Foreign Real Estate

I got this book because of all the great reviews, but what I’ve found is an inordinate amount of errors that are very hard to overlook. There are so many typos, misprints, and grammatical errors in this book that I always wonder if what I’m reading is actually correct. There are also vague terms, poor word choices and very poorly structured sentences.

The amount of errors found in this book is completely unprofessional in a text where details and precise meaning is of the utmost importance. A slight misprint can make a sentence mean something completely different or even the opposite of what it’s supposed to mean. Even a single letter can make a difference in the meaning of a word (such as the difference between ‘owed’ and ‘owned’) and I’ve found myself questioning things like this a lot.

Even more frustrating are the mistakes in the tests. For example, the book clearly tells you to automatically eliminate any test answers that contain grammatical errors or misspellings, but more than once now, those with errors have been the correct answers. Some of the questions are very poorly written and I have found a couple of math problems that are worded completely incorrectly. Moreover, there are questions with figures such as $1,50 or answers such as d. a (…yeah, you figure it out.) There is also at least one wrong answer given as the right answer (ie, book says right answer is C, but explanation of answer belongs to B.) When every answer counts toward your test score and you’re trying to bring your score up as high as possible, it is completely unacceptable to encounter this many errors.

There are far too many typos, misprints, grammatical errors, and test blunders to point out or explain in this review, but it makes me wonder what else is wrong, what else is missing, what else has been left out or misprinted or explained in the wrong way. I would prefer to be 100% confident that I am getting, and being tested on, the correct information without having to second guess it the whole time. They really need to go back through this entire book with a fine tooth comb and edit, edit, edit!

Update: Because it says that the DRE may use this book as a source for test questions, I really tried to work through it, but eventually I gave up. I wish I had given up earlier and not wasted so much time on it. Maybe the underlying text is useful, but I just couldn’t get past the errors. I expect more from a text like this. I used other books and successfully passed my test.
Rating: 2 / 5

I am still studying for my upcoming test and so far I feel this book has helped greatly. Some of the practice questions are repetitive, but for the most part are challenging. The chapters are brief, but detailed and to the point.
Rating: 4 / 5