Manhattan v. Nova for quantitative preparation

[inyarak]

Which book or combination of books is my best bet if I’m weak quantitatively? It’s been a few years since undergrad, I only took two math courses for my BA, and high school math is a distant memory.

I’m looking for preparation in each subject, but with an emphasis on math. I’ve heard wonderful things about the entire Manhattan series, but I’m balking a bit at the price. Would I be equally well served ordering the Nova math prep course plus the general Barron’s book?

[chrismagoosh]

Nova is excellent from a standpoint of a question bank. Unfortunately, NOVA's does not offer prep for the Revised GRE (so no new question types!). Nova is also a little weak on explaining problems and providing a math foundation upon which to build off of. MGRE, on the other hand, is updated for the test. It provides you with a solid grounding of the fundamentals and then 6 full-length practice tests (you need only buy one of their eight books to access the tests for free). I wouldn't recommend Barron's: while they've ostensibly updated the test, much of the material is just rehashed from their old GRE book.

Magoosh also offers plenty of math practice. Dozens of lesson videos to build a foundation and hundreds off practice questions (with both written and video explanations) help you apply what you've learned: gre.magoosh.com.

Let me know if you have any other questions .

[Dimbulb]

I have Nova's new math prep book as well as Manhattan. Manhattan is far more comprehensive but nobody, and I mean nobody comes close to Magoosh. I'll concede that I learn a bit better from hearing explanations as opposed to reading them so I may be biased but here is one more thing: Many prep books simply don't offer enough practice material. Magoosh offers hundreds of questions, you can choose the level and what portion of the quant you would like to practice.

I have had more than a few questions that I directed towards the Magoosh team and my questions were answered immediately as well as follow ups.

A great deal of prep material does not reflect the test. Magoosh comes close. Manhattan is great however, the verbal tends to test vocab knowledge while ETS tests subtleties and nuances of words. Very tricky stuff. Princeton's are far too easy, I score 160V and 155Q and was nowhere near that on the GRE. I scored 156V and 149 to 155Q on Manhattan's (average of all 6 practice tests) and was nowhere near that on the GRE. GRE quant is a mile wide and an inch deep. Memorize the fundamentals and you should see a marked improvement in your quant.

Edited November 11, 2012 by Dimbulb

[suedonim]

I started on the Nova math book a few days ago. I hate it. Bad move. I need a refresher in terms of review, and it's terrible at that. Many questions to work through, but poor explanations in addition to little review.

I'm going crazy with the math right now. I took the GRE in the 90s and scored in the 97% on math--790 at that time. I could've gone to college on a math scholarship . But I am really rusty, far more so than I expected. Haven't had a math course in 21 years, no stats in 14 years, but have been doing a little tutoring of immigrants and Jr high kids on math for a couple of years now and it all comes back in a snap. Not with Nova. I'm not sure what to do. I take the GRE on 11/28. Don't work, so I have a full week to prep, but Nova is making me feel like I've just wasted 4 days.I'm the type who just needs to get the concept, and I get them quickly, and then I'm off to the races with math. It's not clicking and I don't get it. It also seems like Nova focuses on problems that are obscure. Perhaps I've put too much time into topics given how many Q's they have.

I'm going to get a good book that reviews the concepts rather than having hordes of problems.Noen of what I've seen is really good at that. Suggestions for that?

Scrambling and scratching my head. Something's way off right now. Maybe Nova isn't very representative. I'm blowing the verbal away again like before.

p.s. Nova has come out with a new book that they say is for the revised GRE, new as of Aug or Sept. 2012, which is what I bought.

Edited November 20, 2012 by suedonim

[midnight]

suedonim, Cliffnotes Math Review for Standardized Tests and The Ultimate Math Refresher will quickly get you where you need to be as far as refreshing basic arithmetic, algebra, and geometry concepts. Both were available at my library.

Princeton Review's Cracking the GRE is great for GRE-specific math review (the tricky little ways the GRE hopes you'll screw up) and is nicely broken into quick-and-easy sections, and Barron's Six Practice Tests (along with Powerprep, of course) is amazingly similar to the actual GRE in content, variety, format, and difficulty when you're able to sit down for a few full-length practice tests. The books are not expensive and really helped me out of numerous materials that I checked out or bought for practice (albeit I wasn't striving for a perfect or near-perfect score).

[suedonim]

Thanks for the tips. I'll look into them. I really appreciate your reply.

I have ETS and Manhattan practice tests but need a review of concepts. Or maybe I don't as much as I think. I haven't taken a practice test in a while now. In the morning I'm going to take one. To be honest, I'm getting stressed out about everything right now. Yes, I have a perfectionist streak about it given my past history with standardized tests, and that's obviously counter-producitivee for me right now. My last stdzd test one was the GRE in 1993. Thank god for this place.

[midnight]

I'm sure you'll be more than fine!

And make sure to review basic probability, mean/median/mode/range, and standard deviation as well (all easy enough). I ran into those questions a lot during practice and on the actual test.

[iowaguy]

Have you gone through the (free) ETS math review?

http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_math_review.pdf

[pogopuschel]

I did the Manhattan practice tests and both the Verbal and Math scores were spot on. Exactly the ones I got on the real test.

[valkener]

Magoosh is way too hard and allthough they have video explanations they are not enough to build a true math foundation, which is why Manhatten is the right choice for you.

[WishfulThinker]

Magoosh is way too hard and allthough they have video explanations they are not enough to build a true math foundation, which is why Manhatten is the right choice for you.

Totally not agree with this, they do have "too hard" problems, but they are labeled very hard and they are just a few. Magoosh is the perfect choice for those rusty in math and for those who want a deep bank of practice questions.