Kaplan GRE Exam 2009 Premier Program (w/ CD-ROM) (Kaplan Gre Exam Premier Live),   ISBN:9781419552069

Customer Rating: 

Pros: It's a book. If you get cold you can burn it for heat.

Cons: CD does NOT work with VISTA. This is a known issue that they don't give a **** about and have no intention of fixing. They have a canned message when you email their support. Over half the practice tests are on the CD and they have NO intention of patching it or even trying to make it work with Vista.

From their customer support:
"Thank you for contacting Kaplan's Books and Software division. The CD's are not fully compatible with Windows Vista 32-bit. It is not compatible with Windows Vista 64-bit."

If it doesn't work with Vista god help you if you try to make it work with Windows 7.

You have to email their support. They do not have a phoneline. They will not answer the phones. If you try to call a different section they will tell you to email that department and they can not help you.

DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT. Kaplan has lost all respect for their customers and resorted to cheap tricks to try and sell their courses. They do not care at all about their books. The latest editions are riddled with errors. Kaplan does NOT care about their books, only getting you into their thousand dollar courses. I say they need to learn to treat their customers with respect.

Customer Rating: 

This one is a good choice for GRE prep.

Verbal - I am particularly happy with this part. Instead of Baron's approach of going through endless word list, Kaplan focuses on the idea that to ace GRE, you need not necessarily know each meaning, but you should be able to club them with other synonyms or antonyms. The book has an entire section to that effect. I highly recommend using this book for math portion.

Quants - It is okay okay! In the actual exams, I got much tougher problems than is mentioned anywhere in this book. I would recommnend if you are looking at 750+ scores, then this book is not the best choice for quants. I have heard princeton is good with quants, but would not swear for this statement.

Overall, I managed 780 in Quants and 630 in verbal, so if someone buys only one book, then I will recommed buying the KAPLAN.

Customer Rating: 

Like the title says, I really wasn't expecting from this book. Most of the SAT books I read back in high school didn't do much but reinforce things I already knew. Kaplan's book stands above the rest because it doesn't focus on testing test materials. Instead the book focuses on test strategies, which I found to be VERY helpful.

Customer Rating: 

This book contains a math preparation section, but it assumes that you have only average math skills. There is a section in the back of the book that reviews more difficult math ideas, but does not provide any strategy. It states that you'll only see these problems if you're doing really well. I was doing well, so they were the only problems I saw. So, if you're good at math, don't get this book. I would actually recommend studying from a GMAT prep book, instead.

Customer Rating: 

The only think that stopped this from being a 5 start was that the book I ordered comes with an online study guide that can only be registered once. Since the book did not include the log in information for the study guide I was not able to log into this valuable tool. The book was in good condition and the CD works great! The shipping was fast and this was a very smooth transaction. Just be aware that any books that have an online guide, may not be accesible more then once, this was worth the costs and though I don't have my scores yet I am learning a lot and I feel better about taking the exam!