Customer Reviews

Cracking the ACT, 2008 Edition (College Test Preparation)

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I bought this book and was reading through it and thought it was amazing! My first practice test wasn't so great but on my second one I saw a LOT of improvement...I took the ACT this saturday (APRIL 12).

It was terrible.

The practice tests in the book were not that close in comparison with the ACTUAL test. I mean, the very first question of the REAL ACT wasn't even mentioned in the book! The ACTUAL test seemed a LOT harder than the two tests offered in this book.

I have already taken one ACT test and I know it would be REALLY helpful if I could place the score I received after using this book on this review...so the minute I get it, I will update this and tell you how big of a difference this book made in comparison to the last time I took the test. (((it could be a positive or negative one...)))

****edited as of APRIL 23, 2008****
I just checked my score online...I got the EXACT same score as the last time I took the ACT. My Mathematics and English scores shot up extremely high and my Science score stayed the same....my Reading score was terrible. It dropped by 5 points after reading this book. Because of that ONE bad score, I couldn't get the score that I wanted to achieve. I tried the technique that the book talked about--obviously it didn't work.

What it basically says is to look at the questions first, underline all the key terms and then SKIM through the passages and underline those key terms you underlined in the questions. One major problem is that you have to remember about 8+ key terms for each passage and looking through the WHOLE passage for more than 8 terms at ONCE is challenging and it is quite possible that you could miss a few. I ended up just reading the whole passage anyway-looking for those key terms. Obviously my other strategy I used on the previous test worked much better seeing as I got the better score back then.

***referring back to the difficulty of the test: Personally, if a book offers practice tests for the test...I don't want them to be dumbed down version to boost my self-confidence. That's like running for 20 minutes each day to prepare for a 4 hour long run. It doesn't make sense and won't help you achieve the goals you want.

***I think that maybe the best preparation is to take AS MANY practice tests AS POSSIBLE. (Some of the book's techniques were good, but as you can tell, the only sections of this book that ACTUALLY helped me were the English and Mathematics sections)

This is one of the three top books on the market for ACT prep. Reading the reviews of all other books - I recognized this to be true.

You need to pay attention to which edition of study books to buy - So this review is based on the above second edition. Before buying; always check to see if there is a more recent edition.

This edition corrected some errors contained in the previous. And it is up-to-date with the most recent ACT standards.

As to the book itself - My sixteen year old son, Cameron, said that the book was most helpful in containing several practice test. It is laid out well; reads well; and covers the basics well.

This is the book you get for its extra tests and general review qualities.

Also get the "Real ACT" 2nd Edition The Real ACT Prep Guide: The Only Official Prep Guide From The Makers Of The ACT (Real Act Prep Guide). Quality practice and review material. It too has practice tests for getting the feel and finding your weak spots to focus on.

Also get the "ACT for Dummies" from the Dummies Series ACT! by Sage For Dummies ACT! 2007 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)). Get the most recent edition which might be a year or two old. But the test taking pointers are invaluable enough to be slightly future-proofed.

Other than that, these three books will be the perfect kit for anyone prepping for the test.

For Parents - if your teenagers are claiming they looked through the books and it all looked easy - point out that the books are designed to give an overall review of the basics that they have learned over the years. The books are to re-enforce basics and build speed under certain tests conditions.

Most important is taking the practice test under timed/controlled conditions. Math doesn't look so easy under pressure to beat the clock.

So right from the start; have your kids put aside four hours to take a test under timed conditions; without looking at any review material.

See what they know, from right off the top-of-their-head. Then you can focus on what to work on first. Retake the tests many times over a couple of months; and progressively watch your kid kick butt more and more with each test.

Good Luck!

Cracking the ACT, 2008 Edition (College Test Prep)

The sample tests do not mirror the actual ACT. Unpleasant surprize at April 12th exam.

I got this book for my boyfriend to help him prepare for the ACT, along with two more books including the official preparation guide. I was a bit worried about which one was best, since he hasn't taken college preparatory classes in high school and therefore would be harder for him to familiarize with subjects he was never taught. He soon told me, though, that this was the only book he needed. It explains everything in detail other than just giving tips, it is fun to read and also makes him feel confident about his scores; an excellent prep guide.

Although this book does a decent job teaching you strategies for all of the sections on the ACT, when you go to take the practice tests in the back, there's many typos. On the english section for example, they underline the wrong portions of the text, so you wind up wasting more time trying to figure out where the book wants you to refer to than actually taking the test. Overall, for me at least, this book was a disappointment because I was relying on a well-known company to give me decent tests, not drafts of tests in which editing and proofreading are necessary.

I feel like I have been through nearly every ACT prep product sold on Amazon. I have been working to get a 99th percentile ACT score without spending big bucks on private tutoring or a prep class. I figured I should post a review with my feelings about these products to prevent other students from having to do all the shopping around that I did.

I used this book, The Real ACT Prep Guide: The Only Official Prep Guide From The Makers Of The ACT,Boost Your Score! The Unofficial Software Guide to the Real ACT,The ACT For Dummies, a Kaplan book, and McGraw-Hill's 10 ACT Practice Tests, Second Edition (McGraw-Hill's 10 Practice Acts) I took the test in June and September and I have been studying since last December.

Here is how I felt about this book. Overall, I thought the strategies were great. This book focuses a lot on sneaky strategies, such as how to eliminate wrong answer choices even if you don't know how to solve a problem. For example, they teach you how to eliminate answers to the reading passages that are just too friendly or a little too extreme. They also teach you a lot of good strategies for the math section, like how to eyeball diagrams and work backwards from the answer choices.

However, I would have liked to see more practice material. I also found that the practice tests seemed MUCH easier than the actual ACT tests. After skimming other buyers' reviews, I see that many others agree with me on this point. I think that anyone preparing for the ACT can't just use this book and be fully prepared. I felt most confident using this book for the strategies, but also focusing on the materials out there that use official ACTs. Aside from this book, the products I found most helpful were the The Real ACT Prep Guide: The Only Official Prep Guide From The Makers Of The ACT and Boost Your Score! The Unofficial Software Guide to the Real ACT since those are products that use official ACTs. After learning the strategies in this book, taking the real ACTs in the Prep Guide, and working through the resources in the Boost Your Score software, I got a 34 on the September test.

When i got this book i thought it was going to help me a lot when i took the ACT in april, it didn't. when i actually took the test that april morning many of the question were VERY different from the ones given in the "practice tests" in the book. The ironic part is that in the beginning of this book the author says (I'm paraphrasing here) "You can trust us, our "practice tests" are heavily based on the real thing unlike other review books" Looks like they should have taken their own advice

I would highly suggest other review books.
The Real ACT Prep Guide: The Only Official Prep Guide From The Makers Of The ACT (Real Act Prep Guide) Is a great book for practice tests, but the review material is few and far between, and it just got updated in 2008
Kaplan ACT 2008 Comprehensive Program (Kaplan Act) or Kaplan ACT 2008 Premier Program (w/ CD-ROM) (Kaplan Act (Book & CD-Rom)) This is a great book for review and their practice tests are quite good(compared to the "practice tests" in this book anything that actually resembles the real thing is at least half decent)

i've tried both of these alternatives and i did really well on the June ACT (not to brag but i got a 28 composite score which is 93 percentile :) )

During the spring of my junior year in high school I took the SAT for the first time. My scores were a disaster... R-510 M-510 W-540!!! OMIGOD HOW THE F*** were these going to get me into NYU, my dream school. Over the summer I decided to study for the ACT which I heard was easier. I bought the princeton review book and the real act study guide and read it each book cover to cover. A friend suggested that i buy the sat math level 1 and 2 subjects test book as well to review my math. After a summer of constant study i took the test again and got E-28,M-32,R:29,S-30, and an Essay score of 10. for a composite score of 30! 4 months later i got into NYU early decision!!!

my suggestion to you: students who are struggling with sat/act tests

1. DONT GIVE UP!!!
2. buy the math subjects test prep book and use it to review your math. you can skip things you know wont be on the act/sat like logs, vectors, limits
3. for reading: look at the q's first and get a sense of what they want. then when you read you can underline where you think an answer might be
4. for english: REVIEW YOUR GRAMMER!
5. for science: practice looking at charts and graphs and do a lot of practice questions. the act website has links to questions you can try for free.

GOOD LUCK... may all your dreams come true

As a person who teaches two AP Physics classes and uses these books I gave my son this book to prepare for his ACT. The practice tests he had no trouble with and scored 34 composite. On the actual test the questions on the math sections were wildly harder (and contained errors) and the English tests were wildly different in type and format.

The troubles he had are coming from a person who already has 5s on the Calculus exams and 800 SAT so I don't think he was unprepared. The errors on the math test and in the book slowed him down some, but the Enblish test being totally unlike what was in the prep book made him just mad.

I bought the 2009 edition. Just did the first practice exam. There are so many errors in the questions and answers, especially the answers and the science section. I can NOT believe it. Never used a book has so many errors! Haven't read the context yet. But already disappointed enough!!