Most awaited article – New GRE Book Reviews is here. New GRE Exam will be offered from August 1, 2011. Several New GRE Books have been published.
I spend several hours reading New GRE books available to write this post – Top New GRE book reviews.
This post comes after comparing practice tests, examples, test prep strategies, tips and tactics in 10+ GRE test prep books. If you have additional questions about the GRE books comparison, post your comment to this blog post.
New GRE Book Reviews
GRE book overview and rankings.
| Rank | GRE Book | Why Buy |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Official Guide to the Revised GRE General Test | Must Buy – Strategies, Practice tests and Tips. |
| 2 | Manhattan GRE – 8 books | Test prep strategies, tips and practice tests |
| 3 | Gruber’s Complete GRE Guide | Strategies, Tips and practice tests |
| 4 | Princeton Cracking the New GRE | Test prep strategies, tips and practice tests |
| 5 | Barron’s New GRE | Test prep strategies, tips and practice tests |
| 6 | Kaplan – New GRE Premier | Test prep strategies, tips and practice tests |
| 7 | McGraw-Hill’s New GRE | Only for practice tests |
New GRE Section Books
| No | New GRE Section Book | Why Buy |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manhattan GRE – Reading Comprehension & Essays | Comprehensive Strategies for RC and Essays |
| 2 | Manhattan GRE – Text Completion & Sentence Equivalence | Comprehensive Strategies |
| 4 | Word Problems New GRE Strategy Guide | New GRE Math – Word Problems |
| 5 | Nova GRE Math Prep Course | Very Good math book |
| 6 | Barron’s Essential Words for the GRE | Verbal words for GRE. Good book. |
| 7 | Kaplan New GRE Vocabulary Flashcards | 500 Advanced New GRE Words |
| 8 | Barrons New GRE Flash Cards | No Recommended |
Official Guide to Revised GRE – Review
- Given insights into how ETS thinks
- Expert Tips for answering all questions types
- GRE Practice Question Sets (Easy, Medium and Hard)
- Provides percentage of students answered questions right (in Actual GRE Practice Test)
- 13 abilities tested in Reading Comprehension Passage.
- New GRE Official Guide – Must Buy
Gruber’s Complete GRE Guide – Review
- Gurbers Complete GRE Guide was impressive.
- Test prep strategies, tips and practice tests was good.
- Written in a way how a student would prepare by taking notes
- RC passage explanations is must different.
- Author literally split a passage into lines and explained how to attack the passage.
- New GRE Words List (Yes, you still need to read GRE words)
- Layout of the books could be improved (feels bit cluttered)
Cracking the New GRE – Review
- Princeton Cracking New is as better than old GRE pattern book.
- Strategies and tips looks like written by someone who just took GRE (impressive)
- Easy to understand and follow the GRE tips.
- New GRE Verbal Word List
- Ranked Higher than Barrons because
- Includes New GRE Word Lists
Barron’s New GRE Book Review
- Barrons New GRE book doesn’t include New GRE Word list (surprised)
- Tactics, followed by example and lots of practice tests.
- Ranked below Princeton Cracking GRE because on no wordlist
- Not sure by they decided not to include New GRE Words
- Explain where ETS takes GRE RC passages from.
Between Barrons New Book and Princeton Cracking the New GRE Books – Its matter of the style that you prefer. But, you cannot excel in New GRE with just this Book along with Official Revised GRE book. with more emphasis given to reading comprehension, you must buy book exclusive for GRE Verbal (or Reading Comprehension)
Kaplan – New GRE Book Review
- New GRE Kaplan Premier fell short compared to other books.
- You can buy this book just for practice tests
- Kaplan New GRE Verbal Workbook
- Strategies was the same fixed few steps
- I wouldn’t be able to improve my scores based on the approach suggested
- Presentation was not good.
- Reading the strategies felt I was reading GRE RC Passage.
McGraw-Hill’s New GRE Book Review
- McGraw Hill New GRE Book maybe good material for practice test
- Colorful cover design, but not so colorful strategies.
- Strategies presented will not break you score.
- Strategies were not in-depth
- Buy this book if you are looking for additional practice tests. (total eight)
Manhattan GRE Books
- Manhattan GRE consists of 8 books
- 2 Books for GRE Verbal section
- 6 Books for GRE Math Section
- I will be publishing separate reviews for each book.
GRE Test Prep Book Reviews
Some of you might prefer Princeton’s style of book compared to Barrons or Kaplan. Also, buying the GRE books will not guarantee high GRE score.
You must first understand the concepts presented in the GRE books, find out your weak area, concentrate on those areas. Thats where taking lot of practice tests will come in handy.
New GRE pattern contains several reading comprehension passages and some of them contain tough words.
Best GRE test prep books will list good strategies and test prep tips. But your GRE score is based on how you use GRE study materials.
Where to Buy GRE Books in India
Some of the above books are available in India for Low Cost Edition.
- The Official Guide To The GRE Revised General Test
- Buy Barron’s New GRE
- Buy Cracking The New GRE, 2012
- Buy McGraw-Hill’s New GRE
If certain books are not available, then try if Amazon Kindle edition is available. You can download it to your PC and read it. Don’t have to worry about shipping cost and kindle edition cost less than paperback.
Visit this page frequently for updates on other GRE Book reviews. As more book become available, reviews will be posted. Your first GRE prep book should be Official Guide to Revised GRE.(Amazon USA) Once you get to understand how GRE test designers think, then its easy to prepare based on their mindset.
About Raghuram Sukumar
Hi will u please provide me the details about GRE exam pattern along with marks
Hi, Pls i nid ur advice on which 1 to start with in my prep 4 GRE, is it to work on d verbal practise tests or to master d word list. Thanks in advance
To HSB
hello guys…one series questions . please help me ….
As HSB and others says ” preparing for GRE verbal is made easy by using flash cards “. there are couple of posts in HSB regarding preparations for verbal section , its states that , there are about 3500+ words need to be revised by useing FLASH CARDS or by REFERRING BOOKS , so i tried to ge get best flashcards , but to my surprise i came to know there are just 500+ words available in ” new editions of Barron , kaplan GRE flash cards ….( they got flash cards for maths too )
1 ) is it enough to learn only those 500+ from these new edition flashcards ?
2 ) is it better to learn all those 3500+ words , if yes . then where can i find them ( which publishers now got those flash cards for all 3500 words ?
these flashcards cost Rs 800-1000 . so need to get the best one
please help me
Hi HSB,
My GRE score is 315. (V-153; Q-162). I’m targetting top 20 univ for MS in CS.
My CGPA as of now is 9.20. Shall I retake GRE? Or is the score competitive enough?
Please help giving your suggestions… I gave my GRE on June 26th.. When can I again appear for the exam? Is it worth retaking.. Bcoz I’m targetting 325+… Please give your opinion…
Hello HSB, I wrote my GRE today Itself and scored 312( 152 verbal, 160 quants). I am surprised after getting such a low score because I was expecting about 1350. Therefore I am confused whether I will get a good university or not.
I would appreciate if you can give your suggestions on my situation…Thanks.
312 is Above Average GRE Score. You can retake, since you have time for Spring or Fall 2013.
Can you suggest me some universities in which I have good chance to get admission?
hey 312 is very gud score..the format of GRE has changed last year..ans the total score is calculated out of 340 only instead of 1600 as it was the way till last year..so dont worry..312/340 is very gud score..my frn has got admitted to an US univ with even 283 score..so dont waste time and apply to the universtities as early as possible..gud luckk
Guys , please dont go for Gruber.. waste of money…esp if u are weak in verbal…. although the RC strategies are different they aren’t always helpful… rather go for Princeton Review… This book has best strategies for verbal (though u’ll need another book for practice)..as there are very few practice drills in it… Hope it his helps…