Cracking the SAT, 2007 Edition (College Test Prep)

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Customer Reviews:

author does not know grammar [Posted on 2007-01-14]
My 16-year-old son ordered this book. I took a quick look at it today and found two mistakes on the first page I checked, page 295, question 3. The author insists that "none" always requires a plural verb, but all the best usage manuals (Fowler, Follett, Garner, even the OED) say that it may be singular or plural, with plural being more common. The sense is clearly plural, not singular in question 3 ("none of the fish are native"). Also, in question 4, who in the world would ever use "you and me" instead of "us"? Why is someone who is tone-deaf to his own language trying to teach it to students? I want my money back.

Joe Blog approach [Posted on 2007-01-15]
Princeton Review challenges the ETS (the test's creator) party line on prepping and coaching. By studying patterns in the ETS answer choices and question sequences, Princeton Review came up with what it calls the Joe Blog approach. At its core, Joe Blog says that on easy questions, go for the obvious answer that Joe Blog (a hypothetical Joe-Average) would guess; on the hard ones, avoid the "obvious answers, because they are "tricks" to fool Joe Blog. Even for top scorers, the Joe Blog techniques could add points by increasing the odds of successfully making educated guesses on the toughest questions. Moreover, the Princeton Review writers do provide excellent practice beyond the Joe Blog approach. They seem to have studied the content of the test better than most authors. If there is one flaw, it is that the explanations to the practice questions need a lot of work.

While not perfectfor everyone, this book is still an important and helpful resource. I do recommend this book overall.

Math questions are NOT representative [Posted on 2007-01-18]
I am an SAT tutor and instructor (with my own company) with over 9 years' experience, and I used this book recently in a 3-session SAT refresher course that took place just before the October 2006 SAT. The students improved overall in the Critical Reading section, but they actually DROPPED in their Math scores on average (the students had fairly high Math scores at the start). I had used Math questions exclusively from this book as review, and I will never make the same mistake again. The book, and Princeton Review in general, does not have a good grasp of the style and "flavor" of actual SAT Math questions. An experienced SAT tutor who has worked with the official and real SAT questions should be able to detect small, but important, differences in the Cracking the SAT Math questions as compared to official SAT questions. For one thing, the last few questions on a section are not tough enough, and they are a bit off in the style and emphasis on "question types." The Math coverage and questions are probably good enough for a student scoring below 550 on the Math section, but I would hesitate to recommend them to any students scoring 550 or higher on Math. On the other hand, the Critical Reading and Writing sections are probably strong enough for students of almost all levels. As for the claim from one reviewer that the practice tests in this book are "extremely accurate" and preferable to those in the Official SAT Study Guide, I would have to STRONGLY disagree with that assertion. I've already stated that the Math questions are not representative, but readers should know that the Critical Reading questions, while fairly representative, contain some blatant (and sometimes subtle) errors in the answer choices and stated correct answers. For good practice alone, stick with the Official SAT Study Guide and the College Board Official SAT Online Course.

passing the sat test [Posted on 2007-06-08]
MY GRANDSON WAS HAVING TROUBLE WITH THE TEST AND THE BOOK REALLY HELPED HIM PASS THE TEST.

Joe Bloggs who? [Posted on 2007-07-23]
To begin with, the Joe Bloggs approach designed for the retarded is a major flaw in this book. Almost every explanation encountered dealt with this average-student on the SAT who almost always misses the hard questions, thinks like an idiot and scores less than the average on the actual test. Bla bla bla approach which paradoxically (!?) occupies half of this book.
The book is filled with all kinds of paranormal approaches, irrelevant references ( the one where you are told to compare the reading section with the tale of a thief who robs banks???)
On the other side, there are some things to consider : three almost realistic tests with an experimental section, some hard math questions well worth passing through ( though I noted some errors in giving the right answer...)and excellent reading passages.
Yet I cannot help not being haunted by that famous Joe Bloggs whenever I open this book so...Try the College Board book instead.

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