Kaplan GRE 2011 Premier with CD-ROM (Kaplan GRE Premier Program (W/CD)) Review

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Kaplan GRE 2011 Premier with CD-ROM (Kaplan GRE Premier Program (W/CD)) ReviewAfter a month and a half of studying with Cracking the GRE with DVD, 2011 Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation) and this Kaplan book, I took the GRE today and can say that between the two I was extremely well-prepared. I began with Princeton and reviewed all the material in that book, including the practice tests, and then moved onto Kaplan, subsequently reviewing all the Kaplan material and using the DVD quizzes and tests as well. Here are my thoughts on the positives and negatives of the Kaplan GRE Premiere 2011 book (with CD) compared to the Princeton Review Cracking the GRE 2011 (with DVD) book:
Positives:
- Reading Comprehension: Kaplan's material on Reading Comprehension is fantastic. Kaplan lays out their strategy for you and then beats it in your head over and over with example after example to get you comfortable with reading and analyzing passages their way. They do this much better than Princeton Review and for some reason they spend an inordinate amount of time and space doing it for Reading Comprehension, but not for other verbal sections. If you hate reading passages, you may hate Kaplan for the amount of times they make you do it, but they will sure as heck make sure you know what to do when you see one on the test.
- Practice questions: Kaplan's book has long sections of practice questions after both verbal and math, and these, in my opinion, are better than what Princeton gives you. Princeton gives you the same thing, but they split them into sections of easy, medium, and hard questions, which is nice and all, but kind of pointless since the real test isn't like that. Kaplan gives you a bunch of questions all at once that vary in difficulty, and I think that's more helpful because it's a little more true to the test format, which will change in difficulty depending on your performance.
- Practice quizzes: Kaplan's website contains six practice quizzes which are generally around 30 questions each, typically around 10-12 math and the rest verbal. They are untimed and are a great way to practice at the computer if you've got a spare 45 minutes to an hour to brush up on your skills. Unfortunately they are only graded on a percentage, but again it's good for practice when you don't have the time or will to do a full test.
- Practice tests: Kaplan's book has one full paper practice test, while the website has one practice test that is just math/verbal (with the appropriate times and numbers of questions), and then three full CAT practice tests that also contain the essays. Additionally, the website has four practice essays. Unlike the Princeton Review tests, Kaplan has done a great job of making their practice tests look just like the real GRE. What you see when you do the Kaplan tests is essentially what you'll get when you take the real test, so it won't be a surprise. These practice tests are graded on the 800/800 scale and in my experience were a little easier than the Princeton tests, but that may be because I had already been studying for quite a while by the time I got to the Kaplan tests.
- Vocab: Kaplan's book has a couple sections in the back which give you similar GRE-style words all put into groups, which is helpful for learning synonyms, and then also goes over the roots of words, which is helpful if that's how you want to learn. Neither of these is my learning preference, but it's good to know they're there. For comparison purposes, Princeton has "The Hit Parade," four lists of 75 vocab words that are defined with practice tests at the end of each lists. There are also two "Beyond the Hit Parade" lists that contain extra words. Not sure why they split them, but fyi, that's what Princeton gives you for vocab if you have a preference. I prefer the Princeton method.
Negatives:
- Remaining verbal sections: Sorry Kaplan, your remaining verbal sections are not very good. They explain what to expect and how to do them, but that's essentially it. Where Kaplan pounds Reading Comprehension into your head, Princeton pounds everything else into your head. Don't expect thorough explanations and tips on the Analogies, Sentence Completion, or Antonym sections.
- Math: For some reason the Kaplan math section assumes you know all the fundamentals already and only tells you how to do each problem type (quantitative comparison, etc.) with very little actual math explanation. They have a section in the back of the book that goes over fundamental math, from fractions and decimals to permutations, but why not just put it all up front? Why assume your readers know it all already and then confuse people who may not know how to do the problems and then make them go to the back of the book to look it all up? Additionally, I found that Princeton did a better job of seriously breaking down the math to its most simplest methods, making it fairly foolproof, whereas Kaplan either overcomplicates or does a horrible insufficient job of explaining.
- In-section quizzes: Kaplan gives 3-4 questions at the end of each section in the book, which is really not enough to make sure the reader understands the concepts. Princeton gives a good 9-10 in general for each section. Furthermore, for whatever reason Kaplan has decided to put the answers immediately after the questions, meaning that you'll have to in many cases cover up the pages to avoid accidentally seeing the answers as you are doing the questions. It was a really bad idea and they should have put them on a separate page. Also, for some reason they only explain certain answers, leaving others with just the correct letter and no reason why.
- Readability: Kaplan is easy enough to follow in general. Princeton is just easier. The language in Princeton is extremely casual and often feels like you're just having a conversation with a friend, it's written so informally. You may prefer the Kaplan level of formality more, but I found that it was easier to follow Princeton.
- Practice essays: Yes, I put the presence of many practice essays as a positive above with the practice tests. However, Kaplan makes you grade your own tests, which I think is fairly pointless. You get practice, which is good, but you're not a professional essay grader, so expecting you to give yourself an accurate essay score based on the extremely vague rubric and perfect examples is asking a bit much. Princeton will grade your essays for $5.99 a pop.
- The CD: Yeah, I have Vista 64-bit and couldn't get it to work. I kept getting errors when I tried running it. Thankfully the website is an extremely useful alternative, but like many others, I couldn't get the CD to work on my computer.
Overall I hesitate to recommend one book over the other. While I feel that Princeton Review does nearly everything better than Kaplan as far as the book material goes, except for Reading Comprehension, Kaplan blows Princeton out of the water with the availability of online practice material. Kaplan seriously goes above and beyond with the amount of practice they'll give you on their website, and they ought to be highly commended for that. Ultimately I think that having both books was really the best course of action, as Princeton will help you learn the material and how to do the questions, and Kaplan will help you to practice it. I also went through the Kaplan GRE Exam Vocabulary in a Box in its entirety, studying the last few unknown words right up to my last few minutes at the stoplight on the way to the testing center. Several of the words did come up on the test, and I think it was very helpful to go through and learn the vocab, even words that didn't come up.
Bottom line: if you are going to get this Kaplan book, I highly recommend you supplement it with the Princeton Review book, which really does a MUCH better job of teaching you the material. If you rely on the Kaplan book on its own you'll be in pretty good shape, but Kaplan doesn't even come close to teaching as well as Princeton. I highly recommend the dual combo, and maybe even that vocab box as well. As I said, with the combination of all three, I did extremely well on the test today. If you really only want to spend money on one, I suggest you go for the Princeton Review book. It'll teach you the material really well and the amount of practice you'll get is adequate. You won't have as much practice material as with Kaplan, but you'll probably be fine. If you can get both, get both.
*Please note that after August 1st, 2011 the GRE test will be changing. These books will probably still be somewhat relevant, but certain questions will be exiting and other new ones will be coming in.
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