Reddit reviews Official GRE Super Power Pack, Second Edition
We found 7 Reddit comments about Official GRE Super Power Pack, Second Edition. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
ETS books for sure. This is stop number 1:
ETS GRE Power Pack
This is stop number 2:
https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_math_review.pdf
Use stop number two to gauge your weaknesses in math. You can then attack those areas more specifically with a book from Manhattan or online lecture videos. It's okay to use outside material for math stuff, but, for the love of god, please don't use outside materials for verbal. Only use their strategies and then apply them to the real questions.
Don't forget too that ETS has FOUR online tests -- not two. It's just that two of them cost money, but, at $39.95 each, it's a steal.
Also this PowerScore vocabulary list is on point and was clearly compiled from official materials. Most vocab lists are garbage because they heavily emphasize words that you'll most likely not encounter on the real test. However, this PowerScore list just nails them.
PowerScore Vocab List
If you're serious about studying, a month or two is enough. I got a 321 after prepping for a similar timeframe.
My recommended regime:
Start with the Official GRE Super Power Pack. This will give you the general book, verbal specific book and quant specific book. Work through each of them and do the 4 provided official tests when you see fit (2 are physical and 2 are online).
If you want to improve quant, then try out Magoosh. They're the gold standard for math prep and it's helpful to see the problem difficulty and average times, as well as getting experience working with the on-screen GRE calculator (this is a factor that not many people address).
Don't bother with Manhattan prep materials (too different from official material in difficulty and format). Just the two resources above should be enough.
You need to know the basics. That's what Khan Academy is good for, and the math review. If you don't know how to factor or convert distances and speeds, you're not going to do well. But if you just read the concepts, you likely won't internalize them. That's what practice is for!
The Manhattan series is nice for quant because you can target specific areas. Also, definitely buy the official guide and do every single problem in there. If you don't take advantage of that resource, you're shooting yourself in the foot.
Don't just do the problems, though, study them, especially those official ones. You'll likely be getting a lot of them wrong. Why did you get it wrong? What concept were you missing? What trap did you fall for? How can you avoid this mistake in the future?
Now here's the crazy part - tomorrow, or two days from now, you have to go back to those same problems you've already done and do them again. And analyze them again. You've got to internalize the process. Learning is largely by analogy: so you see a problem and think "this is similar to that other problem I did where I had to use the difference of squares." So in order to tackle new problems, you have to have a bank of old problems that you are very familiar with. The more problems you add to your knowledge bank, the greater the chance that a new problem is similar to one of them.
There's no magic formula or trick for math, progress will come slowly but steadily. You'll have about three weeks before you take the exam again, and that should be sufficient time. But make sure that every day you're learning something new and refreshing something old. As you go, you'll learn more and more about how to answer a GRE problem.
Feel free to be in touch with me if you have any more specific questions or concerns as you go!
-Magoosh Student Help
Just got this book
Official GRE Super Power Pack, Second Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1260026396/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_7T82Cb79HS6B0
Do you recommend it?
>ETS material
Thank you for this. Is this an example of the ETS book(s) you are referring to?
I was admitted to the program a few years ago. My major was in Econ/Finance never took a CS course in college.
I had a 166 Quant score on the GRE, and I believe a 158 Verbal. I think they really only care about the Quant score. I think you need to get your Quant score up.
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I suggest you buy the official GRE prep book from the makers of the exam (ETS).
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https://www.amazon.com/Official-Super-Power-Pack-Second/dp/1260026396/ref=zg_bs_11688_1/139-4028090-4420843?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=JY1CYMP0ZX7VQEQ2KWJB
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magoosh.com also had a lot of helpful material.
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I also took some intro level CS courses through Coursera. And I wrote about this in my SOP. I think taking an intro course on Coursera/Edx could help.
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