Which GRE Prep book is the best: Kaplan, Ets, etc

[smandeh]

Hello Everyone,

I am preparing to take the GRE. My intentiion is to get either 1500 or over.

Which book is the best to prepare for the GRE. I heard others in this forum alluded to Baron's book. Is Baron good for only the Vocablulary or for the Math as well?

How about the book from ETS itself. I was thinking that their book got to be good since it is published by the test maker. Any thoughts?

Can anyone who was admitted or know another person who was admitted at U.S University share with me their GRE Score. I want to have an idea what will be the desirable GRE Score for admission.
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[malachite]

Lots of people use Barron's, but I didn't get it. I have Cracking the GRE from Princeton Review, along with their Word Smart for the GRE vocab book. Really good.

The official stuff, yes, definitely get it.

[Just2LetUknow]

I just took my GRE today and I am disappointed with my verbal score since I've spent so much time on it. I got a 680 V and 750 Math. I do not know where I went wrong with the verbal section, as I was scoring above 700's on the power prep, but I suspect it was on several sentence completions and reading comp. A major reason why I did poorer may have been because I simply forgot to take the 5 minute break after the Quantitative section and my mind was still reeling from that section. Just to let you know, I had no idea what the key words on the last two questions (antonyms) on the verbal section were (Furrow and Pinion), despite 3 solid months of studying vocabulary; I don't even think I ever encountered these words. Exasperating.

In my opinion, the Barron's book is the superior of the mentioned prep courses. However, you might want to check out the GREBIBLE? if you can; its supposed to be the best. I've used the Kaplan test and breezed through the Princeton Review but I do not recommend either of them. Their strategy may help a little but the rigor of their practice exams are quite weak compared to that of the actual GRE. I was blown away by how ridiculously difficult the math section got. It started asking me some tough questions I did not know that the GRE would ask, such as on standard deviation. Come to think of it, I don't even believe the Barron book goes over it. In fact, I was so bogged by the difficulty of these questions I had like 10 minutes to go over the last 13 problems of the section and I basically skimmed and guessed the last 13 questions; needless to say, I feel I am very lucky to get the math score that i did.

I was shooting for a 1500+ like yourself, and I am tempted to take it over again, but I feel that it isn't worth my time anymore. My score seems to be on the higher end of the average GRE score for the political science programs I will be applying to. You should definitely check the schools you are interested in to see the mean scores. The GRE CAT can get ridiculously difficult but it is do able; I wish you the best.

[starter]

Very detailed comparison of top GRE books extending pluses/minuses of each book such as Kaplan's, Barron's, Cracking GRE (Princeton's Review(PR)),
and GRE Prep book by ETS on http://www.fpilus.com/undergraduates.html