The Official SAT Study Guide: For the New SAT by The College Board
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Book Reviews of The Official SAT Study Guide: For the New SAT
Book Review: You Need This Book
Summary: 5 Stars
Everyone wanting to get into a top college needs this book. The practice tests are THE most like the actual test. If you are an average or above average student, this book may be enough to prepare you for the SAT. You will definitely find out your weaknesses and then can decide if you need additional help.
I am a Mom and have helped two daughters study for the SAT. We tried all the books: Grubers, Princeton, Barrons, McGraw-Hill, Kaplan. These books provide very good explanations and give lots of material to review, but their practice tests are not actual, old SAT tests. You need the Official SAT Study Guide and you need to give yourself enough time to do all the tests and to review all the answers you get wrong. A teacher or fellow student might be able to explain the answer because this book does an AWFUL job of explaining the answers. Most of the time there are no explanations. Nevertheless these practice tests are most like the real SAT.
If you need additional help (and we did), your local school may know of someone who gives SAT review classes. Of the other review books out there we liked the KAPLAN books best. They had excellent explanations. Please make reviewing for the SAT a priority the summer of your sophomore or junior year. Treat it like a summer school class.
If you still are not getting above a 600 on each section (above 600 is what most top colleges want to see) then focus only on your weakest section and ignore the rest. After taking the official test, identify your weakest section again and study only that and take the test again. (My daughters each took the test four times!)
The top colleges want to see scores above 600 (if possible), community service, decent GPA, challenging high school coursework, and something in your essay that suggests you are a person who will contribute to the school environment or classroom discussions.
I do not like the SAT. I think many of the questions are unfair and depend upon your experiences and NOT your abilities. But what can we do----it's required. Best wishes on your studies. I still have one more child to train for the SAT!
Book Review: Excellent for SAT/PSAT review
Summary: 5 Stars
The SAT examination is a test of a different character; it purports not to test a given set of skills pertaining to a specific subject, rather it claims to measure one's "readiness" for college-level work. In many aspects, this is true: learning a bunch of facts will not increase your score drastically. However, the key to success on the SAT is the knowledge of a few basic facts and a plethora of practice. This book will provide both.
The Critical Reading review section of this book is necessarily devoid of much factual review (other than your basic test taking strategies), but contains much practice. And, if you think about it, how else can you study for a reading test than by practicing?
The mathematics review section is extremely good. It has sections for arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and miscellaneous topics. Every item that can be tested makes an appearance in this book. In addition, there are plenty of problems at the end of each section review, as well as a final math practice set. Reading this section will remedy any basic math weakness.
The writing section of this book is also extremely good; It has numerous drills and real practice questions to help solidify the writing rules given. If you master the writing review section of this book, you're, in essence, guaranteed to score a 700+ on the writing section of the real exam.
Finally, the real meat-and-potatoes of this book is the set of 8 practice tests that is included. Doing all of these tests under timed conditions will dramatically raise your score as you will learn the test better as well as solidify your knowledge of the topics by putting them to use.
Do note that those of you preparing for the PSAT should also grab a copy of this book. Not only will you be prepared for the PSAT, but you'll also become prepared for the SAT. One of my students and I dramatically raised our PSAT scores with this book -- you can too.
EDIT: I just got my December 2007 scores and I scored a 2340! It's all thanks to this book :)
Book Review: A must-have tool for a successful SAT
Summary: 5 Stars
The Official Study Guide offers the most up-to-date material that can be found on the real SAT. The questions are realistic, and the 8 practice tests are all clevery crafted and resemble the actual reasoning test so much that i found myself wondering whether they were practice or actual tests!!! The scoring guidelines are easy and clear to follow, and unlike other SAT preparation books, they are correct and reflect the real scoring methods; in other words you will find that your actual scores are not so much different from your practice scores with the Study Guide! Before i took my SATs i purchased more than 8 books from various publishers, such as Kaplan, and The Princeton Review, but none of them matched the quality nor the level of the material presented in this blue book...I discovered that most of the other books were rushed, had spelling mistakes, and errors in the answer keys, which combined with the faulty score ranges, provided for an unrealistic and sometimes even impossible scores! The Sat Study Guide is also valuable with the fact that it combines bulletproof tested strategies, and working methods for tackling the different sections of the test! It provides real sample questions and short practice sections, as well as actual essays for refference. When i say real and working, i mean that the methods suggested by the Study Guide are efficient, clever, and yet they leave enough room for each section to be dealt with within the timed requirements (for example - one of the other books i purchased suggested that a full 10minutes whould be spent planning the essay, with additional 2 minutes at the end for proofreading, leaving only 13 minutes to write "the perfect" essay, which is unrealistic and frankly quite impossible!!!) This book is a treasure for any serious SAT test-taker! It helped me achieve scores in the 94th percentile, with one of my sections being in the 99th! It is a must-have for every High School Junior, and thus i rate it with 5 stars, and reccommend it without reservations!Book Review: The best out there!
Summary: 5 Stars
First of all I'm a Puerto Rican, so when I decided I wanted to study on the United States, I was completely lost about the admission process. Soon I knew I had to take the SAT, prepared by the College Board. At first I was really scared about the idea of having to take a test completely on English, made for people who use english as their primary language, and having to actually write an essay for them to evaluate me equally to all of the native-english speakers.
But well, soon I was registering for the SAT and 3 SAT II subject tests and start looking for preparation material. I found out about The OFficial SAT Study Guide through this same website, and bought it. Now, almost two months after that, I don't regret my decision. I have been using the whole book and it simply gave me the strenght and confidence to take the test. It covers every single aspect about the NEW SAT including the three parts. Critical Reading (Previously known as the verbal section but now without analogies), the Writing section (Including how to write an essay and how they will evaluate it) and the Math section (without cuantitative comparision and more high school math).
This test covers everythings. It explains how will be the whole process of evaluating the test, the essay, how to prepare for each part and also EIGHT complete practice tests that will give you a very accurate idea of how you will do on the actual test. Also you may access online the exclusive area for the book owners on the college board web site. There you may enter the answers to the tests and it will automatically correct your results and give you the score range you'll be in.
My advice, buy this book, no other book will give you a so accurate idea of the actual test. Good luck to everyone!
Book Review: The best guide to practice SAT tests, but not on how to crack the SAT
Summary: 5 Stars
This guide is essential for a simple reason. It is the only one that provides authentic SAT questions. When preparing for the SAT, it is critical that you practice with test samples using true SAT questions. All the other companies (Barron's, Kaplan, Princeton Review, etc...) provide imitations of such questions. Some are criticized for being too hard, or too easy. Don't waste your time and use the real stuff, this College Board guide.
Also, this guide gives you access to excellent online resources at the College Board website. These include more online SAT test samples. The most intriguing resource is the one that gives you an automated score of your essay. So, you can test what works or not for this new essay portion.
However, you can't trust the test makers to give insightful strategies about how to handle their own test. That would be like a conflict of interest. Use this book strictly to practice the test and have access to the online tools and nothing else. For strategies, you'll have to look elsewhere. Some of the best sources are from books available in pdf files on sale on the web by companies founded by students who have been extremely successful SAT test takers. One of these companies is Lazy Student's Way. If you want to spend less money, use the Kaplan SAT guide. It is much richer and better in terms of providing strategies than this College Board guide. Either way, you will be well armed to ace the SAT.