<p>Personally I dont like Grammatix.
I bought it like 1 month back even before Godot’s review .I didnt ask for a refund because I read it and its not 100 % bad so I thought it’s not fair to get a refund but 50 $ is way to much for such a book. Barron can beat anytime Grammatix and it’s 30 $.
What I dont like the most about Grammatix is that it gives so less examples of his strategies. For example, only 8 exercises in sentence completion??? Take a book at Barron it has 100 !!!
I really have the feeling it was written in haste …Maybe if he would have given like 50 exercises of sentence completion we would really see how well his strategies are working…
All those patterns he talks about so much u can realize (feel) them yourself after u do some prep. Well that’s my opinion.
The best advice he gives is to use only CB material but after you finish all that and you dont get the score you want I would add Barron!!
The worst advice is NOT to study words. I agree with Godot :"It seems that Mike tries so hard to be non-intuitive and different from all the other books out there that SOMETIMES his advice is, at best, questionable and, at worst, just plain wrong. ".Mike wants to give a short way of beating the SAT but there is no such thing .In my opinion you need to STUDY which includes reading, studying words, doing tons of exercises.
I feel this book is for average people who want to score a bit higher. I feel its not for people who want to score above 1400.
Well this is my opinion as a student (NOT a professional in SAT books) who bought the book and got kind of disappointed.
Hope this helps in deciding weather you want to buy the book or not. At the time when I bought it there were no bad reviews on Grammatix. That is actually what made me decide to buy it.
I am not saying dont buy it because its up to you but I just wanted to share my opinion .Maybe it works for others, maybe it will work for you, but for sure it didnt for me…</p>
<p>Well, I like Grammatix. It IS lacking in some areas, but you can easily make up for that by using other prep books. The 50 dollars is a bit expensive, but you can always return it if you don’t feel like it was worth it.</p>
<p>Kilini,
You can’t ALWAYS return it, just within 48 hours from the time you bought it.</p>
<p>The whole reason Grammatix refrains from giving huge amounts of practice examples is the “use the official questions philosophy”. The guide even explains that it doesn’t want to use up all the questions by showing you how to use the strategies.</p>
<p>Grammatix is only effective I found for people scoring below a 700. If you are scoring pretty high already, most of the advice seem rather obvious and inherent already, they just help to reinforce it</p>
<p>Even Kaplan is better than Barrons. Studying vocabulary words wont ensure you a better grade. its a total waste of time and it is not useful in the SAt anyways. Do you ever see top scorers memorizing SAT words before the SAT?</p>
<p>And remember, if you have problems on the practice tests, then you can email Mike for the answer and explanation anytime.</p>
<p>Barrons practice tests are nothing like the the actual thing, and so it is very misleading and can result in a lower score.</p>
<p>Agrophobic said: “Grammatix is only effective I found for people scoring below a 700. If you are scoring pretty high already, most of the advice seem rather obvious and inherent already, they just help to reinforce it”</p>
<p>I think that’s pretty much true, although I did learn about “parallelism” as being a common error in the Writing section which I didn’t know before :)</p>
<p>It basically is a guide to teach you how to be a good test-taker. If you’re already a good test-taker, it might not help you. </p>
<p>What you may begin to realize is that people scoring 700+ are within the top 5 percent, and consequently there are not many books written for us. Who would bother writing one? Nobody would buy it. </p>
<p>I haven’t ever actually completed an SAT guide. In fact, an hour is the longest amount of time I’ve ever spent reading one (except for the collegeboard’s blue book). I guess i’m not too qualified to talk about the effectiveness of any book since I’ve never stuck with one.</p>
<p>Oh well</p>
<p>primitivefuture is right though when he says mike is dedicated and cares about making people score better…</p>
<p>Too bad he is not dedicated in selling his book cheaper also …like 20 $ ?</p>
<p>haha, if you didnt know this already, better quality stuff comes with a higher price.</p>
<p>:] Isn’t Grammatix the guy who told that he could raise up the score and figured out how to help students ace the SAT stuff? --; I was thinking buying it, but then I was like why not sell it in Barnes and Nobles. I mean if his stuff works why isn’t he selling in the book stores or something. :] Kaplan is my hero. xP</p>
<p>yah primitivefuture …just to make you think it’s better quality</p>
<p>LOL. I think we should make our own SAT book or Walmart should make their own SAT book. :] It’s cheaper that way.</p>
<p>thumbs up SNEAKiiE :)</p>
<p>:] Elisa we should call it “We can kick your butt, SAT! Woot!” We will win a lot of awards! xD</p>
<p>All prep is only effective for the most part untill the 700 range, after that I think you have to work a hella lot harder to get from 700-800 then you do from 200-700.
The price Grammatix is so much is suply and demand. Read through all of Mike’s posts before you flaunt that it is so expensive If you think about it, a law student writes his own book and has to goto a 3rd party publisher will ammount to a more expensive book. Kaplan and Barrons have the benefit of publishing their own material with out outsourcing it. Moreover, Mike raised the price of the book due to high demand for it.</p>
<p>im thinking about and in the process of making an SAT prep book.</p>
<p>Sweet SATaddict. :] Hope you sell it in Barnes and Nobles.</p>
<p>Well SATaddict, SNEAKiiE already found a good name …strike a deal with her LOL ;)</p>
<p>:] Hehehe props to me! xP Hey Elisa what’s your IM? LOL You seem to be very funny person to talk to. xD IM me sometimes.</p>