<table><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="2"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375754172/gmatclub0c-20?dev-t=D12SE2OB5WPKEB%26camp=2025%26link_code=sp1"><img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0375754172.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg" align="right" border="0" alt="Click to buy from Amazon: Verbal Workout for the GMAT (The Princeton Review)"/></a></td><td rowspan="2">   </td><td valign="top" class="gcNormal">:: <a class="gclink_undecorated" href='http://www.gmatclub.com/content/resources/reviews/index.php?changeCategory()&browse()'>reviews home</a> » <a class="gclink_undecorated" href='http://www.gmatclub.com/content/resources/reviews/index.php?changeCategory(%2Fbooks)&browse()'>Books</a> » <a class="gclink_undecorated" href='http://www.gmatclub.com/content/resources/reviews/index.php?changeCategory(%2Fbooks%2Fverbal)&browse()'>GMAT Verbal Guides</a><br/><br/><b>Verbal Workout for the GMAT (The Princeton Review)</b><br/><i>Douglas French; </i><br/>Price: $11.20; Used: $10.48<br/><br/><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375754172/gmatclub0c-20?dev-t=D12SE2OB5WPKEB%26camp=2025%26link_code=sp1"><img border="0" src="http://www.gmatclub.com/design/templates/gcCatalog/books/buy.gif" alt="buy from amazon"/></a></td></tr><tr><td class="gcNormal"><br/><br/>If you are picking between PR's and Kaplan's workbooks, go for Kaplan. You can read my review on Kaplan's workbook, so I won't comment much on that book in this review.

Issues with PR's Verbal Wrorkbout:
1. Question quality - I have seen a lot of GMAT materials and sometimes questions are not very close to the authentic gmat questions. This time, they are quite far. The greatest difference comes in Critical Reasoning. Very often the logic is quite off and confusing. The explanations are helpful, but for a person who is very familiar with OG and PP, the difference will be obvious immediately.

2. Question Difficulty - PR is known for easy questions; this book is not entirely easy, but the hard questions are unreasonable; GMAT logic is very limited - it does not go more than 2 two speps. PR on the other hand makes questions either too easy or too complicated, and neither is good. Reading overall, is fairly easy.

3. Tricks the magic tricks. Yeah, right. PR is famous for its "magic tricks" that don't really work on the real test but work flawlessly in the practice books. Many of the questions are tailored to fit the special rules PR makes up. Some tricks are legitimate (such as GMAT never puts minorities or women in poor light); others are common sense (don't go for extreme answer choices), but a lot overemphasise tricks over understanding the grammar, logic, and reading methods.

4. This book has fewer questions than does Kaplan's Verbal Workbook.

5. It spends a lot more on blah, blah, blah, which really does not stay in the memory; could be more condensed.

6. Paper quality is poor; it is printed on the really cheap recycled paper and does not help studying.

Good things:
It has a bigger section on grammar than Kaplan, however, both books are not enough if you are an international student. The grammar covered in both books emphasizes mostly style (parallel constructions, etc) and does not go through the basics of subject verb agreement, adjective rules, modals, or subjunctive. If you are non-native English speaker, get a grammar book - many of the TOEFL books have fabulous grammar sections. I can recommend one, but it is out of print (1995 edition of Cliff's; the 2000 edition is not good, however). Good Luck on the GMAT!

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