My Rating of the Manhattan GRE 5LB Book

Verbal: 4/10

• Text Completions: 3/10
• Sentence Equivalence : 3/10
• Reading Comprehensions: 6/10

Quantitative: 7/10

• Probability and Combinatorics: 2/10
• Geometry: 3/10
• Algebra (Equations): 3/10
• Arithmetic: 8/10
• Data Interpretation: 8/10
• Number Properties: 8/10
• Word Problems: 8/10
• Inequalities/Absolute Values: 10/10
• Statistics: 10/10

All GRE aspirants have heard of Manhattan GRE Prep. If you want a competitive GRE score, it is highly likely that you would have consulted at least one of their many books. One of their most favorite GRE practice books is the 5LB Book of GRE Practice Problems. But given that GRE has evolved into a tougher exam in recent years, the question is whether this book still fully prepares you for the exam day? To answer this question, I have put together a detailed review of the Manhattan 5LB Book.

I will tell you everything that this book covers and how it can improve your GRE score:

• Explain what 5LB book covers, and where to buy this book
• Summarize each section of the book and assess the respective strengths and weaknesses
• Explain how to decide if 5LB is right for you

Let’s get started!

What Is Manhattan 5LB? 

Manhattan 5 Pound (or LB for short) book is a practice book with over 2000 GRE Math and Verbal practice questions. It has 33 chapters, each of which contains practice questions and drill sets. You can use this book after learning all the fundamental concepts, techniques, and strategies. This book will not teach you any of the approaches to ace the GRE. 5LB GRE book will only help you reinforce concept through tons of practice problems, drill tests, and a couple of diagnostic exams. This book’s purpose is to give you ample practice and teach you what to expect from the test format. It has easy-to-follow explanations for every practice problem. And it literally weighs 5 POUNDS!

This book is available on Amazon and can be purchased here.

Manhattan 5LB Format and Content Overview

The 5LB GRE book has four parts (33 chapters in total) with over 1000 pages.

The four parts include the following:

• Two Mini Diagnostic tests – one Quant and one Verbal, 40 questions in total
• Practice questions for every topic tested on GRE -1800+ questions in total
• Eight Mini Mixed Practice sets—four Quant and four Verbal, 80 questions in total
• Mini Math Drill sets – 100 questions in total

This may sound a lot of pages, chapters, and questions, but this book is very comprehensive. Once you know most of the fundamental concepts, this book will hardly take you more than three weeks. Moreover, most of the pages cover the explanations, so the actual content is on far fewer pages.

And if you don’t have a lot of time to finish the whole book, you can zone on the chapters where you need improvement.

What Topics Does the 5LB GRE book cover?

Manhattan 5LB book covers all the topics tested on the GRE. Here is a breakdown of every question type that 5LB covers and that you’ll encounter on the official GRE.

Quantitative

• Algebra
• Fractions, Decimals, & Percents
• Geometry
• Number Properties
• Statistics
• Quantitative Comparisons
• Data Interpretation

Verbal

• Text Completion
• Sentence Equivalence
• Reading Comprehension

AWA

• The Essays

Take a sneak peek at the table of contents of Manhattan 5LB GRE Book here.

Chapter 1 and 2

Chapters 1 and 2 contain one Math and one Verbal mini Diagnostic test. These short tests give you a bit of flavor of what the actual GRE looks like. Each test contains 20 Questions that you can self-time if you want. Quant tests should not take you more than 35 minutes, and the verbal test should take you 30 minutes at most. You can find the Explanations at the end of each chapter. As a whole, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 will help you become familiar with the exam format.

Chapter 3, 4, 5, and 6

These four chapters contain over 500 Verbal Practice questions that cover every question type tested on the GRE. Each chapter focuses on one of the four verbal question types: Text Completion, Sentence Equivalence, Reading Comprehension, and Logic-Based Reading Comprehension. 

Chapter 7 to Chapter 29

These 23 chapters contain over 1200 Quantitative Practice questions. Each chapter focuses on one subject area of the GRE. You can find the Explanations at the end of each chapter. 

Chapter 30

This chapter contains Advanced Practice Questions for Math. These questions are not likely to show up on the real GRE, and only the ‘perfectionist’ test-taker should use them.

Chapter 31

This chapter is titled “Essays.” It contains topics and sample responses on a few GRE essay topics. It also provides feedback and commentary on the sample essays from Manhattan’s 99th percentile instructors.

Chapter 32

This chapter comprises of four Mini Practice sets for English. These sets contain questions of all difficulty levels.

Chapter 33

This chapter comprises of four Mini Practice sets for Math. These sets contain questions of all difficulty levels.

Chapters 32 and 33 help build mental flexibility as they allow you to shift between different topics and problem types. If you self-time these sets, then you will also be able to test your time-pressure skills.

Appendix A

Appendix A contains all the math rules and formulas. The topic area has organized these Math Facts: algebra, arithmetic, geometry, and statistics. These are great for revisions and can be used a couple of days before the exam to do a quick refresher of the Math formulas.

Appendix B

Appendix B contains 100 Math drill questions arranged by topic (algebra, averages, circles, etc.). Go through these at the end.

Is Manhattan 5LB Good Enough for GRE Preparation?

Creating a practice problem that mimics an original GRE question is not an easy job. In the case of verbal, this job gets even more daunting. The best book is the one whose practice questions can be least distinguishable from the original GRE questions. But any publisher’s job just doesn’t end here. Students want explanations and applications of the concepts to the practice questions. 

Given these benchmarks for a good GRE book, I think that the Manhattan book has done a fair job. You can nurture your skills by practicing questions that are somewhat close to real GRE questions. A lot of quantitative questions need to be updated as this book misses on many different approaches that the GRE uses to trap its test-takers. Nevertheless, the quantitative section is still pretty useful.

However, there is ample room for improvement in the Verbal section – the reasons I’ll discuss below.

Manhattan 5LB Verbal Review

The Cons

Stay away from Chapters on Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence. The actual GRE text completion and sentence equivalence questions rely more on convoluted sentence structure than obscure vocabulary. When I first started working on the text completions and sentence equivalence, I felt like throwing the 5LB book on the wall. There are many instances where you find basic level sentences followed by some toughest words in the dictionary, which are never going to come on the actual GRE.

The sentence equivalence questions are even worse – again, you are tested more on arcane vocabulary than sentence structure. If you are good at vocabulary, you will ace these exercises but might not be the case on actual GRE where complicated sentence structure might deceive you.

Caution: Manhattan text completions and sentence equivalence questions will give you the false impression that GRE is just about vocabulary, whereas it is not. So, my advice is not to do these questions from the 5LB book. Skip the chapters of Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence.

The Pros

I like the chapters on the Reading Comprehension and Logic-Based Reading Comprehension – but I don’t like the questions. The quality of the comprehension is outstanding, and I would suggest that all GRE students read these passages to improve their reading. These passages will also help you understand difficult passages. There are enough passages to help you improve your ability to read and comprehend GRE level passages. 

Unfortunately, most of the questions associated with these passages are not like those you will encounter on the GRE. Many problems are related to a specific part of the passage, and that makes things easy.

On the other hand, logic-based reasoning questions are a good practice too. They are above the actual GRE level and are like the ones you would see on the GMAT test. Do practice these, and you will do well on the GRE reasoning questions.

Manhattan 5LB Quantitative Review

I think the quantitative portion of the Manhattan 5LB book is a bit over-rated. It no doubt has a lot of questions for practice, but are these questions like the actual GRE questions? I will say not on all topics. 

The Cons

• Every question is associated with detailed explanations, and you do not have to worry about finding the right answer if you are unable to solve a problem. But these explanations use the “Manhattan way” of solving questions. So, if you don’t know those methods to answer these questions, you will most likely get stuck in deciphering the solutions.
• The questions are not assigned any difficulty level. This is a severe area of concern since a student who is practicing using the 5LB book would not know which level he/she is at and the exact improvement areas. Although the questions are arranged in increasing order of difficulty, they do not have any assigned levels.
• Chapters on Geometry (Polygons and Rectangular Solids, Circles and Cylinders, Triangles, Coordinate Geometry, Mixed Geometry), Algebra, Exponents, Roots, Fractions, Decimals, Functions, Formulas, and Sequences are unrealistically easy. They are far from the level you will see on the test day. However, you can use them to consolidate your basic concepts. Therefore, don’t bank on them to get you a good score on the actual GRE.
• Most of the questions in the Chapters on Probability, Combinatorics, and Overlapping Sets, and on Divisibility and Primes are mostly irrelevant. Questions of that style never appear on the actual GRE. So, you might waste a lot of time and effort in solving and understanding these questions, but in reality, you won’t find anything related to them on the exam. My recommendation is to skip these chapters.

The Pros

• The Chapter on Rates and Work mostly has good practice questions on the concept of Work, Rate, and Time. But skip the questions on Speed, Distance, and Time. These questions test certain concepts that are not part of the GRE course.
• The Chapter on Standard Deviation and Normal Distribution also contains a lot of great questions. However, many questions test the concept of percentiles. Again, skip the questions on percentiles as they are not part of the GRE course.
• The following Chapters mostly contain very high-quality GRE styled questions. They cover the whole range of question types that you may see on the actual GRE. Therefore, if you do these topics from Manhattan 5LB, rest assured you are definitely in a great position to tackle these topics on the test day. You don’t need to refer any other books for these topics.

1. Arithmetic
2. Inequalities and Absolute Values
3. Percents
4. Number Properties
5. Word-Problems
6. Two-Variable Word Problems
7. Rates and Work (Except Speed, Distance, Time)
8. Variables in the Choices Problems
9. Ratios
10. Averages, Weighted Averages, Median, and Mode
11. Standard Deviation and Normal Distribution (except percentiles)
12. Data Interpretation

Of these topics, Arithmetic, Inequalities, and Absolute Values and Number properties are a little too difficult than the actual GRE. But that’s a good thing if you are aiming for a perfect score.

Should you Buy Manhattan 5LB?

Yes, you should. While 5LB GRE does not cover all the subtleties and nuances of the GRE, it does go deeper into most of the important areas on GRE Math. It may not be thorough for Verbal, but it can still be used to improve the Reading passages. You will definitely need to consult other prep sources along with 5LB to get a grip on all the GRE areas.

You can use this book to get an excellent medium-high level of practice, but it isn’t for the perfect scorers. Even the advanced quant chapter is way off. The GRE doesn’t test questions in that fashion, so doing the advanced quant chapter is a waste of time. Nevertheless, you should practice the essential sections from 5LB. 

*Manhattan 5LB is only available in paper-back hard format. It is not available as an e-book or online in soft format.

How to use the 5LB GRE Book?

To decide whether Manhattan 5LB is the right book for you, you need to consider what you want from your test prep. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Are you in the initial phase of your GRE prep?
2. Are you looking to score in the 150-160 range for the Math section?
3. Is Verbal score of little to no importance for you?
4. Do you want to solidify your fundamental concepts first before moving to an advanced level?
5. Are you just looking for a book covering all the chapters so that you become familiar with the pattern of the exam?
6. For you, does quantity matter more than quality?

If your answer is “yes” to most of the questions above, then the Manhattan 5LB GRE book will be enough for you. Manhattan GRE is a decent resource for practicing quantitative queries, but there is still a significant margin for improvement. For verbal, it needs a complete overhaul.