Top GRE Test Prep Books

The following are the top preferable books for revised GRE new pattern 2012 August:

1. New GRE 2011-2012: Strategies, Practice, and Review

Kaplan has several GRE prep books but this one is clearly the best. It includes a DVD and 5 online practice tests (over 900 questions!). Identify and address your strengths and weaknesses for your best GRE score. Proven score-raising strategies from Kaplan experts and detailed explanations of answers.

2. Cracking the GRE, 2013

Published by top GRE instructors at The Princeton Review, this new edition covers the Revised GRE in detail. It includes practice questions with detailed explanations for every question, strategies for solving questions, review of all GRE topics, online video supplement and access to 4 full-length practice tests (2 online and 2 in the book)

3. Barron's New GRE 19th Edition

Barron's new GRE manual offers intensive practice and review for all question types - new and old - plus a diagnostic test and two full-length model GREs with answer keys and explanations for all questions answered. The authors also present a test overview and valuable chapters on test-taking tactics.

4. The Official Guide to the GRE revised General Test

Written by the publisher of the GRE, the Educational Testing Service, this book describes the Revised GRE and includes questions and topics from actual tests administered worldwide. It contains covers all the new question types and includes practice questions of each type, incuding sample analytical writing topics.  It also includes a full GRE test on CD. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GRE Guide Books and Practice Tests

ETS OFFICIAL GUIDE

This book is a MUST for now. It will give you detailed instructions on the new GRE and gives you a decent number of questions to practice and the strategy to handle each type of question. ETS people have explained the answers to all the practice questions and going through the explanations once would be a good strategy as it will really give you an insight on how to analyze questions and think along the lines of test makers.

Tests

It has 1 paper based test at the back of the book and 1 on the CD that comes with the book.

How to handle paper based test is at you discretion. It is different from computer based as for each set it gives you 25 questions for verbal in 35 minutes and 25 quant questions in 40 minutes which is not the case in computer based test. Detailed explanation of all the answers is present after the test. Taking it as untimed or timed practice test is your choice but I would suggest you to take it as timed test for obvious reasons!

The test on the CD is same as the one present on ETS website with the name POWERPREP II. Giving POWERPREP II timed test is a MUST before taking the actual exam as it will familiarize you with the actual exam interface and the instructions. The questions are presented in the same format as would be in the real exam and the difficulty level on both the ETS test is closest to what you will experience during the exam.

P.S. On page 133, they have given the math conventions. Quickly browse through them once as they give some clarifications which might not be very obvious.

This book is available on Flipkart.

BARRON'S 19th EDITION

This edition misses out on the content which had been the USP of Barron's GRE guidebooks: wordlists. This book has decent no. of sentence completion exercise and very few comprehension questions but the number of tests offered offsets the shortcoming. This book has some good tips on writing essays and solving comprehensions. Rest of the tips are average. It's not necessary that all the tips are useful. Use the ones you are comfortable with.

Tests

The book comes in 2 variants. One with CD and one without CD. You know which book you need to buy or arrange and from where you can get the CD. ;)

The book has 2 sample tests at that end and 2 tests in the CD. The book tests' structure conform with the computer based test and it would be good to give them as timed tests. The CD test's user interface is not same as GRE's interface and there is no option of jumping back and forth while in the middle of a set. You can only do it once you reach the end of the set. Also, the graphs and the charts are not quite obscure in all the questions, whether on CD or on book. Do not get vexed and continue. In official GRE, they are appropriate and won't be much of a problem.

CAUTION: The software in the CD is a faulty one. After you have completed a test, do not get disappointed by the marks. Software's checking system is faulty. Also, if you try to jump to questions after finishing the test, the software hangs and you have to kill the process. To get around the problem, start the test again and this time start it as untimed test. Go to each question and see the correct answer and check all the answers yourself.

Verbal difficulty level of the book is same as the original GRE.

This book is available on Flipkart.

KAPLAN'S NEW GRE 2011-2012 : STRATEGIES, PRACTICE AND REVIEW

This book has a good number of practice problems and some good tips on writing essays. Rest of the tips are average. Behind the book, you will find some material for learning words. Many of those words are high frequency words. There is also a section dedicated to word roots. Learning them will help you deduce meanings of many words.

Tests

At the end of the book, there is a test conforming with the computer based test and you get a unique ID with the book which you can use to take the online test. Although I found the test behind the book average and not up to the challenge, there is no harm in giving the test as a timed test. I couldn't give the online test, so can't comment on it.

Verbal difficulty level of the book is a bit lower than the original GRE.

This book is available on Flipkart.

Personal Review

The revised pattern definitely moves away from just vocabulary cramming but the multiple choice questions and sentence completion with 3 blanks (9 options!) maintain the test's difficulty. The option of moving back and forth and marking questions for review is also helpful and should be used to the fullest. Giving as many tests as possible and developing a strategy accordingly is important.

Along with 2 predefined verbal sets, my experimental set was also verbal. In all the 3 sets, the structure was same. First 5-6 questions would be sentence completion, next 5-7 questions would be comprehension, followed by 4-5 sentence equivalence questions and then followed by 3-5 comprehension questions. This was the pattern I observed and should not be taken strictly.