<p>Has anyone heard of these? I ordered them because they seem to be the #1 books rated for SAT prep. If anyone has used them, please tell me how they are. Do they seem good?</p>
<p>buuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmpppppppppppppppp</p>
<p>What do you mean by “#1 rated for SAT prep”? If you’re talking about Amazon reviews, I hope you understand that you need to treat those with a bit of skepticism.</p>
<p>My general impression of the Powerscore books is that they (usually) contain good information but that they are pretty badly proofread/edited.</p>
<p>The “Math Bible” is the best of the three, and probably does contain most of what you need to improve on the Math section. The problem is that it also contains a fair many mistakes (no, sorry, I don’t remember what they are, but I definitely remember that they are there), and if you’re not good enough at math yourself to recognize when an answer key/explanation is wrong, you may cause yourself a lot of confusion.</p>
<p>The “Critical Reading Bible” contains a lot of very good insight about the Critical Reading section, but it contains so many typos and so much awkward writing that it ultimately comes across as amateurish. I would say it is still worth having, though.</p>
<p>I have never seen the full "Writing Bible–I was scared away from buying it by the excerpt on Powerscore’s website, which claims that who/whom errors are common on the SAT Writing section. I have all the QAS from March 2005 through January 2013, and none of these contain a who/whom error. If the authors can’t be troubled to actually look at past tests before pronouncing a non-existent error “common,” then I don’t think I’d recommend buying their book. Best not to waste valuable study time on things that aren’t going to be tested.</p>
<p>I agree with jgogs</p>
<p>No, SATvicki, I’m quite sure.</p>
<p>Until recently–I don’t see it now–the “free help” area of the Powerscore website included a free chapter of that book. Entitled something like “Nouns and Pronouns,” that chapter said something very close to the following:</p>
<p>“The pronouns ‘who’ and ‘whom’ are difficult for even the most gifted writers and are therefore common test question errors on the SAT.”</p>
<p>I’m really quite sure.</p>
<p>You may have changed it since then. If so, good for you. But when a free chapter–all I’ve seen from this book–contains such an open demonstration of ignorance, it doesn’t give me any confidence in the rest.</p>
<p>The pdf except from the Powerscore SAT Writing Bible has indeed recently been removed from powerscore’s website, and I cannot find another copy of it anywhere else on the internet. It is also not possible to “search inside the book” on Amazon.</p>
<p>If anyone who has a hard copy of the book can scan the relevant pages, host them online, and then post a link here, the effort would be appreciated.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure SATvicki is the author of the book and knows exactly what I’m talking about, but rather than own up to the problem, has chosen instead to insinuate that there is something wrong with my memory–an easy enough thing to do now that Powerscore has made it impossible to see any of the contents of the book without actually purchasing it. (Note: I am not the first one to have pointed out this who/whom problem in the Writing book.)</p>
<p>To get a taste of what I am talking about, though, you can still see the Powerscore SAT Writing flashcards at the link below. Note that, as I said originally, these materials claim that who/whom errors are “common” on the SAT. In fact, there has never been a single who/whom error on the SAT since the Writing section was introduced in March 2005. Check the QAS, as the people at Powerscore should have done before writing their material.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.powerscore.com/sat/help/content/flashcards/SAT%20Writing%20Bible%20Flash%20Cards.pdf[/url]”>http://www.powerscore.com/sat/help/content/flashcards/SAT%20Writing%20Bible%20Flash%20Cards.pdf</a></p>
<p>jgoggs is right–“who/whom” is not an error type. When they’re underlined, they’re always right. Come on now.</p>
<p>(FWIW I’ve spent a little time looking at Powerscore materials and haven’t found them pernicious. I didn’t find them particularly useful or different from average materials, though. Similar to the rank-and-file prep books making the rounds, imo)</p>