Essential Words for the GRE

by Philip Geer

An extensive working vocabulary is a prerequisite for success on the Graduate Record Exam. This popular manual presents 800 college-graduate-level words with definitions that frequently appear on the exam. The book begins with a pre-test to help readers assess strenghts and weaknesses. Additional features include:
An overview of the Verbal Reasoning question types found on the GREMatching and sentence completion exercises for all word listsAn analysis of essential word rootsSuggested study plans, and much more...
The book concludes with a post-test to assess progress. Answers are provided for all exercises and for all questions in the pre- and post-test.

Genres: Reference, Education, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Linguistics, School

416 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2007

Reviews

[Pouria]

I used this book as an online course in memrise.com:
https://www.memrise.com/course/121215...
This book was my third priority for GRE and memorizing its words with memrise was much easier because of the available pronunciation and recurrent review tests.

[Roya]

So many words, my mind feels numb.
But seriously, I feel like I have entered a WHOLE NEW LEVEL of existence!
Like, Seriously.
(one star's forfeited for the sake of too many inaccurate, even incorrect, definitions)

[Devon]

Done, bitches!

[Yasmin M.]

Finishing a book like this won't necessarily mean you know all the words. But I gotta say it's one great source for people who don't know where to start.

[Sarah A]

When I was very young growing up in the Philippines, one of the things I was fascinated of is the English language. Not to say I am proficient of the language. I simply like to learn new vocabularies, phrases, sentences, etc. So when I was studying for the GRE (and praying to tackle the new revised exam), I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This book teaches the important words you need to know in units of ten words each, along with their parets of speech, mostly commonly used definititions on the GRE, and illustrative sentences showing how words are used, and SO. MUCH. GOOD. STUFF! :) My only complain is that the book did not provide the pronunciation of the words. Other than, it is one of those books I would love to take with me everywhere I go. And I literally do.

[MJ]

I tutor a variety of subjects in my spare time, so I’ve been reviewing test prep guides. This book is well organised and includes several vocabulary lists and exercises. However, I find that the vocabulary is rather easy, especially if you went to high school or college. I think students would be better served by curating their own vocabulary lists and using vocabulary.com than using this book.

[Fyo]

I thought this was a pretty helpful book. I actually learned quite a few words and the exercises were worth doing. My suggestion would be to go through the book, marking words you know and don't know and going from there.

[DrewB]

Good words with very good exercises to learn them

[Moustafa Sheikh Debes]

Upgraded me to the next level

[Alexandria]

This book was extremely helpful to me. Even though a lot of the words in this book didn't show up on the test. Because there was about 8 questions that dealt with picking the right word, so the probably was very low anyways, I think it helped a lot. I did see some words from here on the test though!

I liked the way they set up the techniques for learning the words. They have you learn the words in about four different ways which really helps. You read the definition in sets of ten. Then match the definitions. Then use them in a sentence and finally you have to tell if the word makes sense in the provided sentence. I think this was a very useful way to helping remember the words.

I have the say I didn't use the Roots part of the book. I didn't have enough time to get that far. So I can't say if that was helpful or not.

Overall, I'm VERY glad I bought this book because it even helped me learn a lot of words I hear everyday but didn't know their exact meanings. So helpful.

[Jacob]

A great resource. You get out what you put in and this more than prepares you. However, while studying for the GRE, this wasn't as compact as it should have been for a supplemental resource. Too many words and some of the 300 highest frequency words didn't even have definitions in the book!
A fine tool though.

[Kate]

Much more effective than simply staring down a long list of words and definitions.

[Jenny]

Well my vocab is bigger. That was the goal. Goal met. I found a few typos that really kinda honked me off. Who proofreads books nowadays?

[Steppenwolfe]

Very geeky, but I'm getting a tremendous kick out of this book!

[Ali]

-Idiotically sorted alphabetically
-Erroneous word definitions

[Rajeev Kamboj]

its a very good book