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Rating: 
Summary: Lets be fair, it does what it is supposed to do.
Review: Having read all the reviews I am not quite sure why people are so unhappy. Yes, this is not an exciting page turner, but it is not supposed to be. It sais on the cover "4 Full-Length Exams" and this is what you get, sample exams and explanations for questions. There will never be a book that will tell you how to "crack" the CS GRE, because such a book would have to contain the information of about five textbooks. The only way to study for a CS GRE is to use this book to get an idea of the questions (plus the sample test ETS sends you). If you cannot answer the question then go to a textbook and read the corresponding chapters, so when you come back you can answer the question. Ideally, you are a CS Junior in Undergrad and know that you will be taking this test. This way study for this from the start, while still in class.
Rating: 
Summary: I was such a fool.
Review: I really can't say enough bad things about this book. I looked at the reviews below, decided "something is better than nothing", and bought it anyways. Everyone below is correct -- the book is filled with typos, stupid questions, and questions that resembled the actual test only in that they were multiple choice. The first test in the book is sort-of-okay, the other three are dreck. Don't buy this book. Sorry, Amazon.
Rating:
Summary: Lets be fair, it does what it is supposed to do.
Review: If you are thinking about taking the GRE Computer Science test, buying a review book is probably a good idea. However, do not, under any circumstances, buy this one. If you cannot find a better review book, consider buying the latest Michael Crichton novel, or perhaps a collection of The Far Side comics, because either of them would be more useful for test preparation than this book. I bought this book in preparation for taking my GRE subject test, and was incredibly discouraged after taking some of the sample tests contained within. Most of the questions I was unable to answer, and the answers given in the book often left me scratching my head and wondering what the writers were talking about. I was about to actually cancel my appointment to take the test, when I decided to give the official sample test sent to me by ETS a try. On that test, I was able to score in the 91st percentile. I haven't taken my official test yet (it is tomorrow morning), but, assuming that the real test is not drastically different from the official sample (a real test from 1996), the questions in this book bear no resemblance to any of the questions on the real test.
Rating: 
Summary: Why two stars?
Review: In 1998, I wrote a successful review panning Rudman's GRE/CS book. It was successful in the sense that only one other review has appeared (and that took a year), which I interpret as the public definitely taking my advice to heart and not buying the book. From this point of view, most of the totally negative reviews--and all have been--of the current (REA) book were unsuccessful. Therefore, I purchased the book last fall with a mind to write a successful, terminal review, if it warranted it as richly as so many folks had said. A short time after it arrived, and before I had looked at it, I was approached by an REA editor about lending a hand to make a better book. Having toyed with the idea of writing my own and dismissing it, I was of two minds: 1) scuttle the scow! or 2) make a sinking barge seaworthy! I decided to postpone the decision till two things happened, the second being this review. The first was to take the April 2000 GRE/CS. My intent was to study hard but not long. In fact, I had no time to review core CS material, which I have not taught since I last took the exam in 1990, being happy on the periphery of logic, AI, CG, SE. And as time bore on, I did not crack the ETS books and only consulted Brookshear (among all texts) on a single topic. I quickly ran through all four REA tests untimed, making notes on questions with bad content, alternatives, answers. So I took the GRE/CS with REA as the only immediate support--unplanned, but what if I did well? Then I could write a review that argued against the valuelessness of the book. While my score was not that high, unlike 1990, I still did better than three-quarters of the takers. So what to make of it? No single study guide will replace good grades in hard, thorough core courses plus fresh review of that material (and if you want top scores, learn to think like a mathematician). But practice tests are a useful tool. As it stands, the REA book is the one with most of the right formula: exams plus explanations of answers. Previous reviews are not wrong, and I do not think you should ignore them: as it stands, the book is error-ridden, off-target, misleading, incomplete, and outdated. Many things need to be fixed. But I do believe it is not useless even now, and I've made up my mind to do what I can to make it truly useful.
Rating:
Summary: f(n) = n is a constant funciton
Review: Just so no one studying for the test gets confused, f(n) = n is in fact a constant funciton. In this context constant means that its execution time does not vary based on the imput. Compare this to a bubble short algorithm where the excecution time would vary accourding to the square of the number of items. So 10 item would take 100c time units to sort, 1000 items would take 1 million!
Rating:
Summary: f(n) = n is a constant funciton
Review: Just so no one studying for the test gets confused, f(n) = n is in fact a constant funciton. In this context constant means that its execution time does not vary based on the imput. Compare this to a bubble short algorithm where the excecution time would vary accourding to the square of the number of items. So 10 item would take 100c time units to sort, 1000 items would take 1 million!
Rating:
Summary: Can there really be no alternative?
Review: OK, this book is terrible, like everyone said. I didn't buy it: I got it free from a colleague at work. I used it for the sole purpose of practicing answering CS-type questions quickly and filling in the bubbles. Here are a few of my pet peeves: 1) The book assumes an expert-level knowledge of PASCAL and no knowledge of C. The sample test from ETS requred only basic C and PASCAL. Since I didn't know PASCAL at all (who does these days?) until I studied for the GRE, I really hope that the ETS test is closer to the real thing. 2) Questions that are far more difficult (both in terms of knowledge required and time required to answer) than anything in the ETS sample GRE. There are questions where the "explanation" is more than 2 pages long. 3) Errors. To take one example I just met, they think that f(n) = n is a constant function. 4) Ambiguity/unstated assumptions in question. To sum up, yes, this book [bites]. Don't pay any money for it. And come on -- will someone out there write a decent GRE CS review book??
Rating:
Summary: This is not even a book... it's terrible
Review: The professors and editors who collaborated to put this piece of worthless compilations of tests together get a big fat F from me! The so called "detailed" explanations are esoteric and vague. What makes for a good Computer Science GRE test prep book would be one that goes over the various topics and tries to cover the fundamental to intermediate concepts. This book does nothing of that nature as it simply lists four mock tests w/ brief descriptions to each question at the end of the test section. It seems like a few people got together one weekend and lumped together 300 or so questions from their lecture notes and then divided it by four tests to make a book. Completely useless book!
Rating:
Summary: Wo is me for not looking at the reviews!!!
Review: This book is absolutely horrible. Like the other 11 reviewers have noted, this book is loaded with typos and contains information that's just plain wrong. Save yourself the cash and the potential nightmare associated with the purchasing of this book by spending your time and money on something else.
Rating:
Summary: barely useful, not worth any money
Review: This book is one of the very few preparations books for the Comp. Sci. GRE, but that does NOT make it useful. I bought it out of desperation for anything, but it bore no resemblence to the actual exam, was filled with errors, and the descriptions of the answers are incomprehensible. If you want a preparation book, just do the practice test ETS sends you and talk to your prof about the ones you didn't know. That will help you much more than this book, and will give you a solid preparation.
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