Teelee

Barrons is the closest to the actual GRE questions in difficulty. You can understand concepts easily using Princeton books, however, their questions are designed so you can use the techniques that you just learned through the book. The questions in the princeton book for quant is much easier than the actual GRE. ETS GRE prep book, the "actual exams" are almost 20 years old and not useful in prepping for current 2011 exams. It's a good book to use, if you want to teach yourself timing during exam. Kaplan is similar to Princeton, questions are ok but not great.

The classes are designed to provide students with a structured way of learning. If you think you can be motivated to learn on your own, you will do fine just using prep books. You just need strong grasp of the vocabulary words and math fundamentals (Alg I and basic geometry) to do well in GREs.

It really depends on the percentage of your GRE score as well. Most likely, you will hit around 89 to 90% for verbal score of 610 but less than 45% for quant score. If for some reason your quant is 60% or better even with a score of 420, then that means that the test questions were hard for most people and it's acceptable. If you have solid GPA, LoR, plus experience, having a low GRE score won't be as detrimental, however, when it comes to funding situation, your GRE score would be factored in. If you have the time, you should try retaking the GRE and try to aim for Q of 600 or higher. If you are having a really hard time improving your quant score, check out sample questions from the ETS websiet for the new GRE starting Aug. It may be easier for you.

If you have a strong grasp of the vocabulary words you will not have too much trouble with the new verbal section. ETS is focusing heavily on sentence completions and testing your ability to understand the context. Traditional form of memorizing all the vocabulary definitions won't help you as much. For quant, they are shifting their focus into more everyday math problem so less focus on geometry.