Barron's SAT Writing Workbook

YZamyatin
Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:13:30 +0000

It doesn’t matter that the questions are harder, only that they accurately reflect what is tested on the exam. I went through a Gruber’s review book (it was an SAT book, not a specific writing workbook) last year and the Writing section was very inaccurate in reflecting questions found on the SAT exam. They tested concepts in ways that the CB doesn’t test and in some cases concepts that aren’t even tested on the SAT. From what I hear Barron’s is not much better.

The SAT tests a very limited set of grammar rules and they test them in very consistent ways. My experience with the big test prep publishers is that they don’t put much effort into identifying and replicating exactly what the College Board is testing or how they test it.

Maybe you need a workbook like this to teach you the very basics (what is a comma splice, dangling modifier, etc), but dedicate most of your prep time to answering actual College Board questions if you want to maximize your score.