5 lb. Book of GRE Practice Problems (Manhattan Prep 5 lb Series)

I've taken the GRE twice, two years apart. First time around - studied from ETS, Princeton Review and Kaplan. I did alright. The practice material from PR and Kaplan isn't the same level of rigor as the ETS exam, and ETS's book has a limited number of practice problems. So I did a lot of practice, but it didn't prepare me for the more difficult math and reading sections later in the test. My 2nd sections increased in difficulty and I was overwhelmed. Second time, two years later - Started with Kaplan and Princeton Review, but again was feeling underprepared. A friend recommended the 5lb Manhattan Prep book to me. GAME. CHANGER. I wish I had known about this book with more time before taking the GRE again, I probably would have also invested in some of Manhattan Prep's other study material for the quantitative section. A large part of taking standardized tests is getting a feel for the test, which only comes from lots of practice. This book gives you: -- a ton of practice, at the right level of difficulty. 500+ pages of just math practice and explanations (nevermind all of the reading and essay practice in this beast of a book) -- 30-50 practice questions for EACH topic. I found this really helpful because it allowed me to see the nuances between different kinds of probability or triangle questions, etc. At the end there are mixed sections to tie it all together, plus a section of advanced quantitative questions if you've mastered everything else. --AWESOME answer explanations. They're thorough, often detailing alternate approaches - different perspectives are really useful if you don't understand something the first time around. I'm so happy with how this book prepared me, and much happier with my score the second time around. I agree with other reviewers that ETS is still the best practice material, but this is definitely the second best book you can buy to prepare yourself. I've never felt compelled to write a review for anything until now. Buy this book buy this book, even if you only have a few weeks of studying left, it's worth it. (Side note - nothing to do with the book, but I used Magoosh's vocab app, that was also useful)

MUST HAVE for GRE prep! I ordered this two weeks before my GRE to cram study for the basic GRE and I gotta give it some major credit for my high test results! Also it was also waaaaaay more affordable than a lot of other GRE prep books. First off, please don't do what I did unless you want to spend at least 4 hours a day studying for this test because there is obviously a lot of problems in this book. However, these problems ARE exactly what you see on the GRE and steer you in the right direction to master the math quantitative portion. The solutions are also very well-written to make it clear on how they get their answer. It can be frustrating sometimes due to a minuscule amount of terribly worded questions but that's also an experience you'll go through on the actual GRE. The vocab, grammar, and essay portions are also covered well in this book! I didn't dive into it too much because it is almost impossible to know most of these words. Anyways there is a super slim chance that you'll guess the right words to know for the GRE. However, the essential words note card set that you get online for free from them does contain a lot of words that were on my GRE. For the essay portions, I advise to use the free tests the GRE site gives you since they're timed and give you examples of what to have to score in certain areas. Overall, I did extremely well on the math and above average on the English with having a very little studying window for such a big exam. This book will definitely cover every topic in-depth and explain to you the reasoning to give you the best chance of getting the score you want!

Hello soon-to-be GRE test takers, This 5 lb GRE book was the only non-ETS material I used to study for the GRE. However, I've glossed through other Kaplan/Princeton/Etc GRE books and have to say that this book is one of the best study materials you can get. The book is big, and I did not finish all the questions, partly because the questions seem to all look the same after awhile (this is a good thing!) and partly because I was lazy (this is a less good thing). I scored a 325, and the questions I mostly got wrong were in the vocabulary section and because of timing, because I didn't feel like studying vocab, and because I only timed myself on a practice test once. In my opinion, the questions in this book are generally tougher than what I had on the actual GRE (aside from vocab, as vocab is basically just vocab either way). So here is what I would do: 1. I would go through at least 1 of each section in this book - READ THROUGH THE EXPLANATIONS OF WHAT YOU GOT WRONG. 2. Then take the first ETS free practice test (download PowerPrep II onto your computer if you have one, otherwise I believe they have a paper version as well) 3. Then look over your score (ETS doesn't give you explanations, so you'll have to go by your score and intuition to see what you didn't understand) 4. Do the rest/as much as possible left of the sections in this book. If you can't finish all of them, at least do the sections that you struggled most on. 5. Then take the second ETS free practice test. 6. Then do vocabulary. This book is similar to all other GRE books in the way they attack vocab (basically try to get you to memorize as many words as possible). This works for some people, but it takes a long time, and quite often seems counterproductive if you won't remember the words after the test anyway. If you have the time and means, what I suggest to do is to read news editorials and opinionated articles and look up the words you don't know. This way, you really get the context of the word not only in the sentence, but also from the article and content itself. It is surprising how many words you've read and glossed over, thinking you knew what it meant, only to realize that you were completely wrong. I hope this review is helpful to you stressed-out students and/or nontraditional GRE takers! Good luck, friends.

This is a really good book, but I also want to critique it. The obvious positive is the number or problems. The negative is the way the book is organized doesn't prepare you for test taking mode. There are dozens of problems of every math type in the book, but on the actual test there may only be for instance 1-3 questions related to functions, but you could spend hours studying it in the book. This is all obviously up to the person studying, but the quantity of problems may misdirect your attention from covering the necessary tenants, and getting caught up on certain sections. For instance a lot of problems on the math test aren't based on algebra, but more so on particular knowledge of how math works that you would have to memorize and prepare for to complete on time. Such as how odds and evens interact in a multitude of facets, or knowing the ends digits of different quotients based on specific rules. Also on the reading section the reading feels more wordy/ verbose in this book than the actual exam, and on the actual exam it feels like the reading is simply more text per reading section with very very specific questions from the material, as well as vague inferences/ comparisons or structure of how sentences correspond to the article/ writing itself. Overall good book with lots of practice, but know the structure of the test, and buy other books for practice on test taking. Also recommend as a starter that better goes over concepts and material: Kaplan GRE premier 2017, and "The official guide to the GRE test"

Have you been looking for the ideal study tool for the GRE? If so, this 5lb book of GRE practice problems by Manhattan Prep is perfect for prospective graduate students taking the Graduate Requisite Exam. Whether you are currently an undergraduate college student or have been out of the college game for years, this preparatory book will indefinitely aid in achieving the score you need to get into the graduate school of your dreams. Personally, I was a first time GRE test taker this past summer of 2017. I can honestly say that I used this book and this book only for my studies. I found it very helpful that they not only offer endless amounts of practice problems that mirror the exam questions but, they offer their customers a free one-time online group tutor session with a Manhattan test prep instructor. I can assure you that you will find this just as useful as I did; especially knowing that I scored within the 80th percentile on each of the three sections. Not only is this considered a best-seller, it is updated to contain over 1,800 practice problems covering all three topics tested on the GRE: quantitative, verbal, and written. For your benefit, the practice problems will be very similar to the problems on the test itself. Therefore, it will benefit you to attempt to at least scan through each and every problem over the course of your prep. In addition to the oodles of practice problems, the large and legible font makes your studying sessions much easier than you may anticipate. Although you may feel overwhelmed when you first receive your 5lb book of GRE practice problems, it is crucial that you give yourself the necessary time between when you start studying and go to take the GRE. It is highly recommended that you study a minimum of 4-6 weeks before taking the GRE. Always better to be safe than sorry! For a great value of only $24.99 you can utilize this test prep book for your whole duration of studying. This test prep book will surely act as an essential tool for your studying and will guarantee you a successful experience taking the GRE.

I wanted to ask whether or not the questions in each chapter are adaptive/increase in difficulty, however, there was no Q&A section on the product page. Not sure if that's Amazon's fault or Manhattan Prep's fault. I called Amazon to find out if there is a place where I can ask my question, and they were unable to find a Q&A section either, AND they couldn't find a contact info (phone number or e-mail) for the manufacturer. This gets worse. I look online, and find a phone number for Manhattan Prep to contact them directly. I went through the automated system as someone who is interested in purchasing a GRE product. I've been listening to their terrible hold music for 8 minutes and counting now. For the manufacturer's hard-to-contact aspect, I am deducting a star. Update: person who answered the phone was very knowledgeable in the GRE and this product and thoroughly answered my questions. For those that are wondering, the questions within each chapter does indeed increase in difficulty. This is not what I was hoping for, so I am deducting a star for that. The reason I was hoping for a more mixed level of difficulty in the questions is because this is how I was planning to study for the next 3 weeks while I am on break: 1. I took the diagnostics and highlighted the questions that I missed. I REALLY like this aspect of the book: the answer chart tells you which chapter each question is from! 2. I made a list of the chapters/math topics that I had trouble with, and am using the Julia Andrews GRE math made simple book (which, I will write a review for later). I chose to use her book instead of the MP 8 book series because I don't need to work on every single one of those topics. I just needed to work on 3 topics. the Julia Andrews book is good at teaching the topics, it's very cheap, and she's got videos on Youtube. 3. After going through each chapter/topic in the JA book, I went back to the MP 5lb book chapter that correspond to the chapter I just worked on. I do 10 questions, and grade myself immediately. Mark the ones I got wrong, and will come back to redo them later. 4. Then rinse and repeat with another chapter/topic. Come back to previous chapter and do another 10 problems PLUS the ones I got wrong/circled from the first set, and hope I do better. 5. After studying for all the chapters/topics, I will do the last ~10 questions (each chapter has about 30 questions) and ones I got wrong a final time, cumulatively. 6. Take a practice test and target any persistent problem areas This plan will not work very well with the increasing difficulty of the questions because if I don't see improvements, it might be because the questions got harder or because I am not actually grasping the concepts...I won't know. In my opinion, this book would be better if there are problem sets within each chapter, rather than just 1 long section of problems. Repetition, practice, and self-test is how I learn and study, and I wouldn't be doing these things as effectively as possible with the current structure, given that I've only allotted myself 3 weeks to study. This would probably be fine if I had say 3 months to study. But I am doing this in an efficient way because I have 3 weeks...I wasn't planning on applying to Grad school until 2 weeks ago, and that is why I have these time restraints. I will update after I get my score back on how this goes. Good luck to everyone studying out there!

I would recommend this book if you were in a similar situation to me. I decided to go to grad school in early January of my third/last year of undergrad, and ordered this book around then (don't do this... most deadlines for applications had passed by that time). I took the GRE February 10... I crammed all of the math and about half of the other sections in a month. This was about 1.5-2 hours of work in the evenings after class and homework. (I did not have much of a social life for that entire month. Again, don't be like me!). My major was very light on math, in that it required none at all. So I hadn't taken a single math class since high school, a full three years ago. In terms of problems showing up word for word on the exam -- no, that did not happen. This book had similar enough problems to the actual GRE that I did feel prepared though. The process of test-taking and basic math was really all that I needed, which this book provided. If you have more time, then I recommend this book, as well as another book of your choice that has more structure. This book is great for volume of practice, and has good explanations for everything (I read through answers to problems I didn't work through -- they were all very good), but doesn't really give you a plan to tackle all the problems. The diagnostic tests I had taken before I studied at all put me around 152-154 for both quant and verbal. My official scores were 162 quant, 165 verbal, 5.5 writing (I freaked out after the test because I thought scores were out of 180, not 170 haha). So I was very, very happy to have my score go up by about 10 points for each category. Though I'm guessing my citing specific classic literature helped my writing score, because I am definitely not deserving of that score!

I cannot recommend this book highly enough! I waited to review the book until after completing the GRE Exam. I am very happy with my scores and it is all thanks to this book! Beginning with diagnostic tests, you first learn what level you are and identify your areas of weakness. From the initial diagnostic exam in the book to my GRE result, I improved both areas nearly 10 points. The first chapters are devoted to the verbal comprehension portion of the exam, and give you tons and tons of examples of every kind of question you will encounter. I am confident that I at least encountered any possible vocabulary word that could have been featured on the exam. The book then goes into the math portion. Although it does not teach you how to solve the problems like a GRE course would, it explains the process to reach the answer. Although you can use logic to reach the answer to many of the problems (it takes forever), the book provides you with useful formulas that I had clearly forgotten after completing my last math class 10 years ago. The end of the book gives you a ton of example essays and more timed practice sections. This book saved me hundreds of dollars by not taking a GRE course, and was definitely effective. Buy this book and study, study, study! Good luck!

The book is very useful for GRE aspirants as it covers questions over a wide array of topics. QUANT: All the topics in quant section have a separate chapter for practice with ample sums and detailed solution that states even the desired thought process to achieve the correct answer in shortest span of time. VERBAL: It has distinct chapters for RC, sentence equivalence and text completion each f fully equipped with loads of questions and detailed explanation for answers . AWA: There are several sample essays to refer from. Hope it is helpful!

There about 850 math problems, and I solved all of them except for "advanced math" chapter. As a result, my first quant score on November became nearly 70th percentile, not bad for a guy like me who had been apart from math for 16 years. I will keep studying with equanimity and confidence thanks to the book. A lot of problems, 850, were enough for me to familiarize to each theme like Algebra, Geometry, Standard deviation, and so on, in comparison with ETS's official guides having up to only 300 problems. "Learning per section" cannot be attained by solving OGs. This is true that OGs' are the most authentic, but we the beginner gets lost easily, and get lost. I got lost by only using when using "only" OGs in math problem sets. A caveat is that some problems of the book are straightforward, if not easy or instructive, and this is not the way actual GRE questions take. Again, familiarizing myself with each math topics with a plethora of questions was the most wonderful thing for me. Thank you for reading.

El valor que proporciona este libro es tremendo!!! Hay tantos ejercicios que no te faltarán. Y hay un montón más online. Y el nivel de los ejercicios es realmente comparable con los del GRE. La verdad es que por el valor que me proporcionó este libro pagaría el doble o más!!!

Excellent book for revision with numerous exercises and well explained solutions to the exercises.

Material muy completo, formato excelente, contenidos relevantes.