Customer Reviews

Barron's SAT Writing Workbook

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As an SAT and ACT prep tutor, I am always on the lookout for great resources for my students. Back when the SAT did not include a writing section, "Barron's How to Prepare for the SAT II: Writing" was the book I used for students studying for that test. Since the SAT was expanded to include writing in March 2005, the SAT II: Writing test is no longer given and most of the grammar and writing points have been rolled into the new, longer SAT. The out-of-print SAT II:Writing book goes into greater grammatical detail than what the new SAT covers, so it made sense to offer students an up-to-date guide to the Writing section of the new SAT.

Unfortunately, Barron's has dropped the ball in updating a classic text. Compared to the older edition, it is dumbed down, with repetitive drills in easy grammar points, and nothing in the more challenging arena, at all. This is a book, one would think, that should go beyond the grammar chapters in general SAT prep guides by Kaplan and The Princeton Review. My students did not find it added much to their initial studies in those texts, however. As for the essay section, Barron's goes into depth for a long-term project of writing improvement, but offers very little that students studying typically for a couple months in total for this exam can glean and apply themselves. I would recommend the essay section of this book to students who are working to improve their writing over the course of a semester or longer. But the tips are very basic: avoid sloppy repetitive writing, show don't tell, use active rather than passive verbs, etc. Advanced students will find very little that's new and inspiring here. Less accomplished writers might benefit from the tips, but will need a much more comprehensive course in order to actually improve their writing.

Note that about half this book is focused on the essay, while the bulk of the actual SAT Writing test consists of grammar and usage multiple choice. The actual essay only counts for 30% or less of the Writing score, so the emphasis in this book is skewed. The four practice Writing tests are relatively comparable to the real thing. One very annoying misstep the editors made, however, was to place the entire text of each Improving Paragraphs section in italic. The real test does not, and this confuses students, especially since the CollegeBoard does use italic in some types of questions following the reading passages. The most egregious problem with Barron's choice of typeface is that it is very hard to read and focus on an entire paragraph set in italic!

For students looking for intensive grammar review for the SAT, I would recommend the older edition for the SAT II: Writing.

Karen Berlin Ishii
Premier Tutoring and Test Prep
karenberlinishii.com

My son went from a 620 to a 740 on the writing part of his SAT after using this book. What else needs to be said?

For my older son, we let him use Collegeboard SAT books which were given by our friends. Only the practice tests were useful. The text portions were not very useful. We bought a Barron's for Math and he improved really well.

So, for out 2nd son, we bought several Barro's SAT books. They are very well organized and explained. My son has improved his grammar a lot just by using it for a couple of weeks.

This book is phenomenal! The detailed grammar section is painstakingly thorough and includes lots of examples and practice questions. After studying the grammar like nobody's business, i noticed i was getting almost all the multiple choice right on my practice tests. The multiple choice became effortless! If i managed my time better i probably could have got at least a 45/49.

If you want to get a high Writing Skills Score, this book is for you.

This book was for my brother who has been scoring in the low 600s in the SAT writing portion. Although this book does have the different rules that you need to basically memorize, it doesn't do a great of a job as explaining them. Due to this I needed to get him another "rule" book that described the grammar rules in detail and used this book for problem sets.

Once the student knows the rules, they need practice doing them in the same format and time limit as the SATs. This book is good for this reason.