G**P
A solid book that is not just about testing: standby writers!
Vibrant Publishers continues to produce books that are aids to those preparing for graduate education (for those who question the title, The Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) is a standardized test that is an admissions requirement for many graduate schools in the United States). And for those who are preparing for their GRE this little concise book is a terrific aid. As the Preface to the book states, `Students will face new types of questions in reading comprehension, sentence equivalence and text completion, and the average difficulty-level has gone up. The greater focus now is to test how well the student understands the context and is able to infer the right conclusions. This means merely learning vocabulary words by rote is not a good idea. Students looking to crack the verbal reasoning section need to develop a broader understanding of the vocabulary and relevant context. The emphasis is on complete understanding rather than just word-meanings. Synonyms, antonyms and parts of speech are included to expand your thinking horizons.'Now having that out of the way, the reason this book is so valuable to everyone who communicates in writing is the choice of words that are offered here to enhance the vocabulary. For those who write professionally and those who write reports for business or comments as in reviewing, this little book contains some elegant words that not only add numbers of available words to the writer's spectrum but also provides synonyms and antonyms for that word. Everyone who writes comes across word constipation or writer's bloc when trying to express an idea but just can't find the right word. That is when this book of 491 words comes in handy. The words are placed in alphabetical order and just thumbing through the book offers insights as to how to express that nascent idea more elegantly - or at least better. So the book is indeed a great help to GRE preparers, but it also belongs alongside every writer's place of creativity. Well worth the investment. Grady Harp, February 13
