Positives
- Authentic Voice
- Comprehensive Math Section
- Dedicated chapters to GRE concepts
- Good Organization
Negatives
- Price
- Few Math questions are simple
- Unnecessary emphasis on vocabulary
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I would start by outrightly saying this:
“Manhattan’s GRE books are the single all-encompassing GRE prep source out there in the market.”
I find it to be a complete guide to prospective GRE students – especially those who are about to begin their prep.
Although not a single compendium, it is a series of 8 books. This format of dividing the GRE into eight different books does justice to the GRE format. Each guide thoroughly details all the critical GRE topics separately, thus replicating a pretty close-to-real feel of the GRE. The only negative aspect of this setup is that it makes the eight books a bit on the expensive side, which may prevent many students from buying all of the eight guides.
On the selection of topics, there are few that match the authentic feel of a GRE exam.
We’ve listed out some points for you to ponder. This should help with the decision making process.
In this Article
Positive Aspects
Firstly the Manhattan Book’s voice is direct, and it engages the student. It is as if you are working with a patient tutor.
The explanations given in the books are clear. They keep the language simple, which allows you to concentrate on understanding the concepts instead of scratching your head in bemusement.
Each book focuses on a particular topic, which is central in GRE. For example, an entire book is dedicated to the algebraic portion. Another covers quantitative data analysis. Furthermore, each book has chapters dedicated to every concept within a particular subject area.
The best part is that each chapter contains 30-40 drill set questions that can help students consolidate what they have learned. Moreover, at the end of each book, there are another 60 practice questions (of all types of GRE questions) broken down by order of difficulty, i.e., easy, medium, and hard. The explanations for all the problems are very student-friendly, and one hardly comes across an inexplicable statement. This is different from other books because other GRE prep books treat all concepts arbitrarily and do not give students enough material to practice.
Since the Manhattan GRE is based on a series format, the individual books do not feel as if they are cluttered with a lot of material. The content is well arranged. Even though it may not sound like the most eye-catching positive feature, but a lot of jarring and cluttered facts and figures can make the students feel awkward and even scared to prepare for the exam. A perfect example of the grating and scary format is that by Barron’s GRE book. No matter how much you try, you just don’t feel like studying from Barron’s – too much information but no structure. Manhattan eliminates that quite brilliantly.
This book will help you understand the complex world of GRE and will make you better adept at solving the questions from math and the verbal section.
Few Negative Aspects
Like I said earlier the book is pretty comprehensive as compared to the other such texts but there are a few improvement areas.
The significant issues are nominal. They do exist. Hence we have to address those for the benefit of the prospective students.
The text completions/sentence equivalence felt a bit lacking. GRE tests the convoluted structure and not just vocabulary. However, most of these questions on the Manhattan guides focus more on vocab rather than on the arcane structure. The Revised GRE has scrapped the problematic vocabulary.
The drill sets at the end of every chapter are not actual GRE level questions but simple practice questions. I think Manhattan should have added some real level questions in those drill sets. Someone who is looking for a lot of practice (especially of harder level questions) will find the Manhattan guides as insufficient. Every book contains only 25-30 serious questions, and most of the other questions are not for the perfectionists.
There are a few typos here and there, plus there are a few generalized assumptions on part of the people who have given the solved answers. Even though the book tells you not to assume the answers, I guess that irony didn’t dawn on the publishers.
The section for combinations and arrangements (in the Statistics book) didn’t explain how combinations work. Instead, it just went straight into just how to fill out a chart or plug numbers into a formula.
The price is one of the things that may stop someone from going for this book as mentioned earlier. It does work a negative for Manhattan’s GRE Book. Students will always go for the cheaper option available if they are not aware of the subtle differences in the GRE practice books
In Conclusion:
To summarise, Manhattan GRE Books do deliver on most of its parts, and that allows the students to use it as a valuable resource. Yes, there are few chinks in its armor, but those can be ignored. If the price is an issue for you, you can still buy each guide separately. So if you know that Algebra is your weakest area, you might just consider the Algebra book, instead of the whole series. This will save you money!
At the end of the book, you will find a scratch code that you can use to access Manhattan’s six online adaptive tests. And I highly recommend these six practice tests.