Total Page : 480
Publisher : Kaplan Publishing
Publication Date : 2008 08 05
>> Decent
I bought this for my sister in law who at the time was a sophomore and who wanted a head start at studying for her GRE She gave great compliments to the information included as it helped solidify her desire to study psychology However this should not be used as your only resource for studying for the GRE As other reviewers have noted the book does contain some typos and formatting errors
>> Good Start but not Enough
This book is a good start for getting ready for the PSY GRE but it s not enough I used this book the Princeton Review book David Myer s Intro to Psy book as well as my other textbooks and of course the internet The best way to use this book is to a read the chapters so you re familiar with the basic concepts b look up names and studies that you re unfamiliar with on the internet c make flashcards of concepts and psychologists you think are important
The practice tests are not good predictors of the actual GRE but are more of a studying tool I scored in the low 700s on each of the practice tests but scored an 830 on the actual test so my scores in the Kaplan practice exams were at least 1 SD away from my score in the actual exam Still it was useful in that it showed me what my weaknesses were
Also if you re hard up for cash these books are usually at your local library and they don t change much if at all from year to year
>> This book was a very important part of my preparation
I am perfectly happy that I bought this book because it did exactly what I had hoped it would do help me score in the 99th percentile 830 on the psych GRE But it is not enough by itself If you rely on this book as your primary means of test preparation you probably won t get a stellar score
This book was only ONE PART of my overall preparation strategy More important to my preparation was reading a Psych 101 textbook Specifically I bought a cheap used copy of Gleitman s introductory psych book Psychology 6th Sixth Edition and read it section by section When I completed a section of the textbook e g Sensation and Perception I would go the Kaplan book and read the corresponding chapter there That way I covered the material twice After reading both the textbook and the Kaplan chapter I would then go to the website for the Gleitman textbook where you can find online quizzes and vocabulary reviews After taking the quizzes online I knew if there were any areas I didn t understand and/or needed to review further Fortunately there are lots of resources on the web for studying any areas you need to work on
And of course I made flashcards of vocabulary theories and important psychologists And I took practice tests And I re reviewed everything A lot Basically what I m saying is that it takes a good amount of time and effort The Kaplan review book isn t going to work miracles by itself
While the Kaplan review book was helpful in my preparation in my opinion it has two deficiencies 1 The methodology and statistics section of the book is not thorough enough Do what I did and go to internet to get bit more information on things like ANOVAs and factorial design 2 The practice tests are almost worthless They are incredibly poorly written as far as diagnostic tests go and in no way do they approximate the real Psych GRE tests I took the first one but I didn t bother with the second Do yourself a favor and find the real ones
It has been 10 years since I graduated with my bachelor s in psych so I had forgotten a fair amount of stuff Despite that using the Kaplan book as an important part of my preparation I managed to score very well on the test If you devote a few months to your preparation and take it seriously you should be able to do the same If you don t I m not sure how much this book is going to help you
