the pros and cons of different test prep books

flattie9
Tue, 18 Jul 2006 11:06:07 +0000

There are so many SAT prep books avaliable, and they all seem to say about the same thing: “this book will raise your score”. They aren’t all that similar though. Why don’t we post here what we think of the books we’ve used, to get a better idea of what they are like and what people think of them?

Here are the ones I’ve used so far:

“Fiske New SAT Insider’s Guide”
pros:

gives many different strategies to choose from

many excersises with good explanations for the answers

consise!

fairly neutral towards the test (no “the SAT is evil!” or “the SAT rocks!”)

advice from students who have taken the test

good, easy to navigate layout

cons:

too much emphasis on that test prep courses don’t work

no full-lenght practice tests

the math section was slightly confusing (could be that I’m just bad at math…)

Princeton Review’s “Cracking the NEW SAT, 2006”
pros:

3 full-lenght practice tests with detailed answers

cons:

very negative towards the test (ok, the test isn’t that good, but that doens’t mean I want my prep book to try to be my sympathetic little buddy. Anyway, I highly doubt that PR truly wants it taken away since they make so much money off it)

tells you exactly what to do, without taking into consideration that their strategies might not work for everyone.

confusing layout

takes too much time getting to the point

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