Big Book Verbal v. Power Prep Verbal

[secondarydefinitions]

How do the Big Book Verbals compare to Power Prep and the real GRE? I take the Big Books as if they were computer adaptive, not going back to previous problems, and I find them more difficult than the Power Prep. I started off with a 670 in Verbal off one of the Power Prep tests and then I studied a few word lists and I did about half the big book tests, typically missing 5 or 6 per single Verbal Section by the end (best score was -3, and I definitely had a couple -8's in there, one towards the end). After this I took a Power Prep and got a 750 but I just took a single Big Book (#23, sec. 1) and got a -6 again, so I am a little bit confused. -5 or -6 on a BB seems to be in the 700-710, perhaps 720, range but I got the 750 on Power Prep and I just felt more in control the entire time. I think it might be the number of questions that makes BB more difficult, and I think also the material might be harder; I seem to remember cruising through the Power Prep and I am always right down to the line on BB and have to work my ass off on several questions (from all types, even the occasional sentence completion), sometimes getting the answer and sometimes not. On PowerPrep even with a 750 clip I did not feel like I encountered as many hard questions. What does everyone think?

Edited July 2, 2011 by secondarydefinitions