[not urgent, but interesting] This is a critical question about Greg's recommendation. [CR mode on]

GRE General
1

Hello Greg and everyone!

I have been thinking about this for months or even years, but finally decided to ask you, Greg. I have been following only your recommendation since the beginning of my GRE journey because it works. Therefore, the purpose of this post is to question the points that might be crucial to be considered. If this question has been answered before, please kindly share the title post/link. The questions are related to the (third-party) materials.

  1. Why do you allow/recommend us to read the third-party news material (The Economist, etc.), but recommend avoiding test-prep companies material (Kaplan, Magoosh, etc.). In the context of reading passages (not the questions), isn’t a test-prep company logically more relevant than a media company?

  2. You always recommend focusing on the ETS material. Why do you still recommend Manhattan 5lb for quant practice (not Kaplan, etc.), some materials are irrelevant because of the question format/difficulty. If I am not mistaken, Manhattan and Kaplan are owned by the same company, and based on what I notice, they segment their materials (difficulty) so it does not overlap. We can notice that Kaplan is easier than Manhattan IMO. Please CMIIW.

  3. Related to question 1 and 2, the former ETS question makers can be hired by those testing companies because test-prep companies have more money than ETS (based on market cap), isn’t it possible that your recommendation might not be relevant at one point of time? Have you tried to disprove your recommendation by researching the big-name test-prep companies recently? I am just wondering. I have not researched myself.

Thank you so much, Greg and everyone.
I hope this post can be an issue/argument essay LOL

2

America is Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. So, we are free to choose the 3rd party reading material that works for us and Brave to recommend preferred 3rd party material for all (and ask them to stay away from others, due to time concern). By the way, everybody is also Free to follow their will, can be brave to test them out in the real GRE, to see the results for themselves!

3

GRE themselves recommends those sources in general . The things is if you read from high level sources for enough time then you starts to get a hold of a certain type of vocabulary they use while also becoming familiar with a particular writing style.

For more info https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/verbal_reasoning/reading_comprehension/gre_level_reading_materials

He basically recommends it so that you can check/ get familiarized with the math concepts that are tested in GRE. Also, its cheap (You can get a used copy for around $11 or a new one for $20)

If you go join the big level companies prep course they themselves will recommend you get a hold of official material in addition to the course material they provide and I bet if you ask any professional GRE tutor they will tell you to do the official material foremost. On top of that you’ll spent a lot of money for their prep courses for a test in which you might or might not end up with the score you desire. If its the former scenario then I think its worth it but if its not then there goes a hefty amount of money from your pocket (some gre prep courses starts at $1400) .

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