New SAT prep black book, Thoughts?

DeepThinking
Sat, 26 Aug 2017 01:08:33 +0000

Yes, it is COMPLETELY worth it IF you’re willing to take the time to read through it. It’s long – 629 pages - but about 400 pages of it is what the author (Mike Barrett) calls “walkthroughs,” where he goes through each question on the first four released SAT tests. So, if you ignore these answer explanations, it’s really just a bit over 200 pages (granted, in a small font). You won’t want to skip completely the answer explanations, of course, but you don’t have to read all of them.

I have been in the test prep business for twenty years and have read Barrett’s previous books for both the (old) SAT and the ACT, and they have altered not only the way I think about the tests but also my work with students. Even this revised version reminds me of aspects of the test design that I’ve forgotten, at least consciously, and I do this test prep stuff virtually every day!

That said, however, I don’t think the book is for everyone. Many students probably won’t have the commitment; others won’t take the time to work through it. Still others won’t buy into the way the author reframes the test. Teenagers are busy and have plenty of other priorities, and conventional test prep philosophy (misinformation?) is so pervasive and entrenched.