Choosing the best GRE prep book is the first step on your path to graduate school. Furthermore, selecting a GRE book from a seemingly unlimited supply might take a lot of work. 

GRE prep books come in various flavors, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Because no single book can teach you everything you need to know about the GRE, I recommend studying from various sources.

Every firm claims to have created the "best" GRE prep book. Some publications provide actual practice exams.

Some offer excellent approaches to the questions. Others, on the other hand, provide suitable practice activities.

Choosing the correct book for a practical prep guide depends on critical factors. Let's have a look at some of those characteristics.

What makes a good GRE book?

• GRE questions are formatted in a certain way. Too generic practice questions will miss the intricacies of GRE questions. A decent GRE prep book would provide practice questions similar to the actual GRE.
• A good GRE prep book would include effective tactics for taking the test. They would advise you on how to manage your time, what to do when you are unclear about an answer option, how to make an educated guess, how to exclude particular answers based on context clues, and so on.
• A solid GRE prep book would explain why a specific answer is accurate. It outlines the techniques you can use to remove incorrect response options and reduce them to probable correct answers even if you need the precise solution.
• Any ideal GRE prep book would feature full-length practice examinations similar to the real one. Real-world practice examinations familiarise you with the GRE structure.

As previously said, no one book will meet all of the requirements listed above, but knowing which books meet which criteria 

1. Official GRE Super-Power Pack

Each area of the GRE has its chapter in the book that explains the various question styles. There are practice sets after the book, followed by explanations. Two full-length practice examinations are free on their online tool, Powerprep.

PROS

• These three volumes provide the most realistic and GRE-like questions in any book.
• This pack is ideal if you want to buy only a few books from different publishers.
• These instructions categorize questions as simple, medium, or challenging.
• A comprehensive chapter on the AWA section
• The official ETS GRE prep guide is one of the few that devotes a complete chapter to the AWA part. Essays might be challenging to grade since they do not include "particular response questions."

CONS

• The official GRE Guide's verbal portion needs more in-depth explanations of why confident response options are erroneous.
• Unlike many other publications, ETS does not include a list of terms.
• Not only are the explanations succinct, but they are also phrased so pupils can grasp them.

2. Manhattan Prep GRE Set of 8 Strategy Guides

There are a total of eight books in the collection. These are the books to buy if you want to go above and beyond with your GRE preparation.

Most GRE books would contain sections dedicated to each of the GRE sections. Some book sets include separate books for quantitative and verbal components.

On the other hand, Manhattan has each volume dedicated to a specific quantitative topic.

Six of the eight books cover quantitative themes. They are as follows:

• Algebra
• Fractions, decimals, and percentages
• Geometry
• Number properties
• Word problems
• Quantitative comparisons and data interpretation

The verbal books are:

• Reading comprehension and essays
• Text Completions and Sentence Equivalence

PROS

• Incredibly comprehensive
• Eloquent style
• Very well organized
• Plenty of drills and practice tests

CONS

• Verbal guides are not as good as quantitative
• Too costly
• Bottom line

3. Manhattan’s 5Lb GRE book

As the name implies, Manhattan's 5LB Prep GRE book is a large book with over 1800 practice problems. The book includes questions from both quantitative and verbal parts. The focus is on practice. It will not teach topics from the ground up.

PROS

• Variety of practice questions
• Advanced quant for higher learning
• Detailed answer explanations

CONS

• Not all questions resemble actual GRE
• Obscure vocabulary
• Non-Context based questions
• Bottom line

4. Kaplan’s GRE Complete

Kaplan's GRE Complete, which includes 1700+ practice problems, is the newest addition to their GRE training program. The first book is a generic GRE guide. It will go through the details of the GRE, such as format, time duration, scoring method, etc.

The second book is Kaplan's GRE Math Workbook, which focuses on the quantitative component of the GRE. The math workbook has a series of GRE-style math questions. You will learn the formulae and strategies needed to solve quantitative issues.

"GRE Verbal Workbook," the third volume, is devoted to GRE verbal questions and methods. You will be given a full guide to the verbal portion and detailed explanations and methods.

PROS

• An abundance of practice questions
• 6 Computer-based GRE full-length practice tests
• Additional online learning material

CONS

• Some practice questions do not resemble GRE
• Quantitative questions lack complexity
• Full-length GRE practice tests lack difficulty
• Bottom line

5. Princeton Review GRE Prep

The book is divided into four sections. The first section serves as an orientation and basic overview of the GRE, how the exam operates, how it is formatted, how the scoring system operates, and so on.

The 2nd half is all about the verbal section. You'll discover a vocabulary list of the most prevalent GRE terms. You will discover ways to answer appropriately.

The quantitative component is the focus of the third section. The math segment, like the verbal, will begin with the fundamentals. It will offer you ideas and tactics for dealing with any question type.

The fourth and last segment is devoted to analytical writing. This component is significantly shorter than the verbal and math parts. It will teach you how to write an "argument" and a "problem essay."

PROS

• Great test strategies
• Explanation of fundamental concepts
• Four full-length practice tests

CONS

• Sub-par math section
• Practice tests are not authentic
• Strategies not as reliable as they seem
• Bottom line