which practice guides are more accurate? I've been using the ETS books and an REA book, as well as the type of questions found in GRE Bible, and other sites that I refer to as Indian site (they appear to be geared toward students from India, based on the feedback they post). The Indian questions seem to be more difficult, and the answers aren't always accurate. While more difficult is usually good, I think that practice that more accurately reflects the test is better. Logic would say that since ETS writes the test, their practice should more accurately reflect the test.

 

[nyanko]

The PowerPrep software that you get when you register is the most accurate representation of the test questions and format. Remember that the difficulty of the questions you get on the exam will vary based on how you're doing, so there is a wide range of difficulties represented.

 

[jpeterman13]

so if you're saying to yourself "wow, this is really easy"...it's no good. i agree on the PowerPrep software, and also, I found that the Princeton Review and Barron's books had some pretty good questions. I did considerably better the second time after I used them for about a month and a half--especially my quantitative section.

 

[ATX00]

so if you're saying to yourself "wow, this is really easy"...it's no good.

I took about 5 Kaplan practice tests. When I took the real test, during the last third of the math, I knew I had bombed it because the questions were too easy and I finished with too much time to spare. I scored 60 points higher than my best practice test.

So the Kaplan tests are definitely harder than the real thing, but I think they prepared me a lot better than more "accurate" tests would have. 🙂

 

[RunTheWorld]

I took about 5 Kaplan practice tests. When I took the real test, during the last third of the math, I knew I had bombed it because the questions were too easy and I finished with too much time to spare. I scored 60 points higher than my best practice test.

So the Kaplan tests are definitely harder than the real thing, but I think they prepared me a lot better than more "accurate" tests would have. 🙂

I definitely agree with this. I was consistently scoring below 600 on the quant section of the Kaplan practice tests then I got a 750 on the real thing. I just sat there like 😱 I thought it had messed up or something!

 

[NStarz]

so if you're saying to yourself "wow, this is really easy"...it's no good. i agree on the PowerPrep software, and also, I found that the Princeton Review and Barron's books had some pretty good questions. I did considerably better the second time after I used them for about a month and a half--especially my quantitative section.

Possibly, but only to a certain extent. Maybe the test-makers think the questions are difficult but you are a whiz at graph interpretation and percent changes.

I think I read somewhere that if you're doing well, you should be getting a slightly easy question and then a slightly hard question and then a slightly easier question...this is so they narrow down your score. The tests are adaptive, so unless you're a super genius, I don't think you would see 12 easy quant questions in a row (because if you got them all right, the question difficulty would increase).

 

[Minnerbelle]

I've been using the ETS books and an REA book,

I dunno about for the general GRE test, but The REA book was a piece of poop when it came to the GRE Biology. I got the REA book over since I couldn't find a Barron one, and the "you can do it!" tone in the Princeton Review/Kaplan ones annoy me. And it was the most *expensive* one... and being the idiot I was, I thought price correlated with quality. Not so. I found 5 pretty big mistakes in the first few pages. Like basics. I gave it the benefit of doubt for the first couple, thinking maybe they were using terms that were technically correct but weren't used very frequently. After the third one, I looked them all up and such terms do not exist. They also got some simple concepts wrong. I decided not to take the GRE Biology because I was pissed.

 

[Horsingaround31]

I used both the Princeton Review books (general and one specifically for the quantitative section since that was my problem area) and PowerPrep with good results. The Princeton Review books all said to use the PowerPrep software because it offered the most accurate representation of the questions on the GRE. The combo approach seemed to work.

 

[Armymutt25A]

I picked up the Kaplan Premier book this weekend. It looks about the same as the ETS book I have, but it has the 5 CATs and some other attractive features. I think it's going to take a combination of the books and some online resources for basic geometry to get me through this. So far, I've averaging about 5 wrong answers per test - unacceptable.

 

[HopefulAg]

How long are the tests?

I'd think if you could take the GRE and only miss 5, that would be a good thing.

 

[CuriousRACC]

I don't know if there's a thing that can accurately reflect what scores you might get, but as for good books, I used Kaplan and thought it was pretty good. Seems all the companies have problems with mistakes, and I'll admit that with the Kaplan Advanced GRE Quant book I was annoyed enough to think about returning it after the first 20 or so questions (where I found nearly 10 typos, basic math mistakes, etc.) but I'm glad I stuck with the book because the mistakes decreased as I continued on, and it really has some great questions in it that'll help a lot once you get past the easier stuff at the beginning of the test. It's got a nice review of all concepts in the back of the book that was nice too. And if it makes my advice more worthwhile, I got a really good score on the quant. For the verbal, I'm not as sure what to suggest, I just used the basic Kaplan book. Words aren't really my thing, haha, but I'm sure there are some great books out there for the verbal section, and some SDNers who can point you to the good ones