Kaplan has prepared students to take standardized tests for more than 75 years. Our team of teachers and researchers knows more about preparation for the GRE than anyone else, and you’ll find Kaplan’s accumulated knowledge and experience throughout this book. The GRE is a standardized test, so every administration covers the same content in roughly the same way. This is good news for you; it means that the best way to prepare is to focus on the sort of questions you are likely to see on Test Day. The main focus of this book is on strategic reviews, exercises, and practice tests with explanations that will help you brush up on your vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing skills. If possible, work through this book a little at a time over the course of several weeks. There is a lot of material to absorb, and it’s hard to do all at once.
Part 1 of this book, “Getting Started,” provides you with background information on the Verbal Reasoning section of the test, what it covers, and how it’s organized.
The Verbal Reasoning section of the GRE contains three main question types: Text Completion, Sentence Equivalence, and Reading Comprehension. Part 3 of this book covers these types with strategies and sample questions. Your focus here should be to familiarize yourself with the question types so you won’t be trying to figure out how to approach them on Test Day.
Read the explanations to all the questions—even those you got right. Often the explanations will contain strategies that show you how you could have gotten to the answer more quickly and efficiently.
The analytical writing content review covers grammar, mechanics, and style, as well as strategies for writing effective paragraphs and essays. The final chapters of this workbook cover sample GRE prompts. Using these prompts, you can practice the skills you have learned to write strong essays. In addition to sample prompts, we’ve also included sample top-scoring essays so you can review the qualities that earn an essay a high score.
Once you have the big picture, focus on the content. Part 2 of this book, “Verbal Content Review,” gives you a complete tour of the vocabulary that you will see on Test Day. The material in the verbal content review is divided into particular subjects. Each subject begins with a review, followed by practice questions. This structure makes it easy for you to pinpoint the vocabulary concepts you need to review and quickly get your skills up to speed.
If you find that you would like access to more of Kaplan’s practice tests and quizzes, as well as in-depth instruction on the question types and strategies, look into the variety of course options available at kaptest.com/GRE.
If you have questions about what you’re studying, ask our expert GRE faculty on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/KaplanGradPrep.
Thanks for choosing Kaplan. We wish you the best of luck on your journey to graduate school.